scholarly journals What Testimony Does to Literature

Author(s):  
Frédérik Detue ◽  
Charlotte Lacoste

This article sheds light on a literary practice that critics began to reflect upon in the twentieth century: witnessing. This genre, by adopting a narrative model based on statements of evidence presented in the courtroom, distinguishes itself from other forms of expression practiced by witnesses. Survivors of political violence take up their pens and describe the situation they have been subjected to, so as to attest to historical facts and prevent erasure of the event through forgetting, denial or negation. This enterprise, which seeks to document lived experience and thereby pay homage to victims who did not survive, constitutes both a source of evidence for legal procedure and a contribution to the writing of history. Witnessing, however literary it may be, is founded on a pact of veracity, in which witnesses are bound to relate no more than their own experience and to do so with precision. Finally, witness accounts are addressed to society at large or even to humanity as a whole, in the hope of emancipating it from such violence by raising awareness of its intolerable nature. Though witnessing still lacks legitimacy within the literary field, the link it establishes between ethical, aesthetic and political positions makes this genre exemplary of what literature is capable of.

2019 ◽  
Vol 79 (4) ◽  
pp. 989-1026 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Eriksson ◽  
Zachary Ward

We provide the first estimates of immigrant residential segregation between 1850 and 1940 that cover the entire United States and are consistent across time and space. To do so, we adapt the Logan–Parman method to immigrants by measuring segregation based on the nativity of the next-door neighbor. In addition to providing a consistent measure of segregation, we also document new patterns such as high levels of segregation in rural areas, in small factory towns and for non-European sources. Early twentieth-century immigrants spatially assimilated at a slow rate, leaving immigrants’ lived experience distinct from natives for decades after arrival.


2019 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 235-246
Author(s):  
Alexey L. Beglov

The article examines the contribution of the representatives of the Samarin family to the development of the Parish issue in the Russian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The issue of expanding the rights of the laity in the sphere of parish self-government was one of the most debated problems of Church life in that period. The public discussion was initiated by D.F. Samarin (1827-1901). He formulated the “social concept” of the parish and parish reform, based on Slavophile views on society and the Church. In the beginning of the twentieth century his eldest son F.D. Samarin who was a member of the Special Council on the development the Orthodox parish project in 1907, and as such developed the Slavophile concept of the parish. In 1915, A.D. Samarin, who took up the position of the Chief Procurator of the Most Holy Synod, tried to make his contribution to the cause of the parish reforms, but he failed to do so due to his resignation.


2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bogusław Podhalański ◽  
Anna Połtowicz

Abstract The article discusses a project that features the relocation of the historic Atelier building, built by Krakow-based architect Wandalin Beringer (1839–1923) who was active in the early twentieth century, and the regeneration of a plot belonging to the Congregation of the Resurrection since 1885, which is located at 12 Łobzowska Street in Krakow. The method includes cutting the entire structure off at the foundation and then after reinforcing it with a steel structure transporting it in its entirety to the new location. The project included two possible variants of moving the building in a straight line, either by 21 or 59 metres and evaluates two projects of further regeneration, the adaptive reuse of the building as an exhibition and religious space as well as a proposal for the remodelling of the nearby plot that belongs to the Congregation into a space for meditation and as a recreational park. The aim of these measures is to prevent the demolition of this building, now over a century old, as a result of which a forgotten element of the cultural heritage of the city will be saved. This project was based on the results of analyses of the cultural and historical conditions of Krakow. The block of buildings in which the Atelier in question is located is a very attractive location, near to the very centre of Krakow, adjacent to residential, service and educational buildings. It is directly adjacent to the Monastery Complex of the Congregation of the Resurrection, listed as a heritage building under conservation protection (municipal registry of heritage buildings). In the second half of the twentieth century, the building was used as a workroom by artists such as Xawery Dunikowski and later by the sculptress Teodora Stasiak. The case of the Atelier may provide an inspiration for discussion as well as raising awareness among citizens and city authorities to avoid future situations in which cultural heritage may become forgotten or demolished.


Author(s):  
Michaela Belejkaničová

AbstractIn his Heretical Essays, Jan Patočka introduces the concept of the solidarity of the shaken. He argues that it emerges in the conditions of political violence—the frontline experience (Fronterlebnis). Moreover, Patočka brings into discussion the puzzling concepts of day, night, metanoia and sacrifice, which only further problematise the idea. Researching how other thinkers have examined the phenomenon of the frontline experience, it becomes obvious that Patočka did not invent the obscure vocabulary ex nihilo. Concepts such as frontline experience, sacrifice and the metaphors of the day and night were commonly used by thinkers in the inter-war and post-war eras in their examination of community (Gemeinschaft). This study aims to reconstruct the idea of the solidarity of the shaken as contextualized within a broader scholarly debate on the concept of community (Gemeinschaft). Through the critical dialogue between Patočka’s works and the works of Ernst Jünger and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, this study will portray how Patočka, in his discourse on the frontline experience, follows the usual pattern of overcoming one’s individuality, transcending and opening up to the constitution of solidarity. This paper will argue that Patočka defined the solidarity of the shaken in an attempt to revive the positive aspects of a community and break with the regressive (if not sinister) uses to which it was put in the twentieth century.


