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This study deals with journalistic coverage of historical events and their contextualization. It conceptualizes the relationship between history, collective memory, and contemporary media logic. It shows the specific treatment of news values on historical topics and the penetration of entertainment elements into the resulting media content. The case study analyzes the discrepancy between the perceived importance of some historical events in Czech society and their journalistic coverage using the example of Czech media production in the year of round anniversaries in 2018. It utilizes the concept of news values and identifies similar procedures in presenting historical events in the media. The result is a more robust media reminder for those events that meet specific news values for historical topics. Content analysis has shown that the media choose more significant media coverage of other anniversaries than those considered by the Czechs to be the most important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractBackgroundMethodsResultsConclusionsAlthough medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) are effective for treating opioid use disorder (OUD), persistent barriers still prevent patients from accessing this life-saving care. Policies to increase MOUD access have produced suboptimal results. This study presents a qualitative system dynamics model that elucidates the complexities of accessing and staying in MOUD treatment.We utilized a community-based system dynamics approach to modeling the MOUD treatment system. We engaged a cohort of system experts/stakeholders, including individuals who had received MOUD, treatment providers, and policymakers, in interviews and group model building to develop and refine a simulation model. We then created a qualitative causal loop diagram based on insights gained while developing the simulation model and a review of interview transcripts.The causal loop diagram captures four key factors affecting treatment initiation, retention, and leaving: (1) fraught interactions between patients and healthcare providers; (2) stigma-driven regulation of MOUD creating a culture of fear and defensive medicine; (3) a punitive culture in clinics and opioid treatment programs offering MOUD; and (4) the internalization of the abstinence narrative contributing to premature termination of treatment.Our analysis highlights how interdependent and non-linear feedback processes diminish or counteract the effectiveness and sustainability of MOUD policy interventions. Due to system memory and cultural resistance to change, even rolling back reactionary policies may do little to curb established behavioral patterns. In addition, conflicting and competing strategies among various actors within the system contribute to goal misalignment and a lack of standardization of care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the discursive construction of secular martyrdom in contemporary Arab discourse by analysing 215 Arabic public martyr texts in which martyrdom was used in non-religious contexts. Theoretically grounded in notions of memory [Castelli, E., 2004. Martyrdom and memory. New York: Columbia University Press] and embodied martyrdom [DeSoucey, M., et al., 2008. Memory and sacrifice: An embodied theory of martyrdom. Cultural sociology, 2 (1), 99–121]. The analysis shows that Arab secular martyrdom is employed to memorialise people who lost their lives as a result of political assassination, while performing a public duty or expressing dissenting political views, or who were victims of tragic disasters or killed as journalists while covering conflicts. These secular martyrs are discursively constructed as victims of oppression, injustice or bureaucratic failure and neglect. While religious references are used in these texts, they can be seen as formulaic expressions that do not confer religious meanings upon the martyrdom event. However, their use points to the fluidity of martyrdom within the religious-secular dichotomy and the non-fixity of this binary. The discursive construction of Arab secular martyrdom offers support to a theoretical conceptualisation of secular martyrdom in terms of collective memory, sacrifice, victimhood and bodily suffering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay utilises a series of oral history interviews conducted with women in West Belfast to consider the role of community nostalgia and transgenerational trauma within the post-accord landscape. It argues that nostalgia should not be dismissed as an unreliable assessor of historic communality and instead highlights its importance in understanding post-conflict community atomisation. Equally, it advocates for an understanding that nostalgic sentiments can co-exist alongside traumatic recollections and understandings of generational traumas. The simultaneous expression of these dichotomous feelings reveals the intricacies of women's collective remembrance, and the continued impact of historic traumas on present-day communities in West Belfast. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The text discusses the significance of opening Australia's multilingual archive, exploring the interplay between power, knowledge, and collective memory in the national archive. It delves into the impact of language and translation on Australian history-making, highlighting the challenges faced by migrants in the Anglophone West and the dominance of the English language. The article emphasizes the importance of multilingualism in reshaping historical narratives, challenging traditional structures, and enriching Australia's complex place in the world. [Extracted from the article]

National archives, libraries, and museums both expose and, directly or indirectly, collude with the military, legal, political, and rhetorical processes of exclusion that tend to obfuscate people's subjectivities. In this article, official spaces assigned to preserve national memory are placed into dialogue with other archival sites of memory preservation and retrieval of family and community past. By looking at the connections between diverse documents related to Italian-speaking individuals who were prisoners of war and civilian internees in Australia, during World War II, the article investigates how this material can be used to question hegemonic discourses and counters the 'monolingual paradigm'. Letters, diaries, and memoirs that account captivity and marginalisation during wartime offer cases of polyvocal texts as both creative and privileged sites of speech acts, discursive and material interactions where we can locate spaces of agency, connection and affect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the ways in which the memory of transnational traumatic events of war and conflict of the past have been represented at Wellington's waterfront and whether the site, with its multitude of memorial plaques, can be read as a lieu de mémoire. The study focuses on three commemorative plaques: the memorial plaque to those New Zealanders