Focus: History and memory Introduction

2003 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 519-525
Author(s):  
MADELON DE KEIZER
Keyword(s):  
Social Identities ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
History And Memory ◽  
Word Memory ◽  
Memory Work ◽  
National Memory ◽  
National Heritage ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Many ◽  
Core Meaning

The story goes that in the 1980s and 1990s no publisher in Paris was prepared to issue a historical study that did not have the word ‘memory’ in the title. Identity, a congener of memory, was equally popular in the same period. One of the experts in the field, John Gillis, claimed that identity has become no more than a cliché and that memory has lost a lot of its precision, but both terms have remained key concepts. ‘The core meaning of any individual or group identity, namely, a sense of sameness over time and space, is sustained by remembering; and what is remembered is defined by the assumed identity’. Memories and identities are anything but certain facts; they are `representations or constructions of reality, subjective rather than objective phenomena. […] “Memory work” is, like any kind of physical or mental labor, embedded in complex class, gender and power relations that determine what is remembered (or forgotten), by whom, and for what end”.It has been suggested that the demise of the vainglorious future-orientated ideologies in the late 1980s brought about a shift in focus towards the past. However that may be, the wave of interest in memory did receive an enormous impulse from one of the most controversial studies in this field, the seven-volume series Les Lieux de Mémoire (1984–1992), published under the direction of the French historian Pierre Nora. In the last volume he argued that France had gradually disappeared as a ‘memory nation’; the national memory had been supplanted by a series of lieux de mémoire and the conflicting social identities that this entailed. La France, according to Nora, had entered the ‘era of commemoration’ as Les Frances as a result of what he called a ‘democratization of the commemorative spirit’.The relation between national identity and collective memory is highlighted by the many commemorative events organised in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1980, the French, British and Brazilian governments had a Year of National Heritage, while in Israel a ‘memory industry’ specially devoted to the Holocaust got under way.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mitch Kachun
Keyword(s):  
American History ◽  
Colonial America ◽  
Public Life ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
History And Memory ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Revolutionary Era ◽  
The Public ◽  
Historical Significance ◽  
The Many

The Conclusion ties together the book’s main arguments about Crispus Attucks’s place in American history and memory. We do not know enough about his experiences, associations, or motives before or during the Boston Massacre to conclude with certainty that Attucks should be considered a hero and patriot. But his presence in that mob on March 5, 1770, embodies the diversity of colonial America and the active participation of workers and people of color in the public life of the Revolutionary era. The strong likelihood that Attucks was a former slave who claimed his own freedom and carved out a life for himself in the colonial Atlantic world adds to his story’s historical significance. The lived realities of Crispus Attucks and the many other men and women like him must be a part of Americans’ understanding of the nation’s founding generations.

The silence of the ellipses: Why history can’t be about telling our children lies

2021 ◽  
Vol 102 (5) ◽  
pp. 8-11
Author(s):  
Sam Wineburg
Keyword(s):  
History Textbooks ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Many ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Boston Massacre

History textbooks are less likely to be complete renderings of the truth than a series of stories textbook authors (and the many stakeholders who influence them) consider beneficial. Sam Wineburg describes how the process of writing history textbooks often leads to sanitized and inaccurate versions of history. As an example, he describes how the story of Crispus Attucks and the Boston massacre has evolved over time. The goal of historical study, he explains, is not to cultivate love or hate of the country. Rather, it should provide us with the courage needed to look ourselves unflinching in the face, so that we may understand who we were and who we might aspire to become.

Fragments of the Holocaust

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Duindam
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Museum Studies ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
World War ◽  
Holocaust Memory ◽  
Holocaust Memorial ◽  
Memorial Museum ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
A Site

Why do we attach so much value to sites of Holocaust memory, if all we ever encounter are fragments of a past that can never be fully comprehended? David Duindam examines how the Hollandsche Schouwburg, a former theater in Amsterdam used for the registration and deportation of nearly 50,000 Jews, fell into disrepair after World War II before it became the first Holocaust memorial museum of the Netherlands. Fragments of the Holocaust: The Amsterdam Hollandsche Schouwburg as a Site of Memory combines a detailed historical study of the postwar period of this site with a critical analysis of its contemporary presentation by placing it within international debates concerning memory, emotionally fraught heritage and museum studies. A case is made for the continued importance of the Hollandsche Schouwburg and other comparable sites, arguing that these will remain important in the future as indexical fragments where new generations can engage with the memory of the Holocaust on a personal and affective level.

