Browse Exhibits (1 total)

This exhibit portrays a series of gravestones found in the Winston-Salem Moravian Cemetery. Each tombstone tells its own specific story through the inscriptions (or lack thereof) upon the physical marker, as well as a larger more general story through their place in the exhibit. 

"An Absence of Words" serves as a collection of tombstones without a detailed inscription. This can be seen as everyday writing because the lack of an inscription can often tell us more about the life of a person than the most elaborate of statements ever could. 

"Professions and Life Stories" is a collection of tombstones with inscriptions which tells us a great deal about the life and work of the person deceased. While we may never truly know the person buried at the site, the inscriptions can help us know at least a small portion of who these people once were. We can see this as everyday writing because we can understand these inscriptions as messages from the loved ones of the deceased. Since the inscriptions were meant to be read by family, friends, and any other on-lookers in an informal, unacademic context, they can be categorized as intentional pieces of everyday writing.  

"Subjective Inscriptions" contains those tombstones which are subjective by nature. The inscriptions are mostly broad and general, leaving many details about the lives of the deceased to the imagination. These tombstones can be considered everyday writing because each person will derive meaning from these inscriptions in a different way - there is no right or wrong answer. The words and inscriptions force an audience to come up with their own story surrounding the tombstone, which creates individual meaning for each onlooker. Since these words create meaning, we can understand them to be everyday writing. 

"Common Phrases Repurposed" features inscriptions with common words or phrases that are typically used in different contexts aside from death in a more morbid fashion. These pieces of everyday writing force the readers to picture and understand these phrases in new and unique ways and to shift their mindsets about certain words and the contexts in which they can be used. The creation of new defintions and contexts surrounding these words and phrases is what classifies these inscriptions as everyday writing.