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.

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.

Nostalgia and the Remains of Everyday Life

2020 ◽  
pp. 78-111
Author(s):  
Maya Nadkarni
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Political System ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Past ◽  
International Discourse ◽  
State Socialist

This chapter argues that the various attempts to distance the past became the condition of Hungary for its return in the form of nostalgia for socialist mass and popular culture. It discusses the remains of socialism from anachronistic monuments and devalued historical narratives to the detritus of an everyday life now on the brink of vanishing, such as candy bars and soda pop. Despite appearances, this nostalgia did not represent a wistful desire to return to the previous era nor simply to the gleeful impulse to laugh at state socialist kitsch found years earlier. The chapter explains the detachment of fond communal memories of certain objects from the political system that produced them. It points out the ironic invocation of the international discourse of cultural heritage that legitimate the trash of the previous era and enabled Hungarians to redefine themselves as both savvy capitalist consumers and cultured democratic citizens.

When a historical analogy fails: Current political events and collective memory contestation in the news

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis LF Lee ◽  
Joseph Man Chan ◽  
Dennis KK Leung
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Memory Studies ◽  
State Violence ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Events ◽  
Historical Analogy ◽  
The Relationship

Collective memory studies have emphasized how people can utilize important historical events as analogies to make sense of current happenings. This article argues that the invocation of historical analogies may, under certain circumstances, become an occasion for people to negotiate and contest the significance of the historical events. Focusing on Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement in 2014, this article analyzes how references to the 1989 Tiananmen Incident emerged in the news as a dominant historical analogy when the movement began, foregrounding the possibility of state violence. But when state violence did not materialize, the authorities, young protesters, and radical activists started to contest the relevance of Tiananmen. The analogy was largely abandoned by the movement’s end. The analysis illustrates the recursive character of the relationship between past and present events: after the past is invoked to aid interpretations of the present, present developments may urge people to reevaluate the past.

scholarly journals Post Trauma: Memory as a Catalyst

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Ben Wade
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Initial Point ◽  
Transitional Space ◽  
Architectural Elements ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
The Past ◽  
Mnemonic Devices ◽  
Trauma Memory ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Graphic Information

<p><b>In literary fictional readings, underlying allegorical ideas arise for todays architectural landscapes, both literally and figuratively. This design-led research thesis emerges from Andreas Huyssen’s allegorical theories of ruins as factual indicators that records ruins as palimpsests of historical events as an ongoing process (Huyssen, 2010, p. 17). The layering of graphic information is such that the past happenings merge with the present explorations to create a distinct narrative in itself. This represents a provocative and enigmatic allegorical response to the loss of forgotten landscapes in architecture today: Post Trauma. This investigation thus seeks to interrogate architectural ruins scattered at Perano Whaling Station as repositories for collective memory through enacting allegorical interpretations — challenging the conventions of historical fragments through [re]presentational techniques, weaving them into an experiential narrative. This narrative builds upon these forgotten scars as palimpsests — interpreting and [re]interpreting their [re]purpose — rather than removal from existence all together. Huyssen’s theories of enigmatic experiential ruins acts as an allegorical provocateur, the initial point of immersion — an evocative starting point to engage in the [re]presentation of Perano’s context. The PeranoStation, much like all ruins, possesses a liminal characteristic on its remaining spaces. An eerie threshold to a brutal past, aggressively carved into the landscape and its inhabitation.</b></p> <p>These scars act as a literal portal to evocative experiences — an act of trying to understand a traumatised landscape. The need for distinctive architectural elements that can translatethe essence and experiences of this liminal and transitional space, between both sides of a threshold; past and present, presence and absence, living and dissolving.</p> <p>Tim Edensor intrinsically positions ruins as a ‘fragile and ephemeral place’ (DeSilvey and Edensor, 2012, p. 472). Alice Mah also shows in her study ‘Industrial Ruination, Community, and Place’, ruin[ation] may be ‘a lived process’ in which memory is rooted in the experience of decline. “The present has not moved far from the past, and the future is at best uncertain” (DeSilvey and Edensor, 2012, p. 410). This can be understood as a response to the views of architectural ruins as monuments left behind by collapsed destruction and unfulfilled dreams; existing outside therealms of productive structure. The problem this thesis aims to address is not the visual problem of sight, but the visceral problem of drawing — using different mediums to read traces of past happenings. It is through this act of drawing that engagement with Virgil Abloh’s ‘Purist’ and ‘Tourist’ mentalities that this thesis began “Playing with mediums and materials to make an expression” as Abloh notes (HighMuseum, 2020).</p> <p>Including drawing as a medium of speculative inquiry to [re]interpret Perano Whaling Station’s contextual scarring; layering and juxtaposing information built upon the architectural narrative and proposition. This questions drawings role in architectural interrogation and how it can erase preconceived notions. This is motivated by a personal journey of engagement with such erasure, it took moments of critical reflection upon these scars, to try imagine them as mnemonic devices. Triggering a conversation within ourselves — reflecting on these transformations — toggling between the ‘Purist’ and ‘Tourist’ mindsets that Virgil Abloh poses for excavating and expressing modern design to an audience.</p>

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.

scholarly journals To Whom Does History Belong?

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-127
Author(s):  
Francisco Martínez
Keyword(s):  
Social Processes ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Past ◽  
Current State ◽  
Former Soviet Republics

This article discusses different processes of appropriation of history in three former Soviet Republics. It provides a context for the recent historical retrofitting by taking the re-monumentalisation of the past in Estonia, the popularity of pseudo-history in Russia, and the current state of the Stalin museum in Georgia as symptomatic of wider social processes. New forms of convergence are shown between the historical and the political by the replacement, emptying of meaning, and remixability of past symbols. The author concludes that the Soviet world has been put to political and communicative uses as a familiar context to refer to; also that the process of retrofitting historical narratives is not over yet in any of these societies.