who took part in the Spanish Civil War (2011); the commemorative plaque to the Polish children of Pahīatua (2004); and the memorial plaque commemorating the arrival of the United States Marine Corps to New Zealand (1951/2000). It, first, examines the memory entrepreneurs behind the commemoration of the events the plaques depict and analyse whether these agents engaged in bottom-up or top-down mnemonic practices and activities (or a mixture of these). Second, it analyses the significance of these memorials in the collective memory of contemporary Aotearoa/New Zealand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates unofficial memory projects that have arisen in Australia in response to the institutional abuse of children. While the role of activists in pushing for the enactment of state responses is beginning to be understood, activist demands for recognition have taken a multitude of forms beyond this. Unofficial memory projects are indicative of this, exemplified by a diverse range of publicly situated cultural forms that re-present abuse to wider audiences. Focusing on two examples that have arisen in Australia in recent years – the grassroots phenomenon known as Loud Fence that grew out of the Victorian town of Ballarat, and the Australian Orphanage Museum that was established by Care leavers in 2023 – I examine these as examples of memory activism which generate counter-archives of institutional violence against children. Loud Fence does so upon institutional fences at the level of the streetscape, while the AOM does so by curating a museum space that honours the experiences of childhood 'Care'. Seeking to decentre the state from this analysis, I demonstrate how such examples enliven the fast and slow violence of child abuse and neglect, and the role of non-state actors when it comes to the recalibration of collective memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article "Chips from the Quarry" in the journal "Rocks & Minerals" discusses the history of the famed mineral locality Mont Saint-Hilaire in Québec, featuring previous articles on the quarry from 1986 and 1995. It also mentions the end of the Rochester Mineralogical Symposium and highlights upcoming events like the 2025 Tucson Show. Additionally, it invites nominations for mineralogical awards and acknowledges contributions from various mineral societies and individuals. [Extracted from the article]

This essay utilises a series of oral history interviews conducted with women in West Belfast to consider the role of community nostalgia and transgenerational trauma within the post-accord landscape. It argues that nostalgia should not be dismissed as an unreliable assessor of historic communality and instead highlights its importance in understanding post-conflict community atomisation. Equally, it advocates for an understanding that nostalgic sentiments can co-exist alongside traumatic recollections and understandings of generational traumas. The simultaneous expression of these dichotomous feelings reveals the intricacies of women's collective remembrance, and the continued impact of historic traumas on present-day communities in West Belfast. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I define territory as embodied, relational, processual, and imaginative: power enacted upon and through place. In the following article, I use this generative definition of territory as a lens to interrogate how memory becomes placed and bounded at Somerset Place, a historic plantation site in North Carolina. Through archival research into the negotiations between two state government agencies on the legal status of Somerset Place between 1939-1965, as well as analysis of the gendered and racialized criteria for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, I uncover how historic space was defined against recreational space – not only in the creation of Somerset Place, but in the heritage boom of the mid-twentieth century more broadly. In addition, by understanding territory as the historicized and ongoing enactment of power upon and through place, I reveal how formal and informal territories of public memory and public space are continuously defined, negotiated, and claimed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the interplay between memory, history, nationalism, and visual cultures by focussing on a framed photograph of a revolver gifted to Kamala Dasgupta’s family by the Calcutta (Now Kolkata) police after Indian independence. Once used in an attempted assassination during the anti-colonial struggle, the revolver has become an anomaly in the nation’s collective memory – a ‘floating signifier’ with an unfixed meaning. Analysing the photograph as a media spectacle and a symbol within national myths, I argue that it disrupts linear narratives of progress that dominate nationalist historiography. The article shows how Kamala’s act of procuring the revolver has been overshadowed by her comrade Bina Das’s violent act. Drawing on theories of the spectacle, national temporality, and subaltern studies, I illustrate the selective commemoration of revolutionary violence in India. The research in this paper demonstrates how precarious and subaltern histories such as Kamala’s can destabilise established national narratives and pluralise temporal orders of the nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the representation of childhood memory and trauma in Sorayya Khan’s novel Noor (2003) against the backdrop of the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. It discusses how personal recollections of public events contribute to the collective memory of the nation-state. The exploration includes the intergenerational transmission of trauma, employing Marianne Hirsch’s concept of ‘Postmemory,’ which describes how traumatic experiences are passed down, particularly in the context of the Holocaust. This framework has been contextualized within the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War and its aftermath on children, carrying the memories of war trauma forward, as illustrated in the novel through Noor and Sajida’s experiences. Through a close reading of the novel, this article aims to extricate the underlying patterns of childhood war memory and personal experiences that often get subsided in historical representations and emphasizes the pertinence of reading a representational narrative of the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War even after half a century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the ways in which British Second World War conscientious objectors (COs) have been commemorated, memorialized, and represented since 1945. Despite comprising nearly 60 000 men, the CO is strikingly absent in both the popular narrative of the Second World War and official, institutional commemorations of the conflict. This is not true of their First World War counterpart. This is unsurprising: the Second World War CO is largely at odds with popular British conceptions of the war as a ‘just’ conflict. Nevertheless, a broad and diverse set of initiatives have been