Larissa Hugentobler

After receiving my master's degree in English language and literature from the University of Zurich, I pursued a PhD in communications and media science. But my core interest remains the same: How do individuals create meaning in their lives, particularly when the reflections around them seem to want to make them believe that they do not belong?

     For my master's thesis, I wrote about the issue of coping with placelessness in novels set in New York City after the Harlem Renaissance. Remaining within the urban context and a focus on individual identity as part of a larger, national, identity, for my PhD thesis, I now focus on memorials to Dr. Martin Luther King in Washington, D.C. and want to know what they mean to individuals and how visitors interact with the sites.

     Therefore, this project goes a step further: It is not only about how individuals feel about memorials -- as a visible representation in public space -- and how these structures may or may not help in identity construction, but it is also about how individuals interact with and use the physical memorials. I particularly focus on online engagement with the physical site. My interest in this topic is therefore twofold:

     I want to find out how individuals engage with public memory to Dr. King -- a rare member of a marginalized community who is getting his due -- in order to be able to better assess what the role of different media in the creation and communication of public memory are in our digital age. Ideally, this can serve as the ground-work to make public memory more inclusive and diverse and therefore reflective of actual contributions. 

     Second, I am interested in visitor interactions with physical cultural sites and particularly how they see the role of their mobile devices and (additional) digital content. This project thus makes a contribution to understanding behavioral patterns of tourists and, particularly, visitors of cultural sites, in order to provide insights needed for making these sites more successful by providing visitors with a positive and educative experience.

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