scholarly journals Hypermnesia and Amnesia: Remembering (with) the Body and Post-Conflict Memorials and Architectures

2022 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 29-38
Author(s):  
Andrea Borsari ◽  
Giovanni Leoni
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
The Body ◽  
World War ◽  
Memory Aids ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Paradoxical Effects ◽  
The Face ◽  
The One

The article consists of two parts. The first part (§§ 1–2) investigates the indiscriminate and absolute remembering and forgetting of everything, hypermnesia and amnesia as the extreme terms that research has used and uses for the different phenomena of memory, both in individuals and in social and political forms. In the face of these shifts it is thus indispensable to re-establish a critique of the paradoxical effects of memory aids and, at the same time, to seek new forms of remembrance that by mixing an experiential dimension and public sphere refocus the attention on the connection between latency, tension and experiential triggers of involuntary memory and on the ability to break through the fictions of collective memory. On this basis, the second part of the article (§§ 3–4) analyses how the experience of political and racial deportation during World War II drastically changed the idea of memorial architecture. More specifically, the analysis deals with a kind of memorial device that must represent and memorialise persons whose bodies have been deliberately cancelled. The aim is to present and analyse the artistic and architectonic efforts to refer to those forgotten bodies, on the one hand, and on the other hand to point out how for these new kind of memorials the body of the visitor is asked to participate, both physically and emotionally, in this somehow paradoxical search for lost bodies, offering oneself as a substitute.

Soldiering, Army

1984 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Sheffield
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War ◽  
Parking Lot ◽  
Regular Army ◽  
The Face ◽  
The One

When our truckload of recruits stopped in the small parking lot just outside the headquarters building of the Detached Enlisted Men’s List at Fort Eustis, Virginia, during World War II, I saw Sheffield nonchalantly resting his elbow on the laid-down tailgate of another army truck. To me he looked an exotic, swarthy skin, dimpled chin, and long sideburns, back in the days when most Regular Army sergeants wore their hair butch style. In his gray-green fatigues, he was a mustachioed Spanish don. I was frightened. Not my kind. For the last two weeks of my new life I had been sensing that I was square, and he was obviously all rounded and loose. We had to jump down from the truck. Calculating the distance to the ground, I wondered if with backpack and heavy duffle bag I would be able to land gracefully. I made it without stumbling, but the jolt to my spine unnerved me further. Sheffield didn’t line us up and call us to attention as I expected, but simply said, “O.K., you guys, follow me to the barracks.” He took us to the first building in the row and said, “I’ll be back in an hour to show you how to make your bunks. In the meantime, draw your blankets and sheets at the supply room.” In those first minutes at a permanent post, every act and word struck me in the face as the beginning of a series of actions that might end with my death in battle. At the time, I had no idea that Sheffield understood that most of us were feeling as awkward as we ever had in our lives. Not until months later did I realize that without clock or written schedule, Sheffield was timing our lives so we would learn at a pace we could handle. He had absented himself so we would have time to examine our digs, use the latrine, stretch out on our mattresses, and renew our courage. He was not a proper non-commissioned officer trying to break our spirit so that we would thoughtlessly obey all commands, including the one to advance under fire.

scholarly journals Der Scheitel der Welt. Aline Valangin und das Onsernonetal

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 77-89
Author(s):  
Monika Mańczyk-Krygiel
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
Immigration Policy ◽  
World War ◽  
Narrative Perspective ◽  
Elias Canetti ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Politically Persecuted