established to commemorate the CO. The CO also features in numerous forms of post-war popular culture, including fiction, films, television programmes, and plays. It is these disparate remembrance practices and representations that this article brings together to help us explore both the memory of wartime conscientious objection and the broader cultural legacies of the Second World War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the Marcos golden age narratives on YouTube before the 2022 Philippine presidential elections. Despite evidence of brutality during the Marcos years, many Filipinos reminisce about his tenure as a period of peace and progress, influenced by selective historical accounts propagated through digital media. Expanding Laclau's theory of populism, we identify affective storytelling techniques prominent pro-Marcos YouTubers employ to glorify the Marcos era and examine them to understand how the populist logic of difference and equivalence guides the articulation of a romanticized past and endorses the vilification of elites and Marcos critics. Our analysis underscores the potency of nostalgia in populist and authoritarian politics, demonstrating their capacity to foster a collective yearning for a mythic past and stoke a collective desire for Marcos-brand authoritarianism. Ultimately, this article contributes to understanding the dynamics of historical revisionism and its implications for political discourse and historical consciousness in the digital age, emphasizing the role of YouTubers in shaping political landscapes through nostalgia and the manipulation of social memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vera Lynn’s ‘We’ll Meet Again’ maintains an omnipresence throughout modern British culture, apropos of its Second World War roots. And while a growing body of literature has focused on the propagandistic role of music during the Second World War, these studies have yet to link any select musical work’s historical popularity with its enduring preservation in the national cultural memory. This paper analyses the semiotic meanings and influence of ‘We’ll Meet Again’, both in its wartime context and in the ongoing British cultural memory of the war. In so doing, this research extrapolates the song’s inherent connections to wartime ideals of gender and the nation and concludes by presenting a theorised rationale for the song’s cultural longevity in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis study draws on site observation and worksheets from a field trip to examine children’s narratives of the exhibitions at the War Remnants Museum in Hô Chí Minh City, Vietnam, with a specific focus on the portrayal of the victims of Agent Orange through both “photographic” and “life” exhibitions. In applying Landsberg’s concept of “prosthetic memory,” the findings reveal how the photographic exhibition with its visual documentary evidence, and the life exhibition, through its interactive engagement, play important roles in the formation of children’s prosthetic memories of the US war in Vietnam. These exhibitions provide context, depth, and immediacy to the portrayal of the ongoing suffering of the Agent Orange victims, enabling children to integrate historical and personal memory. This dual approach influences their perceptions, interpretations, and remembrance of the war, enhancing their learning experience by offering a deeper, more nuanced understanding of the historical event. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing from the field of Cultural Memory Studies, this article examines the process of recollection as depicted in Sangre de amor correspondido (Seix Barral, 1982) by Manuel Puig (1932–1990). Within this novel, we witness the portrayal of memory processes through the eyes of Josemar, a marginalized construction worker from a small rural town in Brazil. The protagonist endeavors to narrate his life experiences through the lens of idealized hegemonic masculinity. Some scholars think that gender represents a fundamental facet of identity. Furthermore, identity emerges from introspective processes driven by memory. Consequently, this paper asserts that the integration and signifying of masculine prostheses hinge upon the articulation and solidification of a self-narrative rooted in "masculinity's social frameworks of memory." Through narration, hegemonic masculinity assumes a foundational role within individual identity; simultaneously, it disseminates the patterns—these social frameworks of memory—used for the interpretation and organization of life experiences as recollections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) experience a host of social problems, in addition to significant impairments in behavioral inhibition, working memory, and self-control. Behavioral inhibition and working memory difficulties have been linked with social functioning deficits, but to date, most studies have examined these neurocognitive problems either in isolation or as an aggregate measure in relation to social problems, and none has considered the role of self-control. Thus, it remains unclear whether all of these executive functions are linked with social problems or if the link can be more parsimoniously explained by construct overlap. Fifty-eight children with ADHD and 63 typically developing (TD) children completed tests assessing self-control, behavioral inhibition, and working memory; parents and teachers rated children's social functioning. Examination of potential indirect effects with the bootstrapping procedure indicated that working memory mediated the relation between group membership (ADHD, TD) and child social functioning based on teacher but not parent ratings. Behavioral inhibition and self-control did not have direct relations with either parent- or teacher-rated social functioning. These findings point to important differences regarding how executive functioning difficulties manifest at school compared to home, as well as the specific executive function components that predict ADHD-related social difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The editorial flourishing of graphic narratives in Spain provided memoirs and fictionalisations of the civil war and the dictatorship at the core of the phenomenon. I analyse the transmission of paternal memories in the works of Miguel Ángel Gallardo and Francisco Gallardo (Un largo silencio, 1997) and Antonio Altarriba and Kim (El arte de volar, 2009). While both Gallardo and Altarriba collect and (re)produce their father's memories, I point out their distinct approaches that echo two different zeitgeists of representation. The spirit of the Spanish transition – the so-called 'Pact of Silence' – that prevails in Gallardo's patrilineal account, was revisited throughout a sort of Lacanian père-version in Altarriba's narrative. The latter perverts, in form and substance, the Transition as a patrilineal norm, constituting a transgression from the symbolic status quo, from the silence that actually prevails in both Gallardo's story and the transition itself, although without