Young journalists and old news: remembering mass protests in Hong Kong

Journalism ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 146488492199953
Author(s):  
Donna Chu
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Production Process ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
Cultural Environment ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Collective Memories ◽  
The Past ◽  
Professional Norms

In this study, 20 journalists who had worked on news about the anniversaries of mass protests in Hong Kong were interviewed. Given that most had been born after the historical events being commemorated, this paper aims to understand how young journalists comprehend and cover such old news. It also uncovers the journalistic processes behind the related anniversary journalism and discusses the role of journalism in constructing collective memory. The study traced how journalists normally do their research and what they consider in the production process. We found that journalists, as with other assignments, generally lack the time to conduct thorough research. Instead of venturing into hard facts or heated debates, most opted to focus on the personal and the emotional. For the personal, they relied on stories told by living witnesses and participants. For the emotional, they tapped into the cultural environment as well as their peers to determine appropriate feelings and moral tones. Professional norms compelled them to find new angles for old news and package the stories in ways that would engage and attract their audience. All of these factors shape how journalists tell the stories about the past; these stories in turn become new resources in the ‘inventory’ of collective memories.

scholarly journals Post Trauma: Memory as a Catalyst

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Ben Wade
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Initial Point ◽  
Transitional Space ◽  
Architectural Elements ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
The Past ◽  
Mnemonic Devices ◽  
Trauma Memory ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Graphic Information

<p><b>In literary fictional readings, underlying allegorical ideas arise for todays architectural landscapes, both literally and figuratively. This design-led research thesis emerges from Andreas Huyssen’s allegorical theories of ruins as factual indicators that records ruins as palimpsests of historical events as an ongoing process (Huyssen, 2010, p. 17). The layering of graphic information is such that the past happenings merge with the present explorations to create a distinct narrative in itself. This represents a provocative and enigmatic allegorical response to the loss of forgotten landscapes in architecture today: Post Trauma. This investigation thus seeks to interrogate architectural ruins scattered at Perano Whaling Station as repositories for collective memory through enacting allegorical interpretations — challenging the conventions of historical fragments through [re]presentational techniques, weaving them into an experiential narrative. This narrative builds upon these forgotten scars as palimpsests — interpreting and [re]interpreting their [re]purpose — rather than removal from existence all together. Huyssen’s theories of enigmatic experiential ruins acts as an allegorical provocateur, the initial point of immersion — an evocative starting point to engage in the [re]presentation of Perano’s context. The PeranoStation, much like all ruins, possesses a liminal characteristic on its remaining spaces. An eerie threshold to a brutal past, aggressively carved into the landscape and its inhabitation.</b></p> <p>These scars act as a literal portal to evocative experiences — an act of trying to understand a traumatised landscape. The need for distinctive architectural elements that can translatethe essence and experiences of this liminal and transitional space, between both sides of a threshold; past and present, presence and absence, living and dissolving.</p> <p>Tim Edensor intrinsically positions ruins as a ‘fragile and ephemeral place’ (DeSilvey and Edensor, 2012, p. 472). Alice Mah also shows in her study ‘Industrial Ruination, Community, and Place’, ruin[ation] may be ‘a lived process’ in which memory is rooted in the experience of decline. “The present has not moved far from the past, and the future is at best uncertain” (DeSilvey and Edensor, 2012, p. 410). This can be understood as a response to the views of architectural ruins as monuments left behind by collapsed destruction and unfulfilled dreams; existing outside therealms of productive structure. The problem this thesis aims to address is not the visual problem of sight, but the visceral problem of drawing — using different mediums to read traces of past happenings. It is through this act of drawing that engagement with Virgil Abloh’s ‘Purist’ and ‘Tourist’ mentalities that this thesis began “Playing with mediums and materials to make an expression” as Abloh notes (HighMuseum, 2020).</p> <p>Including drawing as a medium of speculative inquiry to [re]interpret Perano Whaling Station’s contextual scarring; layering and juxtaposing information built upon the architectural narrative and proposition. This questions drawings role in architectural interrogation and how it can erase preconceived notions. This is motivated by a personal journey of engagement with such erasure, it took moments of critical reflection upon these scars, to try imagine them as mnemonic devices. Triggering a conversation within ourselves — reflecting on these transformations — toggling between the ‘Purist’ and ‘Tourist’ mindsets that Virgil Abloh poses for excavating and expressing modern design to an audience.</p>

Narrowcasting collective memory online: ‘liking’ Stalin in Russian social media

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 317-331 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daria Khlevnyuk
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
Homogeneous Group ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Soviet Leader ◽  
Digital Revolution ◽  
The Past ◽  
Group Sharing ◽  
The Impact

The Internet has transformed history and collective memory. Narratives of the past are produced and perceived faster and by larger communities. In other words, the Internet facilitates the most pervasive broadcasting of historical narratives ever known. However, it is not only speed and reach that characterize the impact of the digital revolution on memory cultures. It has also led to a shift from broadcasting to narrowcasting, propelled by a growing number of online memory agents. As a great number of people have access to the Internet, even memory agents with a particular view on the past can find their audience. Thus, the Internet, and social media in particular, facilitates the fragmentation of memory and narrowcasting. To illustrate this point, I studied Russian social media groups dedicated to the adoration of Stalin. Generally, Stalinists are perceived as a homogeneous group sharing a glorified memory of the Soviet leader. However, my analysis reveals that there are at least three types of online Stalinism that promote different narratives and have different agendas. This finding is not merely shedding new light on the persistence of the Stalin cult, but is also theoretically generative, indicating additional conditions for the fragmentation of memories in countries with contested and toxic pasts.

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