These considerations are devoted to literary pictures of the Onsernone Valley located on the Italian-Swiss border. It was here in the 1930s and 1940s that the Swiss writer Aline Valangin (1889– 1986) created an extraordinary oasis of freedom and peace in her estate in Comologno. She hosted famous figures such as Kurt Tucholsky, Elias Canetti, Ignazio Silone, or Wladimir Vogel, and provided shelter to many politically persecuted artists. The subject of detailed reflection is the question of the perception, experience and acquisition of the Ticino mountains both in works by Valangin and in biographical works about her; with a particular focus on narrative perspective — from the outside and the inside. Eveline Hasler in biographical novel Aline und die Erfindung der Liebe (2000) attempts to (re)construct an image of the Onsernone Valley as a specific “valley of poets”, presenting a subtle analysis of the interaction between the conservative inhabitants of the valley, attached to tradition, and the extravagant artists who found asylum and inspiration in the Ticino Alps. This novel is an example of a modern biography, which is characterized by narrative polyphony; the description of space becomes an important carrier of meanings and collective memory in the author’s concept. Aline Valangin sketches in her novels (Die Bargada, 1943 / Dorf an der Grenze, 1982) and short stories (Tessiner Erzählungen, 2018) an image of Onserone indigenous people’s everyday life in the thirties and forties, full of worries. Her stories include outsiders, misfits, social outcasts, guerrillas, smugglers, and exiles — and they all find haven in the Valley. Valangin’s works are also an important voice in the discussion of the essence of Swiss patriotism not only through strong criticism of Swiss immigration policy during World War II, but also by reflecting on the concept of the border as a place that unexpectedly proves to be a challenge and a particular kind of self-experience in the face of events that are tearing up the current existence.

scholarly journals Wierzchołek świata. Aline Valangin i dolina Onsernone

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 90-100
Author(s):  
Monika Mańczyk-Krygiel
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
Immigration Policy ◽  
World War ◽  
Narrative Perspective ◽  
Elias Canetti ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Politically Persecuted

These considerations are devoted to literary pictures of the Onsernone Valley located on the Italian-Swiss border. It was here in the 1930s and 1940s that the Swiss writer Aline Valangin (1889– 1986) created an extraordinary oasis of freedom and peace in her estate in Comologno. She hosted famous figures such as Kurt Tucholsky, Elias Canetti, Ignazio Silone, or Wladimir Vogel, and provided shelter to many politically persecuted artists. The subject of detailed reflection is the question of the perception, experience and acquisition of the Ticino mountains both in works by Valangin and in biographical works about her; with a particular focus on narrative perspective — from the outside and the inside. Eveline Hasler in biographical novel Aline und die Erfindung der Liebe (2000) attempts to (re)construct an image of the Onsernone Valley as a specific “valley of poets”, presenting a subtle analysis of the interaction between the conservative inhabitants of the valley, attached to tradition, and the extravagant artists who found asylum and inspiration in the Ticino Alps. This novel is an example of a modern biography, which is characterized by narrative polyphony; the description of space becomes an important carrier of meanings and collective memory in the author’s concept. Aline Valangin sketches in her novels (Die Bargada, 1943 / Dorf an der Grenze, 1982) and short stories (Tessiner Erzählungen, 2018) an image of Onserone indigenous people’s everyday life in the thirties and forties, full of worries. Her stories include outsiders, misfits, social outcasts, guerrillas, smugglers, and exiles — and they all find haven in the Valley. Valangin’s works are also an important voice in the discussion of the essence of Swiss patriotism not only through strong criticism of Swiss immigration policy during World War II, but also by reflecting on the concept of the border as a place that unexpectedly proves to be a challenge and a particular kind of self-experience in the face of events that are tearing up the current existence.

scholarly journals Nebesna Sotnia1

Ethnologies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-138
Author(s):  
Nataliya Bezborodova
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Central Memory ◽  
Institutional Changes ◽  
World War ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Personal Stories ◽  
The One