abandoning the patriarchal lineage and scope. I argue that while that patrilineal account is symbolic, celebratory and literal in Un largo silencio, such patrilineality unfolds as imaginary, inquisitive and literary in Altarriba's narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the resurgence of nationalism in recent years, with many political leaders promoting an ethnocentric cult of the nation-state and implementing restrictive immigration policies. The article proposes the concept of "encounters" as a lens for understanding the construction and deconstruction of nations through various practices. It explores how encounters challenge traditional notions of identity and offers a more nuanced understanding of nations as dynamic and fragmented entities. The article also highlights the importance of studying encounters within and between nations, as well as their intersection with other forms of belonging. The special issue includes contributions that examine encounters in various contexts, such as refugee hotspots, diasporic communities, media, literature, and historical events. Overall, the article aims to provide interdisciplinary perspectives on nations and nationalism, moving beyond essentialist and typological thinking. [Extracted from the article]

The article investigates the Suharto rule regime's use of necropolitics to construct Indonesia's memory of the 1965–66 mass murders. These memory politics were based on the anti-communist myth, which was the basis of the memory formation and creation of positive and negative heroes closely related to political changes. The regime used the bodies of generals who were killed during the attempted coup for political purposes, thus permanently anchoring this image in Indonesian society's space and memory. Herein, the image of the generals' bodies is juxtaposed with that of the victims' bodies, which are still cursed and excluded from official Indonesian history. These necropolitics served the Suharto regime's various interests of power, knowledge, and the clash between sacred and cursed bodies. Thus, the generals' and victims' bodies enhanced Suharto's credibility. In this context, the generals' bodies are treated as sacred, while the victims' bodies are considered to be cursed, but both are causative agents of the development of the regime's historical narrative, collective memory, and national identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the theme of public transport in African literatures and aims to bridge the gap between mobilities research and African literary studies. It acknowledges the criticism that mobilities scholarship often focuses on the Global North and neglects experiences in the Global South. The article argues for a nuanced approach that considers historical and contextual specificities when studying African literary mobilities. It also emphasizes the importance of shedding light on local, intra-African forms of mobility and challenges the binary distinction between formal and informal public transportation. The article concludes by discussing the limited attention given to public transport in African literary studies and highlights the need to study its literary dimensions. The special issue of the journal further explores the politics and representations of public transport mobilities in African literatures, addressing topics such as accessibility, class, race, and the role of public transport in post-colonial societies. The studies emphasize the interconnected nature of public transport mobilities and call for more research in this area with a broader regional scope. [Extracted from the article]

In Malaysia, even the ghosts are transnational. Rani Manicka’s 2002 debut novel The Rice Mother follows the intergenerational narratives of a diasporic Ceylonese family in Malaysia. As they reflect on the atrocities of the Second World War and Japanese Occupation – notably the abduction and presumed murder of the eldest daughter, Mohini, by Japanese soldiers – each family member shares their haunted relationship with Mohini’s ghost. While Avery Gordon and Kathleen Brogan have examined how hauntings can characterize social or ethnic loss, Mohini’s hauntings are unique to the Ceylonese diaspora in Malaysia. In addition to the family members encountering her ghost through dreams – significant connections to the spiritual world in Hindu mythology – Mohini’s character is inspired by the mohini pey, a legendary ghost from Southern India and Sri Lanka. However, the discrepancy between mohini the ghost and Mohini the character interrogates the malleability of memory across generations. How might hauntings – manifestations of the traumatic past – change as generations evolve and reaffiliate cultural memory over time? Drawing on Marianne Hirsch’s concept of postmemory, this paper examines the family’s evolving relationship with Mohini’s ghost and argues that the residual power of diasporic heritage inherited through storytelling provides a path for generational healing in a new homeland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores Israel's involvement in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia. It discusses Israel's military aid to Azerbaijan and its strategic interests in the region, particularly its concerns about Iran's influence. The article also examines the complex relationships between Israel, Turkey, and Iran, focusing on the Holocaust denial and the Armenian Genocide. It highlights the role of memory politics and the challenges of aligning the interests of the Armenian diaspora with those of the Armenian government. Additionally, the article discusses Israel's decision not to intervene or condemn Azerbaijan's ethnic cleansing in Artsakh in 2023. [Extracted from the article]

The Club, a Turkish series exclusively produced for Netflix, challenges the official historical narrative of modern Turkey by depicting the experiences of minorities on the brink of the country’s political upheaval. It highlights the state’s complex relations with its minorities and historical events that are often silenced in the official historical narrative. This study looks at how Turkey’s dark pasts pertaining to its religious minorities are portrayed in The Club and the ways in which its audience respond to these dark pasts. It argues that the audience of The Club recreates the silences about the past, resulting in the denial or rationalization of state violence, while emphasizing a nostalgic multi-cultural past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis paper examines the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on memories and metaphors associated with the earlier AIDS epidemic. It argues that while previous research has focused on how HIV informs COVID-19, the reverse relationship has received insufficient attention. The authors propose a more comprehensive understanding of the issues, using insights from the sociology of memory. Experiences during COVID-19 not only reshape perceptions of HIV in the present but also transform how we remember the AIDS crisis of the past. We discuss the impact