"Die im demokratischen Deutschland etablierte Erinnerungskultur gilt vielen Bürgerinnen und Bürgern als ein Erfolgsmodell, auf das sie mit einem gewissen Stolz blicken können. In der Tat war es ein langer Weg von der weitgehenden Verdrängung der nationalsozialistischen Verbrechen bis zu ihrer ö
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ffentlichen Anerkennung in einer durch Rituale geprägten, identitätsstiftenden Gedenkkultur. Der Publizist und Lyriker Max Czollek weist jedoch auf die Widersprüche, blinden Flecken und problematischen Aspekte dieser Erinnerungskultur hin und leuchtet diese aus. So werde die Erinnerung an die Verbrechen vielfach gleichgesetzt mit deren Wiedergutmachung und diene als Geste einer vermeintlichen Versöhnung mit den Opfern und ihren Nachkommen. Jüdinnen und Juden würden hier, wie der Autor im Anschluss an Michal Bodemann konstatiert, für die positive Identitätsstiftung der Deutschen instrumentalisiert. Czollek sieht die Gefahr, dass eine solche Gedenkkultur fortbestehende diskriminierende Machtstrukturen unhinterfragt lasse und sogar als Ressource eines neuen Nationalismus in Anspruch genommen werde. Für Czollek hingegen gilt: Wer Erinnerung ernst meine, müsse akzeptieren, dass vergangenes Unrecht durch sie nicht wiedergutgemacht, die zugefügten Wunden nicht geschlossen werden können – und dass mit dem Erinnern der Auftrag verbunden sei, diskriminierende Strukturen auch in der Gegenwart zu benennen und zu bekämpfen." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"The field of memory studies has typically focused on everyday memory and commemoration practices through which we construct meaning and identities. The Right to Memory looks beyond these everyday practices, focusing instead on how memory relates to human rights and socio-legal constructs in order t
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o legitimize and protect groups and individuals. With case studies including Polish Holocaust Law, the Indian origins of Amartya Sen's capability theory approach, and the right to memory through digital technologies in Brazilian and British museums, this collected volume seeks to establish the right to memory as a foundational topic in memory studies." (Publisher description)
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"This book discusses the role of television drama series on a global scale, analyzing these dramas across the Americas, Europe, Asia, Australia, and Africa. Contributors consider the role of television dramas as economically valuable cultural products and with their depictions of gender roles, sexua
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lities, race, cultural values, political systems, and religious beliefs as they analyze how these programs allow us to indulge our innate desire to share human narratives in a way that binds us together and encourages audiences to persevere as a community on a global scale. Contributors also go on to explore the role of television dramas as a medium that indulges fantasies and escapism and reckons with reality as it allows audiences to experience emotions of happiness, sorrow, fear, and outrage in both realistic and fantastical scenarios." (Publisher description)
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"Este trabajo tiene como objetivo central el análisis de dos proyectos transmedia latinoamericanos en el marco de la no ficción, circunscritos desde el método del estudio de casos y la aplicación de elementos de la teoría del actor-red, donde las relaciones, la conformación de grupos sociales
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que experimentaron realidades, llegan a gestar el valor de agenciamiento, como un enfoque que expande y contribuye a la comprensión y sostenibilidad de la historia y la experiencia en el tiempo del proyecto transmedia. El nivel de impacto en la audiencia de estos dos sistemas narrativos [Proyecto Quipu, Peru; Proyecto 4Ríos, Colombia] permitió apuntalar sus realidades desde la articulación de acciones de lucha social dentro y fuera de la red, ubicando sus temáticas en agendas políticas y periodísticas locales e internacionales. Impactos que se retoman a la luz de las características de los formatos de la transmedia de no ficción y sus potencialidades cocreativas, con el fin de dinamizar las relaciones sociales y activar la comunicación participativa dentro del ecosistema digital." (Resumen)
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"History textbooks are the only history books that the majority of people read in their lives. This article investigates the impact of history textbooks on young Chinese people’s understanding of their nation’s modern history, as revealed on the popular microblogging site SinaWeibo. We analysed
