Sebastian Veg (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9789888390762
- eISBN:
- 9789888455614
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888390762.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
Over the past 10 or 15 years in China, there has been unprecedented critical public discussion of key episodes in PRC history, in particular the Great Famine of 1959-1961, the Anti-Rightist movement ...
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Over the past 10 or 15 years in China, there has been unprecedented critical public discussion of key episodes in PRC history, in particular the Great Famine of 1959-1961, the Anti-Rightist movement of 1957, and the Cultural Revolution, with the wave of Red Guard apologies. These discussions are quite different from previous expressions of traumatic or nostalgic memories of the Mao era, respectively in the 1980s and 1990s. They reflect both growing dissatisfaction with the authoritarian control over history exercised by the Chinese state, and the new spaces provided for counter-hegemonic narratives by social media and the growing private economy in the 2000s. Unofficial or independent journals, self-published books, social media groups, independent documentary films, private museums, oral history projects, and archival research by amateur historians have all contributed to embryonic public or semi-public discussion. The present volume provides an overview of these new forms of popular memory, in particular critical memory, of the Mao era. Focusing on the processes of private production, public dissemination, and social sanctioning of narratives of the past in contemporary China, it examines the relation between popular memories and their social construction as historical knowledge. The three parts of the book are devoted to the shifting boundary between private and public in the press and media, the reconfiguration of elite and popular discourses in cultural productions (film, visual art, literature), and the emergence of new discourses of knowledge in popular history.Less
Over the past 10 or 15 years in China, there has been unprecedented critical public discussion of key episodes in PRC history, in particular the Great Famine of 1959-1961, the Anti-Rightist movement of 1957, and the Cultural Revolution, with the wave of Red Guard apologies. These discussions are quite different from previous expressions of traumatic or nostalgic memories of the Mao era, respectively in the 1980s and 1990s. They reflect both growing dissatisfaction with the authoritarian control over history exercised by the Chinese state, and the new spaces provided for counter-hegemonic narratives by social media and the growing private economy in the 2000s. Unofficial or independent journals, self-published books, social media groups, independent documentary films, private museums, oral history projects, and archival research by amateur historians have all contributed to embryonic public or semi-public discussion. The present volume provides an overview of these new forms of popular memory, in particular critical memory, of the Mao era. Focusing on the processes of private production, public dissemination, and social sanctioning of narratives of the past in contemporary China, it examines the relation between popular memories and their social construction as historical knowledge. The three parts of the book are devoted to the shifting boundary between private and public in the press and media, the reconfiguration of elite and popular discourses in cultural productions (film, visual art, literature), and the emergence of new discourses of knowledge in popular history.
Bonnie Thomas
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781496810557
- eISBN:
- 9781496810595
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496810557.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
In order to explore the theme of connecting histories in personal narratives from the francophone Caribbean, it is important first to examine some of the scholarly debates surrounding history, memory ...
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In order to explore the theme of connecting histories in personal narratives from the francophone Caribbean, it is important first to examine some of the scholarly debates surrounding history, memory and trauma in the Caribbean and elsewhere. Many studies–including those by Caribbean writers themselves–have emphasized themes of lack, rupture and discontinuity in relation to Caribbean history. For Martinique and Guadeloupe, this loss is primarily explained as a result of slavery and its persistent psychological influences, combined with an ongoing and problematic relationship with France. In the case of Haiti, the loss relates more closely to the political and natural disasters that have plagued the country since independence and have left it in a state of crippling poverty. While it is impossible to deny the impact of these traumas, the present book aims to view the traumatic legacy through a paradigm characterized instead by connection and connectivity.Less
In order to explore the theme of connecting histories in personal narratives from the francophone Caribbean, it is important first to examine some of the scholarly debates surrounding history, memory and trauma in the Caribbean and elsewhere. Many studies–including those by Caribbean writers themselves–have emphasized themes of lack, rupture and discontinuity in relation to Caribbean history. For Martinique and Guadeloupe, this loss is primarily explained as a result of slavery and its persistent psychological influences, combined with an ongoing and problematic relationship with France. In the case of Haiti, the loss relates more closely to the political and natural disasters that have plagued the country since independence and have left it in a state of crippling poverty. While it is impossible to deny the impact of these traumas, the present book aims to view the traumatic legacy through a paradigm characterized instead by connection and connectivity.