of these pandemics particularly for gay and bisexual men and their connected communities. Doing so underscores the co-construction of collective memories in the present, suggesting that COVID-19 has not only redefined our experience of HIV, but it has also reframed our understanding of the earlier AIDS crisis. We conclude by highlighting the potential for these transformations to be leveraged for empowerment, political action and change. Revisiting and reframing our memories of AIDS in the light of COVID-19 can open up new avenues for optimism and positive engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collective memories refer to a group’s shared representation of the past, which are slow to change over time. In this study, representative samples of American and German Younger Adults (YAs) and Older Adults (OAs) rated the emotional valence of 12 national historic events. Critically, both age groups were also asked to take on the perspective of the other: OAs imagined how YAs feel, whereas YAs imagined how OAs feel about the same events today. The results replicated previous findings that OAs and YAs hold differing opinions on numerous events. Both age groups successfully recognised these different collective perceptions between generations to some extent. Yet, OAs were more accurate in the perspective-taking task, with YAs consistently underestimating the intensity of OAs’ emotional valence. Self-reported perspective-taking strategies suggest that OAs relied more on stereotypes and considered education, while knowledge from specific people was universally used to rate the other age group’s perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the concept of prosthetic memory and textual inheritance by analyzing Nicole Krauss's novel, "The History of Love," with the insights of philosopher Bernard Stiegler. Stiegler argues that texts act as posthuman mechanisms that transmit knowledge and memory. He emphasizes the interdependent relationship between technology and culture, highlighting the significance of technological artifacts in preserving societal practices and enabling new ways of incorporating technical objects into our connection with the past. Krauss's novel exemplifies this idea by showing how texts and images serve as prosthetic aids for memory, allowing for the preservation and transmission of the past. The article also discusses the role of technology in preserving and reconstructing historical memory, enabling the present generation to engage with and comprehend narratives from unfamiliar pasts. It uses the example of a young girl named Alma Singer to illustrate this concept, as she seeks to understand her father's language and her literary namesake. The article suggests that our interactions with technology shape the future of memory. [Extracted from the article]

The 2011 Egyptian uprising, which ended President Husni Mubarak’s thirty-year rule, initially painted him as a pharaoh. However, more than a decade since his overthrow, Mubarak’s image is variedly invoked and embodied across Egypt. Schools, hospitals, streets, and squares proudly bear his name. Social media groups glorify his memory, while locals openly express longing for his era. Unlike other deposed Arab leaders during the ‘Arab Spring’, Mubarak received a state military funeral, elevating him to a revered patriot and hero. This paper explores the constructions of Mubarak’s image in Egyptian collective memory, at the official and vernacular levels. The paper’s core argument emphasizes that during the transition period, revolutionary forces shaped a negative public memory of Mubarak. Yet in recent years, the resurgence of authoritarianism has marginalized these forces, allowing pro-Mubarak factions to advance a positive depiction, idealizing his legacy, and fostering feelings of regret. The post-June 2013 official narrative regarding Mubarak delicately manoeuvres between these competing narratives. It exalts his military role in the 1973 war while undermining his political heritage, thereby preventing any single narrative from dominating and thwarting influential factions in civil society from challenging the regime’s resilience with a political alternative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the strive for self-determination and European integration, Kosovo’s elites have been keen to suppress the Ottoman and Yugoslav heritages and memories in support of a Euro-Atlantic future. As Prishtina’s residents fight an ongoing ‘battle for public space,’ long-forgotten places that have fallen into oblivion become sites where alternative narratives can emerge, engaging various generations in contesting dominant historical narratives. This is the declared objective of the Urban Arts Biennale MANIFESTA which was hosted in Prishtina in the summer of 2022, bringing together international artists, academics and activists with the aim of reviving and claiming forgotten public spaces and investigating the narratives surrounding them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractNaming oneself, and claiming an identity and a community, depends largely upon how people define and represent themselves, and whether that self-definition and representation is accepted by, or legible to, others who inhabit different social positions based on age, gender, sexuality, and often generation. My aim is neither to rehabilitate the lesbian past or lesbian words for identity, nor to reject the increasingly broad use of the term queer. Rather, as a Generation X lesbian, I contend that lesbian culture, identity, and community continue to have much to offer for other categories of queerness that are similarly “untidy”, contested, or less well-understood by the mainstream. Approaching lesbian history, culture, and identity as dynamic and complex broadens possibilities for who might find connection and belonging in a lesbian past and a queer future. I explore an eclectic lesbian archive with an intergenerational Canadian focus that centers lesbian identity, community, and representation. My analysis supports my assertion that lesbian and queer inheritance flow multi-directionally, across and among people of varied generations and different social locations. I further posit that far from being anachronistic, lesbian, as a term for identity and culture, and as a political project, has ongoing productive potential, vitality, and agility that exceeds generational or linear understandings due to its fundamental grounding in self-definition. (Re)circulating lesbian and queer culture, therefore, functions as intergenerational wealth, community building, and cultural memory, bridging past pleasures, knowledge, and affective attachments with present and future possibilities for living. