ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the range of affective and emotional responses registered by people as they visit heritage that relates to, or represents, war. Places of war, along with their intangible meanings and the intensities of feeling they foster, often hold sway in the public imagination. Pearl Harbor, like many places of war, rubs up against a range of other presences. Pearl Harbor offers a clear illustration of the way a place of war can, and does, become a ‘bright object,’ not only because there is a certain resilience to its own gravitational pull but because of its atmospheric affects, which seem to pulse and intensify when encountered in relation to objects and events visible at the level of the nation. Prior to 7 December 1941, Pearl Harbor might have been known for its pearl-producing oysters or its associations with the Hawaiian Shark God, and certainly as a naval base, at least from 1908.
