Tahmima Anam’s A Golden Age: A Gendered Re-Telling of Partition

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (12) ◽  
pp. 13
Author(s):  
Dr. Madhavi Nikam ◽  
Ms Jyothi Sadasivam
Keyword(s):  
Golden Age ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Dimension ◽  
Literary Representations ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
History Writing ◽  
Minority Communities ◽  
Private World ◽  
The Past ◽  
Fictional Narrative

Literary representations of historical events have, in the past few years, witnessed a radically new orientation, particularly with the strengthening of the feminist perspective that sought to address a longstanding gap in history writing in India- the silencing of marginal voices including those of women, children and various minority communities of society. In short, the muffling of the human dimension of history. Tehmima Anam’s A Golden Age, published in 2007, and winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ prize in 2008, is in this context a rare achievement in that her fictional narrative is set against the backdrop of the war that culminated in the birth of Bangladesh as an independent nation but more significantly, it is told from a diasporic Bangladeshi woman’s perspective. By offering a personal and subjective perspective on history through a woman narrator, the author breaks free from the traditional narratives of history that centre around the political and communal aspects and extreme experiences and sensitizes the reader to alternative forms of viewing history as it intrudes into the private world of a woman.

scholarly journals Morality, Coercion and State Building by Campaign in the Early PRC: Regime Consolidation and After, 1949–1956

2006 ◽  
Vol 188 ◽  
pp. 891-912 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Strauss
Keyword(s):  
Policy Implementation ◽  
Golden Age ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
State Building ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Campaign ◽  
The Past

The early to mid-1950s are conventionally viewed as a time when China broke sharply with the past and experienced a “golden age” of successful policy implementation and widespread support from the population. This article shows that the period should be seen as neither “golden age” nor precursor for disaster. Rather it should be seen as a period when the Chinese Communist Party's key mechanisms of state reintegration and instruction of the population – the political campaign and “stirring up” via public accusation sessions – were widely disseminated throughout China, with variable results. The campaigns for land reform and the suppression of counter-revolutionaries show that levels of coercion and violence were extremely high in the early 1950s, and the campaign to clean out revolutionaries in 1955 and after suggests some of the limits of mobilizational campaigns.

From biography to history: writing the modern British monarchy

2004 ◽  
Vol 77 (197) ◽  
pp. 289-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Cannadine
Keyword(s):  
Golden Age ◽  
Elizabeth I ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
Royal Family ◽  
History Writing ◽  
The Past ◽  
Victorian Period ◽  
History Of

Abstract This article traces the development of biographical and historical writing about the British monarchy from the ‘golden age’ of Elizabeth I to the House of Windsor. It examines the differences in approach over the past two centuries, in particular, from the uncritical biographies of the Victorian period to the current unregulated flood of material, authorized and unauthorized. Such an analysis goes beyond the history of dynasties and individuals and becomes a history of society as reflected in the changing experiences of the British royal family.

scholarly journals Philosophical interpretation to the history in Nosherwan Mustafa’s perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Azad Ali Maulud ◽  
Aras Abdulrahman Mustafa ◽  
Qadir Muhammed Muhammed
Keyword(s):  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Writing Style ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
History Writing ◽  
Political Career ◽  
Philosophical Interpretation ◽  
Philosophical School ◽  
Political Activist ◽  
Political Figure

Noshrwan Mustafa Emin ( 1944 -2017), commonly known as Noshirwan Mustafa, was a prominent Kurdish political figure and Peshmerga commander. He played an important role in the political life of southern Kurdistan as a Peshmarga commander and political activist. Therefore, the majority of Kurdish people may know him as a politician rather than as an author or historian. Pondering upon Noshrwan Mustafa’s history related writings, indicates that his contributions in that area is as significant as his political career. This research deals with a side of     Noshrwan Mustaf’s history writing style, which is " philosophical interpretation to the history in Noshrwan mustaf’s perspective". It appears that Noshrwan Mustafa was aware of the philosophical iterepretations. They could easily be noticed in his historical books. He, however, did not rely on only one philosophical school of thought to analyze historical events. He appears to have taken into account a plethora of philosophical views to analyze history.

scholarly journals De BMGN als platform voor vernieuwing van de politieke geschiedenis

2021 ◽  
Vol 136 (2) ◽  
pp. 136-149
Author(s):  
Dirk Jan Wolffram
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Political History ◽  
The Political ◽  
Young Generation ◽  
History Writing ◽  
Dutch Politics ◽  
Cultural Approach ◽  
The Past ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
History Of