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sample this: a hypothetical menu book of fish recipes from both sides of the Bengal border; a barbed wire running through the Ichhamati, showing the river's indifference to political borders; a sandstone and fabric pillar standing as a metaphoric monument of unity between religions, commemorating Gandhi's peace march in Noakhali in 1946; an accordion book opening out, unfolding narratives immortalised in Ritwik Ghatak's films. These are some of the artworks that were showcased at The Legacy of Loss: Perspectives on the Partition of Bengal, an Art Exhibition that the Kolkata Partition Museum Trust (KPMT) organised in collaboration with the Kolkata Centre for Creativity (KCC), to commemorate the 74th anniversary of India's Partition. The Exhibition ran from 17 to 29 August 2021 at KCC, and was supported by Tata Steel and the Emami Foundation. Conceptualised and conceived by the late art historian, Dr. Rajasri Mukhopadhyay, and curated by KCC, this was an unique Exhibition on the Bengal Partition by five contemporary artists – Paula Sengupta, Vinayak Bhattacharya, Debasish Mukherjee, Amritah Sen and Dilip Mitra – each with a distinct style and perspective on the theme. As Rajasri Mukhopadhyay put it, Partition provided 'the psychological topography for this Exhibition. The pictorial narratives ... [found here] are embedded in the geographical sites of ancestry, the physical border, the trajectories of nostalgia in refugee colonies, and stories of inherited memories.' This paper will delve into the uniqueness of this Exhibition and argue for the importance of the Arts in preserving cultural memory, something that KPMT strongly believes in. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This short piece introduces the special issue 'Partition and the South Asian diaspora: exploring (inherited) memories and creative practices of remembering'. This issue was conceived at the juncture of intersecting commemorations of key historical events – 1947 Partition of British India, 1971 Bangladesh independence and 1972 exodus from Uganda – in South Asia and its diasporas. By bringing together articles focused on practices of commemorating these events, we propose that studying entangled memories of Partition and its associated events in the diaspora provides a distinct perspective, both in terms of creative and cultural practices of remembering and in terms of the construction of diasporic identities and belongings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A little History of the Sikhs is a London-based initiative that explores traces of Sikh history found within the museums, memorials, parks, and streets of London. Through walking tours, they work to introduce their audiences to the shared history of the Sikhs and Britain and touch upon critical moments in the making of British Asian history, such as Partition. In this interview with the Migrant Memory and the Postcolonial Imagination project team, Rav Singh, founder of A little History of the Sikhs, will discuss the role of urban space in London in the preservation of cultural memory, reflect on participants' engagement with the tours and the significance of preserving and transmitting memories of empire, Partition, and migration in the diaspora. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has left an enduring mark on human history. This study investigates the intergenerational transmission of COVID-19 memories through a unique approach involving 49 participants aged 18-30. Specifically, participants were prompted to share a COVID-19 memory they would choose to transmit to their future children. Furthermore, participants provided reasons for selecting that particular memory, utilising a memory functions scale and open-ended responses. Applying Transition Theory, we examined the transitional impact, event importance, previous rehearsal, and valence of reported memories. Results revealed that 88% of memories revolve around distinctive events inducing psychological and material changes. Perceived as significant, negative, and transitional, these memories are predominantly public in nature. Predictors of event importance include previous rehearsal and psychological change. Participants share memories primarily for directive purposes, intending to inform future generations. The results imply that transitions not only organise personal memories but may also direct and shape memories for public events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through a consideration of their reverberant characteristics, this article places representations of recording studios as an active cultural process that plays out through the recorded sounds such spaces become associated with. Like other heritage sites, the work to define, maintain, and allocate certain structures as unique or significant relies on the cultural process of collective memory. By focusing on the concept of sonic recollection, the reconfiguration of unique tracking room environments for "in the box" digital audio workstation software, exemplified through reverberation, is shown to draw from a network of people, sounds, and technologies that cumulatively reflect various stages of a recording studio's trajectory. By uncovering this network – encompassing well-known and unnamed engineers, famous to merely aspiring recording artists, established or defunct studios and software companies, and technologies such as convolution reverb, all of which articulate one another in digital audio workstation software – it suggests that the theoretical underpinnings of collective memory studies are a useful tool of analysis to more fully frame reconstructions or representations of physical spaces undertaken through recorded sound, and that reverberation is an ideal metaphor for the work of collective memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As with previous crises, EU-wide risk-sharing has also been demanded during the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet, this crisis did not unfold in a political vacuum. Instead, public backing for EU-wide risk-sharing might have been informed by past crises experiences. Building on the idea of experienced reciprocal risk-sharing, we assume that the willingness to share risks is greater when a crisis-ridden country has also shown solidarity before, whereas readiness to cooperate may be mitigated by non-solidarity-oriented behaviour in the past. We test this assumption based on a survey experiment carried out in eleven EU countries in 2020. Our findings suggest that, when people are given information about whether another country has acted in solidarity in the past, this influences their willingness to support risk-sharing in the present. However, we also find evidence that respondents' preferences outside the experimental setting do not always match their country's recent history of reciprocal risk-sharing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author describes the use of media, such as drawing, painting, speaking, digital art, Internet, music, film and writing, as sites of memory in teaching art online during the COVID-19 pandemic. The online class explored students' subconscious minds, personal memory and collective memory using multimedia choice-based art. The outcome of the media teaching and learning are highlighted, including development of a sense of identity through memory as a place of belonging.