Sebastian Veg and Sebastian Veg (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9789888390762
- eISBN:
- 9789888455614
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888390762.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This introductory essay provides a theoretical and historical overview of how the notions of memory and history have been conceptualized in relation to China. In Pierre Nora’s view state-led memory ...
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This introductory essay provides a theoretical and historical overview of how the notions of memory and history have been conceptualized in relation to China. In Pierre Nora’s view state-led memory sacralizes the past, whereas history, as produced by civil society, tends to rationalize it; in authoritarian settings, an additional distinction is often drawn between “official history” and “popular memory,” construed as more “authentic.” This essay further historicizes the notion of popular memories of the Mao era by arguing that they have followed a three-tiered evolution: the first stage in the 1980s gave rise to the expression of mainly traumatic but closely controlled narratives, the second stage in the 1990s was dominated by nostalgia and social protest against marketization of the economy, while the third stage investigated in the present volume evinces a turn toward public debate and critical memory.Less
This introductory essay provides a theoretical and historical overview of how the notions of memory and history have been conceptualized in relation to China. In Pierre Nora’s view state-led memory sacralizes the past, whereas history, as produced by civil society, tends to rationalize it; in authoritarian settings, an additional distinction is often drawn between “official history” and “popular memory,” construed as more “authentic.” This essay further historicizes the notion of popular memories of the Mao era by arguing that they have followed a three-tiered evolution: the first stage in the 1980s gave rise to the expression of mainly traumatic but closely controlled narratives, the second stage in the 1990s was dominated by nostalgia and social protest against marketization of the economy, while the third stage investigated in the present volume evinces a turn toward public debate and critical memory.
David N. Myers
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780300228939
- eISBN:
- 9780300231403
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300228939.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
Witnessing can assume many different forms including religious, literary, and legal versions. This chapter begins by focusing on examples of textual witnessing such as the sourcebooks of Tcherikower ...
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Witnessing can assume many different forms including religious, literary, and legal versions. This chapter begins by focusing on examples of textual witnessing such as the sourcebooks of Tcherikower and Dubnow mentioned in Chapter 2 in which the compilers assembled troves of documents as a form of historical proof. The focus then shifts from the first to the second half of the twentieth century by discussing instances in which historians are called upon to take the stand in legal cases. The chapter explores a range of cases related to the Holocaust in which historians played important roles as witnesses, particularly the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem in 1961 in which historian Salo W. Baron was a key witness. The chapter concludes by discussing the libel trial brought by David Irving against Deborah Lipstadt in London in 2000 in which a “dream team” of historians, including Richard Evans and Christopher Browning, served as defense witnesses. The victory of Lipstadt’s side proved to be a vindication for memory, as well as history, and, as such, an indication of the somewhat porous boundary between them.
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Witnessing can assume many different forms including religious, literary, and legal versions. This chapter begins by focusing on examples of textual witnessing such as the sourcebooks of Tcherikower and Dubnow mentioned in Chapter 2 in which the compilers assembled troves of documents as a form of historical proof. The focus then shifts from the first to the second half of the twentieth century by discussing instances in which historians are called upon to take the stand in legal cases. The chapter explores a range of cases related to the Holocaust in which historians played important roles as witnesses, particularly the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem in 1961 in which historian Salo W. Baron was a key witness. The chapter concludes by discussing the libel trial brought by David Irving against Deborah Lipstadt in London in 2000 in which a “dream team” of historians, including Richard Evans and Christopher Browning, served as defense witnesses. The victory of Lipstadt’s side proved to be a vindication for memory, as well as history, and, as such, an indication of the somewhat porous boundary between them.
Michel Bonnin and Sebastian Veg (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9789888390762
- eISBN:
- 9789888455614
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888390762.003.0011
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter examines an example of how minjian memories and minjian historiography transform our knowledge of the history of the Cultural Revolution. In the case of the end of the Rustication ...