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posts related to history textbooks and their representations of three contentious turning points in the communist historical narrative: the May Fourth Movement of 1919, the nationalist assault on the communists in 1927 and the Yan’an Rectification Movement of 1942. Widespread engagement with and recollection of history textbook content indicates a substantial impact of these textbooks on people’s understanding of the past and a willingness to relate that past to the present. Responses to textbooks vary widely, from acceptance of the textbook narrative and the expression of strong patriotic and emotional connections to the past as presented in textbooks to open and angry critique." (Abstract)
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"A través de historias que nos conmueven y nos tocan emocionalmente, Romper el Silencio tiene como objetivo enseñarnos a escuchar a otras personas con apertura y empatía, aunque piensen distinto; a reconocer sus argumentos aunque no sean los nuestros; a respetar sus ideas sin señalamientos y al
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final, a entendernos y asumir maneras no violentas de tramitar nuestras diferencias personales y sociales, para construir formas de convivencia y contribuir a la no repetición del conflicto armado en Colombia. Utilizando los formatos más populares del entretenimiento, Romper el Silencio facilita a las y los jóvenes, a sus familias, a los docentes y al público en general, armar conversaciones y reflexionar sobre temas complejos, en especial, donde es más difícil: el conflicto armado, lo que pasoì y por queì pasoì, los responsables, la justicia restaurativa y la importancia de la reparación de las víctimas." (Página 2)
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"This book is about postcolonial memory in the Netherlands. This term refers to conflicts in contemporary society about how the colonial past should be remembered. The question is often: who has the right or ability to tell their stories and who do not? In other words: who has a voice, and who is si
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lenced? As such, these conflicts represent a wider tendency in cultural theory and activism to use voice as a metaphor for empowerment and silence as voice’s negative counterpart, signifying powerlessness. And yet, there are voices that do not liberate us from, but rather subject us to power. Meanwhile, silence can be powerful: it can protect, disrupt and reconfigure. Throughout this book, it will become clear how voice and silence function not as each other’s opposites, but as each other’s continuation, and that postcolonial memory is articulated through the interplay of meaningful voices and meaningful silences." (Publisher description)
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"The call to decolonize African Studies has a profound influence on the field, with varying degrees of success. This article addresses this topic in relation to the author’s personal experiences in the publishing industry in Namibia. By describing the attempt to publish a historical book about Nam
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ibian beer with a well-known German–Namibian publishing house, the lingering power of German–Namibian settler colonialism becomes clear. This article renders visible the power structures within the Namibian book market that perpetuates a whitewashed version of Namibian history and argues that decolonizing knowledge cannot succeed without paying attention to the (private) publishing industry." (Abstract)
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"The COVID-19 pandemic began in 2019, spread to the rest of the world in 2020 and still holds nations in its grip in 2021. There is scant research on the way it has affected Holocaust awareness. Based on scholarly work on Holocaust awareness in Israel, the top-down memory of the Holocaust in the med
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ia and the vernacular Holocaust memory on social media, this article analyzes the ways the Holocaust became a frame of reference in Israel for the interpretation of the COVID-19 pandemic and the newest link in a long chain of using the Holocaust as a prism for other topics in Israeli society. The article centers on the evolution of the COVID-19 – Holocaust references and the role of media and social media in it. It shows that the initial panic created a wave of comparisons between the Holocaust and the pandemic in the media and social media. In the second half of the year, as the restrictions and two more lockdowns became part of life, references to the Holocaust changed – negative reactions to COVID-19 government regulations and law enforcement were compared on social media to Nazi acts. The Israeli media did not create these comparisons but reported them widely and contributed to their circulation." (Abstract)
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"The exhibition focuses on how young people envision their identities in their respective countries: what mental images do they collectively have about their life experiences. Thus, this project seeks to present collective memories from different parts of the world in an exhibition that will promote