Similar visual forms can have different meanings and the messages that symbols carry are context specific. Some of the symbols are inevitably contested due to their historical uses. This article explores what is probably the most notorious of contested symbols: the swastika and its local variant in Latvia, the ugunskrusts (Cross of Fire). With the aim of analyzing vernacular narratives connected with contemporary uses of the ugunskrusts in Latvia, the article focuses on situations in which there is a conscious choice to use the ugunskrusts with the intention of reclaiming and rehabilitating the symbol for artistic and spiritual reasons, based on a belief in the symbol's benign nature and with the help of narratives of cultural heritage. Despite these claims, however, the cases are not just about symbols or cultural heritage, but are just as much about historical conflicts in the past and current political affairs. Thus, the article shows how different national experiences of crimes committed by totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century determine the interpretation of, and attitude toward, the use of symbols connected with these regimes. I examine how collective memory battles are mirrored in the use of this contested symbol. Despite the voices that deny the negative connotation of the symbol locally, the image of the swastika in the western world is inevitably tied to Nazism. Therefore, I look at how the attitude toward this symbol correlates with the interpretation of World War II in the collective memory of Latvia. The article is based on in-depth ethnographic interviews conducted since 2017. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how a mnemonic community of a senior and junior generation of frontline managers, respectively with first-hand and second-hand memories of the organizational past, enact a shared historical transition narrative as part of their everyday practice of change management in a Scandinavian telecommunications company. The study shows the importance of actors' individual trajectories and generational memberships for the understanding of collective memory in organizations. Based on the construct narrative habitus, the paper offers, as its primary theoretical contribution, a practice-theoretical framework for the study of mnemonic socialization and cross-generational dynamics of organizational mnemonic communities. MAD statement This article aims to Make A Difference (MAD) by providing an analysis of junior and senior managers' use of a historical transition narrative during temporally prolonged organizational change. The article offers new perspectives on the use of historical narratives and collective memory to manage change by showing that junior and senior generations of managers are habitually dispositioned to enact shared narratives in different ways. While extant research has shown collective memory to be an effective change management tool, our analysis draws attention to cross–generational dynamics as a particularly influential yet overlooked factor in shaping managerial enactments of shared historical narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractFor centuries, international reparations were commonly exacted as a form of victor’s justice after war. Following World War II, however, the bitter legacy of the Treaty of Versailles and West Germany’s compensation of Nazism’s victim shifted this practice, ushering in a novel moral economy of international reparations. Yet, while recent decades have seen increased transnational activism around reparations, as well as interstate aid payments and official apologies, international reparations remain infrequent, and agreements often fail to end financial claims. This paper argues that one explanation for this lackluster record is a central paradox relating to finality. Though international reparations are designed to settle accounts and provide a basis for deeper reconciliation, by opening issues of traumatic memory to public debate, they often achieve the opposite effect and inspire a cascade of further financial claims. As evidence, we examine three cases of international reparations’ occurrence and rejection: Germany’s reparations for Nazi-era crimes, the United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC) formation following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, and reparations negotiated but removed from the 1973 Paris Peace Accords. Employing process tracing methods on archival documents, we demonstrate in each case how this paradox helps explain international reparations’ limitations as a practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most accounts of the Indonesian revolution in South Sulawesi have focused on the two groups fighting for power: the Republic of Indonesia as a new nation-state and the Dutch, who wanted to regain control. What is absent from this way of viewing history are the views of local elites, who wanted to retain their traditional authority and whose ideas about the nation-state were based on their oral traditions, which have the potential to affect the reconstruction and politicisation of collective memory in the struggle for cultural rights and political authority. This article examines how the Polombangkeng community used oral traditions to justify local input into the cause of the revolution in South Sulawesi. During the Indonesian revolution, the Polombangkeng people drew on their oral tradition to define leadership positions, claims of political authority, and alliance formation. Their narratives about their identity were supported by ritual ceremonies. The article argues that the Indonesian revolution in Polombangkeng was more than just a power struggle between ‘Indonesian’ and ‘Dutch’ groups: it was also a process of negotiating and/or renegotiating identities, driven by the desire to stake traditional authority claims through the justification of oral traditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research notes examine a shared memory created during the Russian war against Ukraine, as depicted in news coverage of global media outlets, and in Ukrainian-language competitive poetry from international free competitions and Ukrainian governmental art projects. The research goal is to explain the hidden dangers and consequences of war memorization. The author compares public collective evaluations of key metaphors used in news during the initial three weeks of war and analyzes key images in Ukrainian poetry from pre-war and wartime periods. Preliminary results of the secondary qualitative content analysis of news and analysis of group discussions with students specializing in different fields illustrate how the metaphors varied in terms of adequacy and artistic expressiveness due to societal evaluations. The findings of quantitative semantic analysis of Ukrainian-language poems highlight how the shift in key images correlates with the transition from a relatively peaceful context to an overtly military one. The knowledge gained contributes to a better understanding of memory