scholarly journals Memory, narrative, and conflict in writing the past

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (32) ◽  
pp. 47-81
Author(s):  
Rafael Pérez Baquero
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Contemporary History ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
The Past

In this paper I will analyze the distinctive features of the twentieth century historiography with regards to its most salient events. By doing so, I will provide an interpretation of the struggles which underlay the production of historical knowledge at the end of the century. In contrast to various theories of historiography which assert that autonomy from collective memory is a methodological assumption of the historian, I will argue that historiography is always interwoven with the political and ethical challenges of the historian’s time. In this regard, this paper´s theses are inspired by Walter Benjamin’s ideas concerning historiography, as well as by the interpretations of this ideas provided by other historians and philosophers, such as Enzo Traverso, Dominick LaCapra or Michael Löwy. Their ideas will serve as a framework for understanding the challenges historians face when narrating contemporary history. 

SCULPTING THE PAST IN PRECLASSIC MESOAMERICA: OLMEC STONE MONUMENTS AND THE PRODUCTION OF SOCIAL MEMORY

2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-27
Author(s):  
Jillian Mollenhauer
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Social Memory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Stone Monuments ◽  
Public Monuments ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Over Time

AbstractScholars encountering the monolithic sculptures of the Gulf lowland Olmec since the early twentieth century have frequently employed the term “monument” to describe these works. Often the word has been applied in reference to the formal qualities of the sculptures as well as to their antiquity. The function of monuments as sites of public remembering, however, has never been fully explored in relation to these works. This article discusses the evidence for, and implications of, viewing certain Olmec sculptures as public monuments intended to generate, transform, and erase the social memory of Olmec populations. Case studies of sculptural contexts suggest that such monuments were subject to diachronic transpositions and transformations in order to affect shifts in the collective memory over time. They remain as physical testaments to the maneuverings of Olmec elites within complex and ever-changing power relations that relied on the process of memory-making as part of the political stratagem.

Collective Memory: Between Values and Historical Knowledge

2020 ◽  
pp. 124-142
Author(s):  
VICTOR BURLACHUK
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
The State ◽  
Main Element ◽  
Rapid Decline ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future

At the end of the twentieth century, questions of a secondary nature suddenly became topical: what do we remember and who owns the memory? Memory as one of the mental characteristics of an individual’s activity is complemented by the concept of collective memory, which requires a different method of analysis than the activity of a separate individual. In the 1970s, a situation arose that gave rise to the so-called "historical politics" or "memory politics." If philosophical studies of memory problems of the 30’s and 40’s of the twentieth century were focused mainly on the peculiarities of perception of the past in the individual and collective consciousness and did not go beyond scientific discussions, then half a century later the situation has changed dramatically. The problem of memory has found its political sound: historians and sociologists, politicians and representatives of the media have entered the discourse on memory. Modern society, including all social, ethnic and family groups, has undergone a profound change in the traditional attitude towards the past, which has been associated with changes in the structure of government. In connection with the discrediting of the Soviet Union, the rapid decline of the Communist Party and its ideology, there was a collapse of Marxism, which provided for a certain model of time and history. The end of the revolutionary idea, a powerful vector that indicated the direction of historical time into the future, inevitably led to a rapid change in perception of the past. Three models of the future, which, according to Pierre Nora, defined the face of the past (the future as a restoration of the past, the future as progress and the future as a revolution) that existed until recently, have now lost their relevance. Today, absolute uncertainty hangs over the future. The inability to predict the future poses certain challenges to the present. The end of any teleology of history imposes on the present a debt of memory. Features of the life of memory, the specifics of its state and functioning directly affect the state of identity, both personal and collective. Distortion of memory, its incorrect work, and its ideological manipulation can give rise to an identity crisis. The memorial phenomenon is a certain political resource in a situation of severe socio-political breaks and changes. In the conditions of the economic crisis and in the absence of a real and clear program for future development, the state often seeks to turn memory into the main element of national consolidation.

scholarly journals Abazi, Enika, and Albert Doja (2017) "The past in the present: time and narrative of Balkan wars in media industry and international politics." Third World Quarterly, 38 (4), pp. 1012-1042

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enika Abazi ◽  
Albert Doja
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Third World ◽  
Media Industry ◽  
Southeast Europe ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
The Past ◽  
Balkan Wars ◽  
Truth Claims ◽  
Narrative Patterns