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This chapter examines an example of how minjian memories and minjian historiography transform our knowledge of the history of the Cultural Revolution. In the case of the end of the Rustication movement, many unofficial sources contradict the official version, represented by the press of the time or by the recent TV series Deng Xiaoping. In February 1979, while the People’s Daily published a speech criticizing the Yunnan educated youth who had come to Beijing to demand the right to return to their native cities, on the ground in Yunnan, the educated youths were in fact packing up and going back home by the thousands, after a victorious petitioning movement. This movement of historical importance was never officially acknowledged. In the TV series, the sudden end of the rustication movement is attributed to the wisdom of Deng Xiaoping and the petitioning movement (including strikes, hunger strikes and the sending of delegations) is replaced by the individual petition of a female educated youth wanting to go back home to take care of her gravely ill father who succeeds in touching the heart of a good cadre. The contribution of unofficial sources is thus particularly obvious in this case.Less
This chapter examines an example of how minjian memories and minjian historiography transform our knowledge of the history of the Cultural Revolution. In the case of the end of the Rustication movement, many unofficial sources contradict the official version, represented by the press of the time or by the recent TV series Deng Xiaoping. In February 1979, while the People’s Daily published a speech criticizing the Yunnan educated youth who had come to Beijing to demand the right to return to their native cities, on the ground in Yunnan, the educated youths were in fact packing up and going back home by the thousands, after a victorious petitioning movement. This movement of historical importance was never officially acknowledged. In the TV series, the sudden end of the rustication movement is attributed to the wisdom of Deng Xiaoping and the petitioning movement (including strikes, hunger strikes and the sending of delegations) is replaced by the individual petition of a female educated youth wanting to go back home to take care of her gravely ill father who succeeds in touching the heart of a good cadre. The contribution of unofficial sources is thus particularly obvious in this case.
Tony Kushner
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781786940629
- eISBN:
- 9781786945051
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781786940629.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This book explores Jewish refugee movements before, during and after the Holocaust, placing them in a longer history of forced migration from the 1880s to the present. It does not deny that there ...
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This book explores Jewish refugee movements before, during and after the Holocaust, placing them in a longer history of forced migration from the 1880s to the present. It does not deny that there were particular issues facing Jews escaping from Nazism, but it emphasises that there are deeper trends that shed light on responses to and the experiences of these refugees and other forced migrants from war, poverty, genocide and ethnic cleansing. It argues that those interested in Holocaust studies and migration studies have much to learn from each other. This study focuses on three particular types of refugee movement – women, children and ‘illegal’ boat migrants. Whilst there is focus on British spheres of influence, the scope is global including Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Americas, South Asia and Australasia. The approach is historical but incorporates many different disciplines including geography, anthropology, cultural and literary studies and politics. State as well as popular responses are integrated and the auto/biographical practice of the refugees themselves are highlighted throughout this book. Films, novels, museums, heritage sites and memorials are incorporated in this study alongside more traditional sources allowing exploration of history and memory. Many neglected refugee movements are covered and themes such as gender, childhood, place, space, legality, the politics of naming, and performance add to its richness.Less
This book explores Jewish refugee movements before, during and after the Holocaust, placing them in a longer history of forced migration from the 1880s to the present. It does not deny that there were particular issues facing Jews escaping from Nazism, but it emphasises that there are deeper trends that shed light on responses to and the experiences of these refugees and other forced migrants from war, poverty, genocide and ethnic cleansing. It argues that those interested in Holocaust studies and migration studies have much to learn from each other. This study focuses on three particular types of refugee movement – women, children and ‘illegal’ boat migrants. Whilst there is focus on British spheres of influence, the scope is global including Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Americas, South Asia and Australasia. The approach is historical but incorporates many different disciplines including geography, anthropology, cultural and literary studies and politics. State as well as popular responses are integrated and the auto/biographical practice of the refugees themselves are highlighted throughout this book. Films, novels, museums, heritage sites and memorials are incorporated in this study alongside more traditional sources allowing exploration of history and memory. Many neglected refugee movements are covered and themes such as gender, childhood, place, space, legality, the politics of naming, and performance add to its richness.