weaponization and specific ways in which collective sensitivity is little influenced by media positions (pro-Ukrainian or non-pro-Ukrainian), being more dependent on a sense of morality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how a contemporary music video can pass down memories and trauma in post-dictatorial Chile. Focusing on a video by the Chilean band Illapu, it uses theories of collective trauma and (post)memory to show how the video represents past traumas and challenges dominant narratives and current negationist discourses. The study finds that the video uses audio-visual and (inter)textual elements to make viewers reflect on the past, underlining its ability to counter attempts to deny or distort history. This contributes to understanding how music videos can serve as sites of “voiced postmemories” and act as powerful tools in the collective processing of traumatic events, promoting truth, justice, and reconciliation in post-dictatorial Chile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a rethinking of the temporal conditions of childhood by centring the affective experiences of fourteen young activists who continuously inhabit the past by working at a collective memory museum in Colombia. It questions notions of time as linear, progressive, chronological, and universal and instead presents alternative ways of being in time. I discuss young activists’ struggles to imagine mundane futures while constantly comparing themselves with the experiences of the victims of the armed conflict. I then discuss how the museum, as an institutional site of remembrance, sanitises and dictates how the young museum workers ought to remember, making them feel inadequate when their emotions do not align with the museum’s mission. The young activists demonstrate how their transitions into adulthood are determined by simultaneously inhabiting multiple temporalities and defying adult expectations on how to remember. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Museums have expanded beyond their initial role in preserving artefacts as memory intuitions, playing an educational role and being tourist attractions. They had to adapt and increasingly utilise digital technologies to stay relevant in contemporary times. The use of technology in museums can be divided into two domains: digitalisation and digitisation. This study reviews 83 screened articles aligning with the guidelines of PRISMA systematic review to analyse existing knowledge about digitalisation and digitisation in museums, to demonstrate how these processes impact the role of museums, memory-making, and identify gaps for further research. The results indicate that digitalisation and digitisation enhance the overall museum experience for museum visitors and promote the educational aspect of museums as an 'interconnected space'. Notable use of digitalisation includes the use of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality, while digitisation often is present through museum websites. Nonetheless, four current challenges for museums have been identified that warrant further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThe do-it-yourself (DIY) and maker cultures have expanded into older adult communities and shown to bring a strong agency and well-being outcomes. Looking into well-established spaces, where older adults have engaged in making over a longer period, can provide an insight into the sustained motivations and benefits of making for older adults. Men’s sheds represent a great opportunity in this regard, as they are open, community spaces where retired, older men engage in woodworking, metalworking and other craft-based activities. We involved nine men’s shed members in a creative inquiry where a “probe kit” consisting of recycled timber and wooden materials was provided. The participants were asked to create an artifact from the kit for someone other than themselves. We interviewed them once they completed their projects and qualitatively analyzed their design process. Our findings show that older men’s involvement in making is driven by the ethos of “making for others” and can be seen across three themes: (1) creative expressions; (2) memories and social connections; and (3) practical needs. We unpack these themes in the paper and discuss factors that can play an important role when engaging with older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2017 an exhibition of over 100 craft pieces created by Chilean political prisoners held in concentration camps during the military dictatorship, was launched in the UK along with an accompanying short film, 'Crafting Resistance: the Art of Chilean Political Prisoners'. Drawing on these arts-based interventions, the paper reflects on the use of craft objects both as a symbol of political resistance and a means of initiating difficult conversations around forced political exile, trauma and mental health while creating space for people to 'tell their stories'. Indeed, the paper contends that projects such as Crafting Resistance can 'care for knowledge' through the curation of craftwork while simultaneously creating space for counter memories. The analysis also highlights the changing relationship between the craft makers and the craftwork, argueing that placing the craft objects within the exhibition assigns a new role to the objects as they became part of a display of collective memories and potentially contribute towards collective healing. Finally, the paper advocates for greater recognition of the historical use of craft as a political expression, which to date has been relatively neglected in debates around the use of arts-based research and methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a practical and theoretical exploration of a (highly) specialised type of comics re-mediation, namely, audio described (AD) comics for the Blind and Partially Sighted (BPS). Building on relevant work in comics studies and translation studies, it is argued that translation activity, broadly seen to include interlingual as well as intersemiotic translation (Jakobson 1959), helps rewrite original works. Translation is defined as a blend, or a hybrid mental space combining characteristics of source and target contexts. As such, it entails the imbrication of personal memory, collective memory and the diffusion of a translator's memory in linguistic codes, social milieus, textual traditions and digital capabilities at play. AD exhibits the same blend logic in that it selectively contains visual source-text information in target-text audio performance. An exploratory comics AD pilot project at The Cartoon Museum (London) serves as an exemplar. The project consists of three phases: a focused interview with the creative team (describer, curator, comic artists); scripting and performance of three AD samples; and collecting feedback from BPS visitors. The project reveals how collective memory started to form in this dialogic process and, ultimately, which aspects of AD practice may be deemed to be effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]