De politieke geschiedenis van Nederland en België zoals bestudeerd in de BMGN had verschillende gezichten. Aanvankelijk domineerde een zekere traditionele geschiedschrijving over beide landen, die als een steeds dunner wordende rode draad door de inhoud van de afgelopen vijftig jaar loopt. Vanaf het midden van de jaren tachtig verschoof de nadruk naar de geschiedschrijving over de Nederlandse politiek, en ontwikkelde de BMGN zich tot platform voor de vernieuwing van de politieke geschiedenis van de moderne tijd. Deze politieke-cultuurbenadering manifesteerde zich vanaf het midden van de jaren negentig in een aantal baanbrekende artikelen en bracht ook de moderne Belgische politieke geschiedenis opnieuw onder de aandacht. In het afgelopen decennium ontpopte de BMGN zich tot podium voor een jonge generatie politieke historici. Studies of the political history of the Netherlands and Belgium as examined in the BMGN had various manifestations. Initially a somewhat traditional historiography about the two countries dominated, surfacing in the content of the past fifty years, albeit progressively less pronounced. From the mid 1980s the focus shifted to the historiography of Dutch politics, and the BMGN evolved into a platform for innovating political history writing of the modern period. This political-cultural approach manifested from the mid 1990s in several pioneering articles and restored interest in modern Belgian political history. In the past decade the BMGN has become a platform for a young generation of political historians.

scholarly journals Martin Luther in the Light of Recent Criticism

1914 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-230
Author(s):  
Ephraim Emerton
Keyword(s):  
Martin Luther ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Recent Criticism ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Historical Method ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One

The decade just passed has witnessed an unusual activity in the production of books about Martin Luther. This activity has been greatly stimulated by the re-introduction of a method of controversy which reasonable men had been hoping was forever silenced. Until about a generation ago there had been two obvious and hopelessly opposed ways of approach to the subject of Luther's character and work. From the one side he was presented as an angel of light; from the other as the type of a depraved and malicious spirit, moved to activity not through any desire to improve the condition of his people but because, being the malignant thing he was, he could not act otherwise. It need hardly be said to the readers of this Review that both of these views of Luther are essentially false. They are perfectly intelligible, one equally with the other. They are the natural precipitation of the bitter controversies that gathered about him in his life, and continued long after his death to complicate the political and economic struggles out of which the new Europe of our day was born. In the light of our modern historical method, both views appear crude and unscientific. They represent a way of looking at historical characters and historical events to which we are apt to apply the crushing word “old-fashioned.” And in fact it did seem, up to a very few years ago, that these primitive judgments, which classified men into good and bad, angels and fiends, had become a thing of the past.

scholarly journals Tábor v Letech jako „neexistující pseudokoncentrák“: analýza proměny letských narativů

2021 ◽  
pp. 76-103
Author(s):  
Tereza Vaňáčová ◽  
Vladimír Naxera
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Concentration Camp ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Specific Time ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Mass Graves ◽  
The Past

Interpreting and staging the past is an integral part of politics in its different forms. Selected historical events that are attached greater importance have often been contested politically. In the last two decades or so, clashes over the past have escalated in most consolidated democracies and have become more closely linked with other dimensions of political conflict. In the already consolidated Czech democracy, disputes have reopened over both the Communist regime and a much older past, with history fully entering the political agenda. These conflicts have been centred on both the historical subjects and fundamental points of collective memory, and on locations related to that memory and history. In a specific time and space, those places represent a certain tale, a certain interpretation of historical events, and at the same time allow for the development of other tales, often updated and in some cases politically contested. The forms and nature of the physical places of collective memory may vary. Firstly, these may be places “where bodies lie or have lain” – mass graves, destroyed communities or other places of collective suffering. This paper tackles this issue and analyses the narratives constructed by leading Czech politicians of the WWII Roma concentration camp in Lety. It presents the main arguments of the competing narratives and their changes throughout the post-Communist period.

scholarly journals The case for graphic counter-memorials in the comics of Joe Sacco, Art Spiegelman, and Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brooke Winterstein
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
The Political ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Art Spiegelman ◽  
The Past ◽  
Non Fiction ◽  
Trauma Memory ◽  
Memory And Trauma ◽  
Political Intervention

