Ace sits down with Emilie Kelly ’25 to discuss Berlin’s war memorial Neue Wache, or New Guardhouse, the centerpiece of Emilie’s anthropology thesis. Following a semester abroad in Berlin, Emilie became fascinated by the cultural rituals surrounding war memorials, and how these memorials––and the administrations that govern them––play an important role in constructing our collective memory.

Tune in to hear Emilie and Ace explore the complex relationship between history and memorialization, from past regimes to the rise of authoritarianism around the world today. In addition, Emilie reflects on how her archival research, ethnographic fieldwork, and cohort-style thesis experience at Reed came together in her thesis––a project which, as she and Ace put it, “doesn’t need to be perfect; it just needs to be done.”

Emilie’s thesis, “Changing of the Guards/Changing of the House: Nationalism and Memory at Berlin’s Neue Wache,” can be found in the Reed library Thesis Tower. Her thesis adviser notes that her thesis was only the second one in anthropology and in the college to include a chapter/section expressed in graphic art.

Emilie was also a 2022 President’s Summer Fellow, which supported a project which she called the Grand Trans-American Cornhole Quest. You can learn more about her project and watch the movie that she produced from it on the Reed Magazine website.