Introduction

Author(s):  
Thomas Haigh ◽  
Mark Priestley ◽  
Crispin Rope

Introduces ENIAC and sketches its accepted place in the history of computing as a candidate for the disputed honor of “the first computer,” or as the “first general purpose electronic digital computer.” The authors argue that both views simplify ENIAC’s complexities by reducing it to a single point on a historical trajectory. Instead they introduce a number of other perspectives developed in the book: ENIAC as a material artefact, ENIAC at the origin point of computer programming, ENIAC as a site for technical analysis, and ENIAC as an object of contested historical memory.

1957 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-203
Author(s):  
D. B. Gillies ◽  
P. M. Hunt

SummaryA method is given for the solution of the flutter determinant on a general purpose electronic digital computer. The method has been programmed for the N.R.D.C. 401 Computer and details of this programme are given. A quicker programme, applicable when only structural damping is present and there are two degrees of freedom, is also discussed. Appendix I discusses in detail the types of errors which occur when the method is applied and Appendix II considers the anticipated loss of accuracy which will be encountered when using the method in cases where the number of degrees of fredom is large.


PMLA ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 124 (5) ◽  
pp. 1878-1882 ◽  
Author(s):  
Réda Bensmaïa

Can a film based on fiction contribute to the restoration of historical memory? can films help fill in the blanks of history? What exactly is the filmmaker's position? What faculty and what means does he or she require to make such a prodigious feat possible? Are films capable of creating sites of memory, and by what means? What traces will make it possible to set up markers in a site of a scotoma? The questions become increasingly precise: Can cinema lift the veil that colonial history has thrown over the history of the Algerian War? And what can the nature of the blind spot be if every effort has been made to keep it hidden?


2021 ◽  
pp. 1245-1256
Author(s):  
Anna V. Andreeva ◽  
◽  
Ludmila M. Artamonova ◽  

The article examines and compares archival documents from the Russian State Archive in Samara (RGA v g. Samara) and Monument to the Ilyushin Il-2 as components of the “site of commemoration,” which has become a part of historical and cultural code of the city. The example of perception of this national and local symbol of the war reveals features of and prospects for constructing historical memory; detailed written evidences, vivid visual images, large-scale architectural and urban planning solutions are used. The theoretical basis for the research is Maurice Halbwachs’ concept of “historical memory” and Pierre Nora’s “lieux de m?moire.” Russian and foreign scientists are developing these concepts within the frameworks of interdisciplinary “memory studies.” The important role in these studies belongs to historians. Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45 became a backbone idea for our country. It gives meaning to the historical process in the 20th century, manifesting in numerous and various empirical data, events, and artifacts. The Ilyushin Il-2 became a significant “site of memory” in Samara for two reasons. Firstly, many documents on its creation are stored in the Russian State Archive in Samara and are available to researchers and constantly exhibited (on-line as well as real). Secondly, the Ilyushin Il-2 visually symbolizes Samara’s contribution to the Great Victory, as the aircraft, manufactured and restored here, became a center of the composition of the monument to military and labour glory of the citizens in the days of the Great Patriotic War. This monument was opened in 1973. Its last reconstruction was carried out in 2015–17 in order to preserve this unique historical relic. The aircraft-monument and written evidence on the history of its creation, destinies of inventors, production organizers, engineers, workers are situated not far from one other. The Constructor Ilyushin Square and the Memory Square, where the monument and the archive building stand, are connected by Moscow Avenue. It is not just a transport artery, but a pivot of historical memory uniting its documentary, material, and artistic incarnations into general cultural space, in which the Il-2 plays its important role as a "site of memory."


Race & Class ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 89-103
Author(s):  
Hosam Aboul-Ela

In Barbara Harlow’s last works, there was a distinctive methodological shift as she confronted the new realities of the post-9/11 world. The implications of this methodological movement are explored in this article through a reading of the history of the Yemeni city of Aden. Aden’s history – as a protectorate, an Arabic-speaking port, a virtual city-state and a link to East Africa – suggests the ways in which historical particularity often fits the colonial discourse paradigm imperfectly. Aden also later became a centre of radical anti-colonial solidarity in the 1970s, a centre of extreme jihadi activity during the war on terror and, most recently, a site of catastrophe manufactured by global elites. This historical trajectory also calls for a critical accounting of new methods and approaches for addressing the inequalities of the contemporary global order.