The one hundred people shot dead on the Maidan were given the collective name Heavenly Hundred (Nebesna Sotnia). It became the central memory of the uprising; a hymn, a new state award, a national memorial day, poetry, monuments, memorial plaques and books were produced. Dozens of streets and squares were renamed in different regions. The paper focuses on the interpretations of large-scale historical events (the Cossack, the Ukrainian National Republic and World War II), and their incorporation into a new institutionalized narrative after drastic societal events on the example of the protests in Ukraine known as the Maidan in the winter of 2014. The research is based on original protest lore, 8905 Facebook posts from 1647 individuals, collected by the author on the day they were published on Facebook between January 19 – February 28, 2014. This timeframe includes both peaceful days and the most dramatic confrontation of the protests. The data originally was organized in 5 categories and 16 topics. The paper provides evidence of how personal stories function and validate the participants’ experiences and the significance of the events from the protestors’ perspectives; and protest lore impact on institutional changes of commemorative practices in the field of collective memory.

The Suffering of the Perpetrators: The Ethics of Traumatic German Historicity in Karen Bass's Young Adult World War II Novels

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-77
Author(s):  
Doris Wolf
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Young Adult ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Childhood Studies ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
World War ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Adult World ◽  
The Public Sphere

This paper examines two young adult novels, Run Like Jäger (2008) and Summer of Fire (2009), by Canadian writer Karen Bass, which centre on the experiences of so-called ordinary German teenagers in World War II. Although guilt and perpetration are themes addressed in these books, their focus is primarily on the ways in which Germans suffered at the hands of the Allied forces. These books thus participate in the increasingly widespread but still controversial subject of the suffering of the perpetrators. Bringing work in childhood studies to bear on contemporary representations of German wartime suffering in the public sphere, I explore how Bass's novels, through the liminal figure of the adolescent, participate in a culture of self-victimisation that downplays guilt rather than more ethically contextualises suffering within guilt. These historical narratives are framed by contemporary narratives which centre on troubled teen protagonists who need the stories of the past for their own individualisation in the present. In their evacuation of crucial historical contexts, both Run Like Jäger and Summer of Fire support optimistic and gendered narratives of individualism that ultimately refuse complicated understandings of adolescent agency in the past or present.

Epistemic competitions over Jewish Holocaust survivors’ stories in interviews

2021 ◽  
pp. 095792652199214
Author(s):  
Kim Schoofs ◽  
Dorien Van De Mieroop
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Holocaust Survivors ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
Epistemic Authority ◽  
World War ◽  
Master Narratives ◽  
The Social ◽  
Specialist Knowledge ◽  
Expert Status ◽  
The One

In this article, we scrutinise epistemic competitions in interviews about World War II. In particular, we analyse how the interlocutors draw on their epistemic authority concerning WWII to construct their interactional telling rights. On the one hand, the analyses illustrate how the interviewers rely on their historical expert status – as evidenced through their specialist knowledge and ventriloquisation of vicarious WWII narratives – in order to topicalise certain master narratives and thereby attempt to project particular identities upon the interviewees. On the other hand, the interviewees derive their epistemic authority from their first-hand experience as Jewish Holocaust survivors, on which they draw in order to counter these story projections, whilst constructing a more distinct self-positioning to protect their nuanced personal identity work. Overall, these epistemic competitions not only shaped the interviewees’ identity work, but they also made the link between storytelling and the social context more tangible as they brought – typically rather elusive – master narratives to the surface.

The public image of women in post-Taliban Afghanistan

2021 ◽  
pp. 44-49
Author(s):  
Dr Rose Fazli ◽  
Dr Anahita Seifi
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Public Image ◽  
World War ◽  
Afghan Women ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Common ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Afghan Woman

The present article is an attempt to offer the concept of political development from a novel perspective and perceive the Afghan Women image in accordance with the aforementioned viewpoint. To do so, first many efforts have been made to elucidate the author’s outlook as it contrasts with the classic stance of the concept of power and political development by reviewing the literature in development and particularly political development during the previous decades. For example Post-World War II approaches to political development which consider political development, from the Hobbesian perspective toward power, as one of the functions of government. However in a different view of power, political development found another place when it has been understood via postmodern approaches, it means power in a network of relationships, not limited to the one-way relationship between ruler and obedient. Therefore newer concept and forces find their way on political development likewise “image” as a considerable social, political and cultural concept and women as the new force. Then, the meaning of “image” as a symbolic one portraying the common universal aspect is explained. The Afghan woman image emphasizing the historic period of 2001 till now is scrutinized both formally and informally and finally the relationship between this reproduced image of Afghan women and Afghanistan political development from a novel perspective of understanding is represented.