In this article, we explore various forms of travel writing, media reporting, diplomatic record, policy-making, truth claims and expert accounts in which different narrative perspectives on the Balkan wars, both old (1912–1913) and new (1991–1999), have been most evident. We argue that the ways in which these perspectives are rooted in different temporalities and historicisations have resulted in the construction of commonplace and time-worn representations. In practical terms, we take issue with several patterns of narratives that have led to the sensationalism of media industry and the essentialisation of collective memory. Taken together as a common feature of contemporary policy and analysis in the dominant international opinion, politics and scholarship, these narrative patterns show that historical knowledge is conveyed in ways that make present and represent the accounts of another past, and the ways in which beliefs collectively held by actors in international society are constructed as media events and public hegemonic representations. The aim is to show how certain moments of rupture are historicised, and subsequently used and misused to construct an anachronistic representation of Southeast Europe.

scholarly journals Nostalgic Utopianism: The New Zealand Values Party’s 1972 Blueprint

Te Kaharoa ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Moon
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Political ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Status ◽  
Material Progress

Although the manifestos or policies of most New Zealand political parties aspire to improve some aspect of the country, few have matched the Values Party’s 1972 Blueprint for the utopian form and extent of the changes it promised to being into effect. And unlike the policies of most other New Zealand political parties in the twentieth century, the Values Party proposed that material progress ought to be stopped at some point, echoing the notion of the stationary state which John Stuart Mill devised in 1848.   However, the Blueprint’s distinctly utopian orientation was not only necessarily subversive of the political status quo in the country, but simultaneously rejected the past and present in favour of a radically transformed future, while (seemingly paradoxically) drawing on a nostalgic interpretation of aspects of New Zealand’s colonial era as a thematic source of its utopian construct for the country. This article examines these dimensions of the Blueprint, and how the inherent flaws in practically all utopian movements similarly undermined the Values Party’s programme for a utopian New Zealand.

scholarly journals Beyond the Battlefields of Memory: Historical Traumas and Hungarian Literature

Porównania ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 47-58
Author(s):  
Tamás Kisantal
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
Literary Fiction ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Literary Representation ◽  
Hungarian Literature ◽  
The Past ◽  
Cultural Field ◽  
Literary Canons

One can describe the contemporary Hungarian collective memory as an interpretational field of some traumatic historical events of the twentieth century. The essay aims to sketch some important tendencies of the literary representation of these events after the millennium. At first, it outlines the wider social and political contexts of these literary works. Secondly, it models the current Hungarian cultural field as an opposition between two strategies of memory labeling them in Michael Rothberg’s terminology as competitive and multidirectional ones. These approaches to the past are also associated with different ideological implications and literary canons. Finally, with a brief overview of some recent novels, the essay demonstrates some pathways of representing multidirectional attitudes to the past in the Hungarian literary fiction of the 2000s.

Political Memoirs and Collective Memory in South Korea- Turning Points in the Autobiographical Writings of Kim Taejung and No Muhyŏn

2017 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Natalia Kim
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Turning Points ◽  
Contemporary History ◽  
Historical Discourse ◽  
Korean History ◽  
The Past ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Wide Range

Emerging as an independent nation in 1948, South Korea went through a difficult phase of political development shifting from a martial and authoritarian regime toward a liberal–democratic one. The April Revolution in 1960, the May 16 coup in 1961, the October Yusin in 1972, the Kwangju Uprising in 1980, and the June Democratic Uprising are the turning points of South Korean history which changed the political landscape of the state and extensively influenced its future. The successful democratic transition has provided substantial grounds for various interpretations of the critical moments in the contemporary history of Korea. Although the official historical discourse has become more democratic and critical in recent times, it still leans towards conservatism. The collective memory of important historical events has been continuously constructed by a wide range of educational tools, cultural products, and governmental programs in South Korea. The collective memory comprises individual memories of the past, but these individual memories are subordinate to the collective memory because they are subject to generalization and objectification, which result in the adoption of commonly shared views of the past. There are different sources through which the interdependence of collective memory and individual memories can be studied. One of them is an autobiography.

scholarly journals Media memory in the digital world

2019 ◽  
Vol 72 ◽  
pp. 01014
Author(s):  
Denis Artamonov ◽  
Marina Volovikova ◽  
Sophia Tikhonova
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
The Past ◽  
Digital World ◽  
Digital Era ◽  
Media Philosophy ◽  
Memory Characteristic