2015 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 926-946 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen MacDonald

AbstractFrom the mid-twentieth century, England's coroners were crucial to the supply of organs to transplant, as much of this material was gleaned from the bodies of people who had been involved in accidents. In such situations the law required that a coroner's consent first be obtained lest removing the organs destroy evidence about the cause of the person's death. Surgeons challenged the legal requirement that they seek consent before taking organs, arguing that doing so hampered their quick access to bodies. Some coroners willingly cooperated with surgeons while others refused to do so, coming into conflict with particular transplanters whom they considered untrustworthy. This article examines how the phenomenon of “spare part” surgery challenged long-held conceptions of the coroner's role.


2009 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan McCargo

Thailand's ‘southern border provinces’ of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat – along with four districts of neighbouring Songkhla – are the site of fiery political violence characterised by daily killings. The area was historically a Malay sultanate, and was only loosely under Thai suzerainty until the early twentieth century. During the twentieth century there was periodic resistance to Bangkok's attempts to suppress local identity and to incorporate this largely Malay-speaking, Muslim-majority area into a predominantly Buddhist nation-state. This resistance proved most intense during the 1960s and 1970s, when various armed groups (notably PULO [Patani United Liberation Organization] and BRN [Barisan Revolusi Nasional]) waged war on the Thai state, primarily targeting government officials and the security forces. In the early 1980s, the Prem Tinsulanond government brokered a deal with these armed groups and proceeded to co-opt the Malay-Muslim elite. By crafting mutually beneficial governance, security and financial arrangements, the Thai state was able largely to placate local political demands.


2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 617-633 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merje Kuus

This article seeks to connect political geographic scholarship on institutions and policy more firmly to the experience of everyday life. Empirically, I foreground the ambiguous and indeterminate character of institutional decision-making and I underscore the need to closely consider the sensory texture of place and milieu in our analyses of it. My examples come from the study of diplomatic practice in Brussels, the capital of the European Union. Conceptually and methodologically, I use these examples to accentuate lived experience as an essential part of research, especially in the seemingly dry bureaucratic settings. I do so in particular through engaging with the work of Michel de Certeau, whose ideas enjoy considerable traction in cultural geography but are seldom used in political geography and policy studies. An accent on the texture and feel of policy practice necessarily highlights the role of place in that practice. This, in turn, may help us with communicating geographical research beyond our own discipline.


Dementia ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (6) ◽  
pp. 2244-2260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anca M Miron ◽  
Ashley E Thompson ◽  
Alexandria R Ebert ◽  
Susan H McFadden

We proposed a dementia interactions model based on analyses of five focus groups with grandchildren of grandparents with dementia. Interactions with their grandparent with dementia motivate grandchildren to maintain connection with a grandparent who is relationally present. To do so, they weave a social reality around the grandparent. To help the grandparent remain connected, grandchildren engage in scripts and routines and employ three intertwined psychological processes: perspective taking, vigilance, and knowledge about the grandparent's preferences, personality, state of mind, and context. Grandchildren use four relationship anchors to help the grandparent remain relationally present: family members, meaningful sensory objects and activities, physical space/context, and themselves. Implications for improving social interactions with close others with dementia are discussed.


2013 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Melinda Hall

<p>In this paper, I critically assess transhumanist philosophy and its influence in bioethics by turning to resources in the work of Michel Foucault. I begin by outlining transhumanism and drawing out some of the primary goals of transhumanist philosophy. In order to do so, I focus on the work of Nick Bostrom and Julian Savulescu, two prominent contributors to this thinking. I then move to explicate Foucault&rsquo;s work, in the early iterations of the <em>Abnormal</em> lecture series, on the concept of vile sovereignty. Foucault used the concept of vile sovereignty to critique psychiatric witnesses that had been utilized in mid twentieth-century French courts of law. Turning back to transhumanism, I analyze transhumanist discourse on the basis of Foucault&rsquo;s vile sovereignty. Transhumanists promote human enhancement in a way that rejects the body&mdash;especially the disabled body&mdash;and pose the question of what lives are worth living, as well as attempt to answer it. I conclude that because of the undeserved influence and ableism of transhumanism, it is important for feminist philosophers, philosophers of disability, and other disability scholars, who collide at the nexus of bioethical debate (especially with regard to reproductive technology and the body), to work together to intervene upon transhumanist discourse.&nbsp; &nbsp;</p><p>Keywords: bioethics; enhancement; Foucault; transhumanism; ableism</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>


2019 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 71-88
Author(s):  
Ana Belén Pérez García

The figure of the tragic mulatta placed its origin in antebellum literature and was extensively used in the literature of the nineteenth and twentieth century. Much has been written about this literary character in a time when the problem of miscegenation was at its highest point, and when studies established that races were inherently different, meaning that the black race was inferior to the white one. Many authors have made use of this trope for different purposes, and Zora Neale Hurston was one of them. In her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston creates Janie, a mulatta that a priori follows all the characteristics of this type of female character who, however, breaks away from most of them. She overcomes all stereotypes and prejudices, those imposed on her because of her condition of interracial offspring, and is able to take charge of her own life and challenge all these impositions feeling closer to her blackness and celebrating and empowering her female identity. In this vein, storytelling becomes the liberating force that helps her do so. It will become the tool that will enable her to ignore the need of passing as a white person and provide her with the opportunity to connect with her real identity and so feel free and happy, breaking with the tragic destiny of mulatta characters. Keywords: storytelling, tragic mulatta, blackness, Hurston.  


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document