My dissertation considers a group of contemporary comics about war by Joe Sacco, Art Spiegelman, and Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli, as examples of a larger genre I call the graphic counter-memorial. Graphic counter-memorial comics address history, memory, and trauma as they depict the political, violent, and collective aspects of war and social conflict. I argue that the particular comics I study in this dissertation, which mingle fiction and non-fiction and autobiography as well as journalism, follow the tradition of the counter-monuments described by James E. Young. Studying commemorative practices and counter-monuments in the 1980s, Young notes a generation of German artists who resist traditional forms of memorialization by upending the traditional monument structure in monument form. Young looks at the methods, aims, and aesthetics these artists use to investigate and problematize practices that establish singular historical narratives. Like these works of public art, the graphic counter-memorial asks the reader to question ‘official history,’ authenticity, and the objectivity typically associated with non-fiction and reporting. I argue that what these comics offer is an opportunity to re-examine comics that incorporate real and familiar social and historical events and wars. Comics allow creators to visually and textually overlap perspectives and time. Graphic counter-memorials harness the comic medium’s potential to refuse fixed narratives of history by emphasizing a sense of incompleteness in their representation of trauma, memory, and war. This makes possible a more complex and rich way to engage with Western society’s relationship to the past, and in particular, a more complex way of engaging with collective memory and war. Their modes of mediating history produce political intervention through both form and content.

scholarly journals The case for graphic counter-memorials in the comics of Joe Sacco, Art Spiegelman, and Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brooke Winterstein
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
The Political ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Art Spiegelman ◽  
The Past ◽  
Non Fiction ◽  
Trauma Memory ◽  
Memory And Trauma ◽  
Political Intervention

My dissertation considers a group of contemporary comics about war by Joe Sacco, Art Spiegelman, and Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli, as examples of a larger genre I call the graphic counter-memorial. Graphic counter-memorial comics address history, memory, and trauma as they depict the political, violent, and collective aspects of war and social conflict. I argue that the particular comics I study in this dissertation, which mingle fiction and non-fiction and autobiography as well as journalism, follow the tradition of the counter-monuments described by James E. Young. Studying commemorative practices and counter-monuments in the 1980s, Young notes a generation of German artists who resist traditional forms of memorialization by upending the traditional monument structure in monument form. Young looks at the methods, aims, and aesthetics these artists use to investigate and problematize practices that establish singular historical narratives. Like these works of public art, the graphic counter-memorial asks the reader to question ‘official history,’ authenticity, and the objectivity typically associated with non-fiction and reporting. I argue that what these comics offer is an opportunity to re-examine comics that incorporate real and familiar social and historical events and wars. Comics allow creators to visually and textually overlap perspectives and time. Graphic counter-memorials harness the comic medium’s potential to refuse fixed narratives of history by emphasizing a sense of incompleteness in their representation of trauma, memory, and war. This makes possible a more complex and rich way to engage with Western society’s relationship to the past, and in particular, a more complex way of engaging with collective memory and war. Their modes of mediating history produce political intervention through both form and content.

The Many Pasts of Detective Fiction

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-172
Author(s):  
Thomas Leitch
Keyword(s):  
Detective Fiction ◽  
Golden Age ◽  
Public History ◽  
Detective Novel ◽  
Sherlock Holmes ◽  
Detective Story ◽  
The Past ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Detective Novels ◽  
The Many

Building on Tzvetan Todorov's observation that the detective novel ‘contains not one but two stories: the story of the crime and the story of the investigation’, this essay argues that detective novels display a remarkably wide range of attitudes toward the several pasts they represent: the pasts of the crime, the community, the criminal, the detective, and public history. It traces a series of defining shifts in these attitudes through the evolution of five distinct subgenres of detective fiction: exploits of a Great Detective like Sherlock Holmes, Golden Age whodunits that pose as intellectual puzzles to be solved, hardboiled stories that invoke a distant past that the present both breaks with and echoes, police procedurals that unfold in an indefinitely extended present, and historical mysteries that nostalgically fetishize the past. It concludes with a brief consideration of genre readers’ own ambivalent phenomenological investment in the past, present, and future each detective story projects.

The Political Economy of Local Governance in Yemen

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 45-69
Author(s):  
Benoit Challand ◽  
Joshua Rogers
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Local Development ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Past ◽  
Strong State ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Local Initiatives ◽  
Self Rule

This paper provides an historical exploration of local governance in Yemen across the past sixty years. It highlights the presence of a strong tradition of local self-rule, self-help, and participation “from below” as well as the presence of a rival, official, political culture upheld by central elites that celebrates centralization and the strong state. Shifts in the predominance of one or the other tendency have coincided with shifts in the political economy of the Yemeni state(s). When it favored the local, central rulers were compelled to give space to local initiatives and Yemen experienced moments of political participation and local development.

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