Using the War: Changing memories of World War Two

Using the War: Changing memories of World War Two

Veranstalter
Oral History Society with King's College, London
Veranstaltungsort
King's College, London
Ort
London
Land
United Kingdom
Vom - Bis
01.07.2005 - 03.07.2005
Von
Waterman, Belinda

This conference marks the 60th anniversary of end of the conflict. But more importantly, and with insights from a variety of perspectives, including oral history, reminiscence and psychology, the conference also offers an opportunity of understanding the ways in which processes of remembering, as well as memories of the war itself, have changed.

A range of presentations from across Europe, Asia, Oceania, and Latin and North America will address the War's consequences and legacy in the memories of participants and for successive generations. These presentations are organized into two major themes which reflect the ways in which the War continues in many countries to play a part in historical consciousness and everyday life. 'Remembering, forgetting and silences' explores individual memories in relation to dominant discourses, identity, myth and intergenerational transmission. The second of our two themes, 'Using memories of war', includes reminiscence as a therapeutic intervention and the ways in which the media has shaped recollections of the War.

Programm

There will be over 70 presentations and posters.

The keynote speakers are:

Paula Hamilton (Co-director of the Australian Centre for Public History): 'Trans/forming memories: World War Two: across the generations'

Andreas Kruse (Professor and Director of the Institute for Gerontology at the University of Heidelberg): 'Guilt in the German history: How to transform moral guilt into responsibility'

Alessandro Portelli (Professor of American Literature at the University of Rome): 'Innocent victims of liberating cannon: Remembering armed Bombardment in Rome'.

Sir Max Hastings, the distinguished military historian, journalist and former newspaper editor, is the guest speaker at the conference social evening.

Remembering, Forgetting and Silence

A number of speakers will explore how different individuals choose to remember or forget their experiences particularly in relation to the dominant discourses in different cultures. These include:

Pamela Sugiman (McMaster) ‘ “These feelings that fill my heart”: Japanese Canadian Women’s Personal Memories of Internment’

Sabine Moller (Essen) ‘Multiple past. Public cultures of recollection and family memories of the National Socialist period in eastern Germany’

Tomoyo Nakao (Okayama) ‘Oral History and history: POWs’ memories and “what is the truth?”’

Wendy Ugolini (Edinburgh) ‘Remembering the Arandora Star: commemoration within the Italian community in Scotland’

Angelita Reyes (Arizona) 'Always remembering the “Unpleasant Business” of a very unfriendly fire: homicide and gendered-oriented memory-telling’

Presentations will address issues of the intergenerational communication of memories of war including:

Katarzyna Szafranska (Lodz) ‘The process of intergenerational transmission of the memory of the second world war in Polish and Jewish families; consequences of war experience in the third generation’

John Chircop (Malta) ‘Legacies of War: Using “return to basics” memories of war as shared strategies of survival in the Maltese islands’

Andrei Podolskij (Moscow) and Peter Coleman (Southampton) ‘War and trauma across three generations: the intergenerational transmission of war memories in the former Soviet Union’

And on mythic memories, social memory and silences there are:

Alexander Prenninger (Vienna–Salzburg) ‘Communities and rituals of liberation day in the Mauthausen Memorial’

Federico Guillermo Lorenz (Buenos Aires) ‘How our enemy made us better. Uses of memories of World War II during the Malvinas-Falklands War and afterwards’

Dienke Hondius (Amsterdam) ‘Bystander memory: Dutch non-Jewish eyewitness n
arratives about the deportations’

Gelinada Grinchenko (Karazin Kharkiv) ‘Ostarbeiters of the Third Reich: remembering and forgetting as the strategies of survival’

Corinna Peniston-Bird (Lancaster) ‘ “All in it together and backs to the wall”: Constructing the People’s War in the 21st Century’

A final strand within this theme is the ways in which individual memories and identity intertwine, and includes:

Phil Cohen (East London) ‘Everyone has a right to be frightened! Changing War stories in Britain and Germany since 1945’

Diane Garst (Texas) ‘Search for Identity in Child Survivors of the Holocaust’

Using memories of War

Another major theme of the conference will look at the ways in which memories of the conflict have been used in the production and use of history and in reminiscence as a therapeutic intervention.

Alison Parr (Ministry for Culture and Heritage, New Zealand) ‘Breaking the silence: a retrospective assessment of the costs and rewards of remembering, through oral history, traumatic wartime experiences and their consequences’

Maria Pachalska and Bruce Duncan MacQueen (Gdansk) ‘Polish concentration camp survivors: A neuropsychological perspective’

Marvin J. Westwood (Vancouver) ‘Group based life review for veterans: integrating the war experience’

Nirmal Puwar (Northampton) and Kuldip Powar (Banshee Media Group) ‘The art of memory work’

In addition Simon Wessely will chair a discussion panel from King’s (London). The panel will include Edgar Jones (who has recently published on the impact of bombing on civilians),
Steve Weiss (a US infantry veteran of World War Two) and
Susie Kilshaw (a medical anthropologist), who has extensive experience of interviewing Gulf War veterans.

This theme also includes the ways in which oral history and reminiscence have been employed by the media. Presentations here will include:

Eric White (Milwaukee) ‘Making retro patriotism history: The official account of the “Good War”’

Frank Bösch (Bochum) ‘Managers of the memory? The eye-witness on TV and the changing memories of World War Two’

Philip Seaton (Hokkaido) ‘Japanese war memory – postwar generation testimony’

Kontakt

Belinda Waterman
OHS Conference Administrator
Department of History
University of Essex
Wivenhoe Park
COLCHESTER
CO4 3SQ

tel: +44 (0)1206 872313

http://ohs.org.uk/conferences/2005/index.html
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