Advancing the assessment of cultural orientation: A developmental and contextual framework of multiple psychological dimensions and social identities

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (5) ◽  
pp. 1867-1888 ◽  
Author(s):  
George P. Knight ◽  
M. Dalal Safa ◽  
Rebecca M. B. White
Keyword(s):  
Social Identity ◽  
Cultural Orientation ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Ethnic Culture ◽  
Social And Emotional ◽  
Contextual Framework ◽  
The Many ◽  
Mainstream Culture ◽  
Psychological Dimensions

AbstractThis paper aims to advance the scientific understanding of the role of culture, particularly cultural orientation, in development and psychopathology. We advance a theoretical framework that conceptualizes cultural orientation as a developmental construct represented by multiple psychological dimensions and social identities, and influenced by the contexts in which individuals are embedded. This perspective suggests that cultural orientation changes within individuals over time as a function of their experiences with and memberships in multiple groups, including the mainstream and ethnic culture groups, as well as a function of their normative developmental changes (i.e., the development of cognitive, social, and emotional capabilities). In addition, this framework places the development of an ethnic culture social identity (e.g., an ethnic identity) and a mainstream culture social identity in broader developmental perspectives that recognize these as two of the many social identities that are simultaneously embedded within the individual's self-concept and that simultaneously influence one's cultural orientation. To support the successful integration of culture into the study of development and psychopathology, we describe how highly reliable and valid measures of cultural orientation, indexed by individuals’ social identities, are essential for generating a scientifically credible understanding of the role of cultural orientation in development and psychopathology. Further, we detail some best research practices associated with our developmental and contextual framework, and note some important considerations for researchers interested in studying cultural orientation, development, and psychopathology.

La represiňn franquista. La historiografěa y el debate en torno a la memoria

2009 ◽  
pp. 99-117
Author(s):  
Carme Molinero
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
Western World ◽  
New Order ◽  
History And Memory ◽  
Repressed Memories ◽  
Legal Violence ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One

- In Spain the recognition of the "repressed memories" has earned a remarkable public presence since the '90s, similarly to what occurred in most of the western world. In the Spanish case the attention focused on the "memory of the defeated" in the Civil War, which had been systematically silenced during the almost forty years of dictatorship and, to a large extent, during the following two decades too. In parallel with that, in the last quarter of the century there has been an outstanding accumulation of historical knowledge on the many and complementary forms of repression. This has demonstrated the magnitude of physic violence - deaths, concentration camps, imprisonment, work exploitation - as well as legal violence - purging, fines, etc. Francoist repression was much stronger than the one practised by other New Order fascist regimes during peace time. These historical studies have also provided concrete background for movements which for many years have asked for re-cognition from the democratic institutions of victims of Francoism. Key words: Spanish Civil War, Francoist repression, Spanish Civil War historical studies, history and memory, memory public policies, physic and legal violence in Spanish Civil War.

Art, Architecture, and National Memory-Making

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maurizio Peleggi
Keyword(s):  
Buddhist Art ◽  
Sacred Landscape ◽  
National Cultures ◽  
Artistic Value ◽  
National Memory ◽  
National Heritage ◽  
Social Meanings ◽  
Dialectical Tension ◽  
Art And Architecture ◽  
The Temple

Works of Buddhist art and architecture, in addition to having cultic use and artistic value, also enjoy prominence in the national heritage of several Asian countries regardless of the following Buddhism presently enjoys in each. While rooted in the millenary process of the formation of national cultures, this prominence is more immediately the outcome of archaeological investigations, architectural restorations, and museum collections that were initiated in the late 19th century by colonial officials, and royal commissioners in independent Siam and Japan, and continued by postcolonial governments, often with international support. The examination of Buddhist art and architecture as vehicles of national memory-making can be framed conceptually by the dialectical tension between their cult value as continuing foci of devotion and their exhibition value as evidence of cultural achievement. Four aspects of this productive tension are emphasized: the foundational tension in Buddhism between the doctrine of impermanence and the cult of relics; the tension between Buddhist monuments as elements of the diffuse sacred landscape and, conversely, of individual countries’ historical landscape; the tension between the place and reception of buddha images in the temple and, instead, in the museum; and finally, the tension between the traditional pious care for Buddhist monuments and their modern, scientific conservation. Owing to these productive tensions, works of Buddhist art and architecture continue to generate spiritual, cultural, and social meanings—in particular identitarian and mnemonic associations—even though in multiethnic and multireligious societies, these meanings are not uncontested.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Helen J. Whatmore-Thomson
Keyword(s):  
History And Memory ◽  
Local Populations ◽  
National Memory ◽  
Local Engagement ◽  
Post War ◽  
Nazi Camps ◽  
Wartime Experience

Local populations interacted and engaged with their nearby Nazi camps whether in perpetrator or occupied nations, and these interactions continued with whatever became of the camps after the war. The introduction situates the book between historiographical debates that span wartime experience and post-war national memory cultures, and discusses the conceptual relevance of bystanders as a category of analysis. It shifts the perspective of KZ history to the durable intertwinement of camp and community and argues that local engagement with sites of terror is a critical vector in KZ history and memory.

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