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visual culture. It explores the way in which parts of the world presents themselves within a contemporary space. This exhibition therefore aims at giving the younger generation an edge in the visualization and narration of their understanding of the past through various means of artistic expressions. The expectation is that, these students’ works, created and exhibited from a wide and divergent cultural experience would provide some sort of emotional templates and indicators for the understanding of other cultures." (Introduction, page 5)
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"Der Umgang mit der Kolonialgeschichte, die hierzulande lange im Schatten der Aufarbeitung des Nationalsozialismus und des Holocaust stand, unterliegt gegenwärtig einem grundlegenden Wandel. Zwar zählt auch Deutschland faktisch zu den postkolonialen Gesellschaften Europas, doch ist diese Tatsache
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kaum in das Bewusstsein der Menschen und in das Handeln der Politik vorgedrungen. Der Sammelband zieht Bilanz und will zugleich die notwendige Auseinandersetzung um eine Dekolonisierung globaler wie lokaler Machtverhältnisse und eine Dekolonialisierung der immer noch dominierenden Wissens- und Deutungsmacht des »Westens« anregen. Die aktuellen Debatten um den Völkermord an den Herero und Nama oder die koloniale Beutekunst im geplanten Humboldt Forum in Berlin richten den Fokus ein ums andere Mal auf eine koloniale Vergangenheit, die nicht vergehen will." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"[...] The past does not really exist: it is only a story we tell ourselves. But what happens when we tell this story not only to ourselves but also to our followers, when it is recorded not only on our social media pages but also on the pages of hundreds or thousands of others, making it something
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that can be viewed and referenced forever? Social media networks are becoming vast digital archives in which the past merges seamlessly with the present, slowly erasing our capacity to forget. And yet at the same time, our memory is being outsourced to systems that we don't control and that could become obsolete at any time, cutting us off from our memories and risking total oblivion." (Back cover)
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"Social media platforms hold vast amounts of biographical data about our lives. They repackage our past content as ‘memories’ and deliver them back to us. But how does that change the way we remember? Drawing on original qualitative research as well as industry documents and reports, this book c
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ritically explores the process behind this new form of memory making. In asking how social media are beginning to change the way we remember, it will be essential reading for scholars and students who are interested in understanding the algorithmically defined spaces of our lives." (Publisher description)
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"This project has explored the ways in which an independent, public service-spirited media could create content about historical issues that avoids playing into propaganda-driven divides, fosters a more constructive discourse around history and brings Ukrainians into a common national conversation.
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The results of our project will also be of use to public diplomats, civic actors and educators, as well as to media outlets that share our aim of reducing polarisation in Ukraine and other countries, and building resilient societies with a full, free and evidencedriven public debate. Arena began the project with polling and segmentation analysis that investigated Ukrainians’ attitudes to history, political beliefs, identity and social values. We then held focus groups designed to identify the common concerns that unite Ukrainians. Using various insights from that analysis and the advice of prominent historians, we worked with Hromadske, an independent Ukrainan online media outlet, to create 16 pieces of video content. Finally, we explored polarised audiences’ reactions to these videos by measuring levels of online engagement and carrying out opinion polls, focusing in particular on the levels of trust." (Executive summary)
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"Die Debatten um die Anerkennung des Ovaherero- und Nama-Genozids (1904-1908) im heutigen Namibia haben in den letzten beiden Jahrzehnten wachsende öffentliche Aufmerksamkeit erhalten. Kaya de Wolff hat die deutschsprachige Presseberichterstattung in den Jahren 2001 bis 2016 über den Umgang mit de
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n Verbrechen deutscher Kolonialtruppen untersucht. Sie zeigt, aufgrund welcher Anlässe und auf welche Weisen medial an die historischen Ereignisse erinnert wird, welche Stimmen dabei (nicht) gehört werden und welche gesellschaftlichen Machtverhältnisse und Normen den Anerkennungskampf der Nachfahr*innen der Opfer bedingen." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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