The Idiom of Scripture, Leviticus 18:5, and Theology at a Time of Paradigm Shift

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 155-170
Author(s):  
Merwyn S. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
World War ◽  
Post World War Ii ◽  
The Bible ◽  
English Translations ◽  
The One ◽  
Law And Gospel

Leviticus 18:5b ( the one doing them shall live in them) offers a prism through which to view the idiom of Scripture—the distinctive dynamics and theology of the Bible. The verse pinpoints the interplay between God's doing-and-living and ours. At issue is whether the commandments reflect a “command-and-do” structure of life with God, which maximizes a quid pro quo dynamic between God and us; or do the commandments delineate a “covenant place where” we abide with God and God with us, as a gift of shared doing pure and simple? The article traces Leviticus 18:5b through both Old and New Testaments, to show how pervasive it is. The main post-World War II English translations misstate the verse at every turn, in contrast to the 16th-century Church Reformation, which understood the verse and the issue under the topic of Law and Gospel.

scholarly journals ‘The Face of Evil’: The Discourse on ISIS and the Visual Complexities in the ISIS Beheading Videos

Politik ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kanar Patruss
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
Value Judgment ◽  
Western Discourse ◽  
The Face ◽  
Politically Motivated Violence ◽  
The One ◽  
Opening Up

This article deals with ISIS’s beheading videos of Western victims from 2014 and inscribes itself into an emerging body of literature on visuality in IR. The paper contends that the image of ISIS beheadings has been mobilized in a Western political discourse that classifies ISIS as evil, and has hereby helped shape the conditions under which international politics operate. The article offers a Nietzsche-inspired critique of the value judgment of evil in the Western discourse and, in extension, seeks to nuance the assessment of ISIS through a ‘re-reading’ of the beheading image. For this purpose, the article proposes to expand Lene Hansen’s concept of inter-iconicity to capture how an icon’s meaning is produced in relation to other icons and, in this light, explores the inter-iconic relations between the image of ISIS beheadings, on the one hand, and the decapitations of the French Revolution and the image of the ‘body politic’, on the other. The inter-iconic reading draws out alternative meanings of the image of ISIS beheadings that counter the classification of ISIS as evil, thereby expanding the conditions for political speech and action regarding ISIS and opening up space for a broader critique of politically motivated violence. 

scholarly journals Human Rights at Stake: Shirley Jackson’s Social and Political Protest in “The Lottery”

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 28
Author(s):  
Zaid Ibrahim Ismael ◽  
Sabah Atallah Khalifa Ali
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Political Protest ◽  
World War ◽  
Her Family ◽  
Political Criticism ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Social Custom ◽  
American Author ◽  
The One

Nowhere is American author Shirley Jackson’s (1916-1965) social and political criticism is so intense than it is in her seminal fictional masterpiece “The Lottery”. Jackson severely denounces injustice through her emphasis on a bizarre social custom in a small American town, in which the winner of the lottery, untraditionally, receives a fatal prize. The readers are left puzzled at the end of the story as Tessie Hutchinson, the unfortunate female winner, is stoned to death by the members of her community, and even by her family. This study aims at investigating the author’s social and political implications that lie behind the story, taking into account the historical era in which the story was published (the aftermath of the bloody World War II) and the fact that the victim is a woman who is silenced and forced to follow the tradition of the lottery. The paper mainly focuses on the writer’s interest in human rights issues, which can be violated even in civilized communities, like the one depicted in the story. The shocking ending, the researchers conclude, is Jackson’s protest against dehumanization and violence.

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