Author(s):  
Ana Temudo

This article presents the results of a musealization project at the Computer Engineering Department of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Oporto (FEUP), which aimed to bring together the history of computing in the academic context of the city, between the sixties of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first century. This research was rooted in the subjective and naturally fallible memory (Pollack, 1992) of the key people interviewed who, through their testimony, described the impact of technological transformations on their professional and personal experience. During the investigation, we did not try to find the history of the great moments and their "heroes", but rather the small, fragmented and diverse narratives of key persons. Our aim was thus to create a narrative rich in the deviations, flaws, and imperfections that distinguish Man from Machine. We accumulated stories (Kopytoff, 1988) through objects that we used as memory triggers (Simon, 2010) to set a social history of computing in Oporto. Upon realizing that we were also interested in capturing the “procedural memory” the participants then began to enthusiastically describe striking moments, mimicking the sound of machines and identifying friends and colleagues in documents and photographs. However, the most recurrent was the access to “episodic” and “historical” memory (David Manier and William Hirst 2010). We may say that this is a male-written story annotated by women. The immaterial heritage that this project recorded in the form of interviews supports and attributes values to the material heritage (objects, machines, utensils, books and documents) existing at FEUP museum, and attests to the plurality of its contexts of use and agents.


Author(s):  
К.А. Панченко

Abstract The article examines the conquest of the County of Tripoli by the Mamelukes in 1289, and the reaction of various Middle Eastern ethnoreligious groups to this event. Along with the Monophysite perspective (the Syriac chronicle of Bar Hebraeus’ Continuator and the work of the Coptic historian Mufaddal ibn Abi-l-Fadail), and the propagandist texts of Muslim Arabic panegyric poets, we will pay special attention to the historical memory of the Orthodox (Melkite) and Maronite communities of northern Lebanon. The contemporary of these events — the Orthodox author Suleiman al-Ashluhi, a native of one of the villages of the Akkar Plateau — laments the fall of Tripoli in his rhymed eulogy. It is noteworthy that this author belongs to the rural Melkite subculture, which — in spite of its conservative character — was capable of producing original literature. Suleiman al-Ashluhi’s work was forsaken by the following generations of Melkites; his poem was only preserved in Maronite manuscripts. Maronite historical memory is just as fragmented. The father of the Modern Era Maronite historiography — Gabriel ibn al-Qilaʿî († 1516) only had fragmentary information on the history of his people in the 13th century: local chronicles and the heroic epos that glorified the Maronite struggle against the Muslim lords that tried to conquer Mount Lebanon. Gabriel’s depiction of the past is not only biased and subject to aims of religious polemics, but also factually inaccurate. Nevertheless, the texts of Suleiman al-Ashluhi and Gabriel ibn al-Qilaʿî give us the opportunity to draw conclusions on the worldview, educational level, political orientation and peculiar traits of the historical memory of various Christian communities of Mount Lebanon.


Author(s):  
Elena N. NARKHOVA ◽  
Dmitry Yu. NARKHOV

This article analyzes the degree of demand for works of art (films and television films and series, literary and musical works, works of monumental art) associated with the history of the Great Patriotic War among contemporary students. This research is based on the combination of two theories, which study the dynamics and statics of culture in the society — the theory of the nucleus and periphery by Yu. M. Lotman and the theory of actual culture by L. N. Kogan. The four waves of research (2005, 2010, 2015, 2020) by the Russian Society of Socio¬logists (ROS) have revealed a series of works in various genres on this topic in the core structure and on the periphery of the current student culture; this has also allowed tracing the dynamics of demand and the “movement” of these works in the sociocultural space. The authors introduce the concept of the archetype of the echo of war. The high student recognition of works of all historical periods (from wartime to the present day) is shown. A significant complex of works has been identified, forming two contours of the periphery. Attention is drawn to the artistic work of contemporary students as a way to preserve the historical memory of the Great Patriotic War. This article explains the necessity of preserving the layer of national culture in order to reproduce the national identity in the conditions of informational and ideological pluralism of the post-Soviet period. The authors note the differentiation of youth due to the conditions and specifics of socialization in the polysemantic sociocultural space.


Author(s):  
G. Sujin Pak

The Reformation of Prophecy presents and supports the case for viewing the prophet and biblical prophecy as a powerful lens by which to illuminate many aspects of the reforming work of the Protestant reformers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It provides a chronological and developmental analysis of the significance of the prophet and biblical prophecy across leading Protestant reformers in articulating a theology of the priesthood of all believers, a biblical model of the pastoral office, a biblical vision of the reform of worship, and biblical processes for discerning right interpretation of Scripture. Through the tool of the prophet and biblical prophecy, the reformers framed their work under, within, and in support of the authority of Scripture—for the true prophet speaks the Word of God alone and calls the people, their worship and their beliefs and practices, back to the Word of God. The book also demonstrates how interpretations and understandings of the prophet and biblical prophecy contributed to the formation and consolidation of distinctive confessional identities, especially around differences in their visions of sacred history, Christological exegesis of Old Testament prophecy, and interpretation of Old Testament metaphors. This book illuminates the significant shifts in the history of Protestant reformers’ engagement with the prophet and biblical prophecy—shifts from these serving as a tool to advance the priesthood of all believers to a tool to clarify and buttress clerical identity and authority to a site of polemical-confessional exchange concerning right interpretations of Scripture.


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