The article analyses how historical memory is being formed in the modern digital realm. The authors show the emergence of a new form of historical memory, characteristic of the digital era, which we call "media memory". Using the methodology historical epistemology, media philosophy and memory studies, the authors demonstrate the change in production and replication of knowledge about the past due to the spread of digital media. The distinctive features of "media memory" are: massive non-professional production of historical content, democratic character, speed, subjectivity and emotional intensity. These features are associated with the combination of prosuming and crowdsourcing, which increase the activity of history lovers and non-professional volunteers in social media. Considering the largest historical digital projects, which have brought together the efforts of millions of history lovers, the article comes to the conclusion that academic historians are losing the monopoly on the production of historical knowledge, while the latter is being turned into digital form, with the widespread participation of ordinary people in the production of such content.

scholarly journals Theology of Revolution: In Ali Shari’ati and Walter Benjamin’s Political Thought

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 504
Author(s):  
Mina Khanlarzadeh
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Essential Role ◽  
Walter Benjamin ◽  
The Political ◽  
Present Moment ◽  
The Past ◽  
German Jewish

In this paper, I offer a comparative analysis of the political thoughts of twentieth century Iranian revolutionary thinker and sociologist Ali Shari’ati (1933–1977) and German-Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin (1892–1940). Despite their conspicuously independent historical-theoretical trajectories, both Shari’ati and Benjamin engaged with theology and Marxism to create theological–political conceptions of the revolution of the oppressed. Shari’ati re-interpreted and re-animated Shia history from the angle of contemporary concerns to theorize a revolution against all forms of domination. In comparison, Benjamin fused Marxism with Jewish theology in his call to seize the possibilities of past failed revolutions in the present. Both Shari’ati and Benjamin conceptualized an active messianism led by each generation, eliminating the wait for the return of a messiah. As a result, each present moment takes on a messianic potential; the present plays an essential role to both thinkers. Past was also essential to both, because theology (through remembrance) had made the past sufferings incomplete to them. Both thinkers viewed past sufferings as an integral part of present struggles for justice in the form of remembrance (or yād or zekr for Shari’ati, and Zekher for Benjamin). I explore the ways Shari’ati and Benjamin theorized the role of the past in the present, remembrance, and messianism to create a dialectical relation between theology and Marxism to reciprocally transform and compliment both of them.

scholarly journals Inheriting Marx Daniel Bensaïd, Ernst Bloch and the Discordance of Time

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 147-182
Author(s):  
Filippo Menozzi
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cultural Inheritance ◽  
Ernst Bloch ◽  
The Past

Abstract This essay traces a Marxist notion of cultural heritage drawing on the work of twentieth-century thinkers Daniel Bensaïd and Ernst Bloch. Both authors, indeed, address the act of inheriting as a way of rethinking Marxism beyond determinist and teleological concepts of history. In particular, Bensaïd’s 1995 Marx for Our Times and a 1972 essay on cultural heritage by Ernst Bloch reimagine the handing-on of cultural inheritance as the political reactivation of untimely and non-synchronous survivals of past social formations. For this reason, the heritage of Marx conveyed by these authors does not result in a nostalgic preservation of the past but in reviving unrealised possibilities of social transformation. In a comparative reading of Bensaïd and Bloch, the act of ‘inheriting Marx’ analysed in this essay hence formulates a de-commodifying conception of cultural heritage set against the violence of capital.

Imaginary Travels in Post- Socialist Mongolia

Inner Asia ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-164
Author(s):  
David Bade
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Turn Of The Millennium ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
Bernardo Carvalho

Until recently, when the Mongols have appeared in the world’s literature, they have usually appeared in the persons of chinggis Khaan or Khubilai, or as ‘Mongolian hordes’. Some recent writings are unlike earlier works of the twentieth century, regardless of the political orientation and situation of the writers. In this paper I examine three works published between 1992 and 2003 that exemplify radically different instances of that difference: Mongolski bedeker by Serbian novelist Svetislav Basara; Paměť mojí babičce by czech author Petra Hůlová; and Mongólia by the Brazilian writer Bernardo carvalho. With the certainties and stereotypes of the past discarded in these novels, contemporary Mongolia provides the setting for the authors’ encounters with the strangeness of the world at the turn of the millennium.

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