Sad Stories of the Death of Kings

Jonathan Safran Foer’s representation of the Holocaust in his first novel, Everything is Illuminated, has been the subject of much controversy and critical debate. Several critics and Holocaust survivors have objected to the work for the lack of historical accuracy in its mythological narrative and the irreverence of its humour. However, such responses fail to take into account its specific form of generational representation: The Holocaust of Everything is Illuminated is always perceived through a third-generation lens, and its provocative elements instead highlight aspects of the experiences of the grandchildren of survivors. With this in mind, this paper examines Foer’s approach to the Holocaust in Everything is Illuminated and Liev Schreiber’s film adaptation (2005), making specific reference to the challenges faced by the third generation. Drawing upon theories of the transgenerational transmission of trauma and postmemory, it will explore the roles of creativity and humour in resilience, in addition to the reconstruction of a historical narrative under threat of erasure. Ultimately, by offsetting the tendencies to reduce the complexity of the Holocaust into unequivocal moralities (as exhibited in the film adaptation) with the idiosyncrasies of the third-generation experience, an alternative contextual perspective on the Holocaust is propounded, containing its own discrete set of ethical questions and concerns.

The potential for ‘historical trauma’ is deeply rooted within the evolved human mind, which constructs its reality through narrative in the shape of personally and culturally relevant stories. From its roots within psychoanalytic theory and practice and through its clear links with infant attachment, historical trauma can be theoretically linked with stress biology and the concept of Adverse Childhood Experiences. Via this trajectory, it has the potential to become more commonly drawn upon in the field of public health, despite inconclusive attempts to link it to social epigenetics. It is proposed that when the historical trauma narrative invades family histories via negative experiences that have deeply impacted upon the lives of ancestors, descendants may be drawn to ‘traumatic reenactment’ through fantasy. This is explored with reference to my own recently published novel, examining its content through the perspective of the ‘psychic work’ it represents with respect to reconciling the self to the traumatic experiences of ancestors.

"Sivulirijat aksururnaqtukkuurnikugijangat aktuiniqaqsimaninga kinguvaanginnut" translates as "the trauma experienced by generations past having an effect in their descendants." The legacy of the history of colonialism is starting to take narrative shape as Inuit give voice to the past and its manifestations in the present through public commissions such as the federal Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Inuit-led Qikiqtani Truth Commission. However, an examination of other discursive contexts reveals a collective narrative of the colonial past that is at times silent, incomplete or seemingly inconsistent. Reading the political narrative through the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, and the proceedings of the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut since its formation on April 1, 1999, exposes an almost complete silence about this history. Oral histories, an important form for the preservation and transmission of traditional cultural knowledge, do narrate aspects of this experience of contact, but in accounts that can appear highly individual, fragmented, even contradictory. In contrast, one domain that does seem to register and engage with the impacts of this history of colonialism is Inuit art, specifically visual art and film. In some cases these artistic narratives pre-date the historical trauma narratives of the commissions, which began with the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) in the mid-1990s. This paper examines these narrative alternatives for recounting historic trauma in Nunavut, while also considering the implications of understanding historical trauma as narrative.

This article explores the processes by which Chilean female feminist public high school students used political and historical narratives and symbols during the feminist movement of 2018. It analyzes how these particular usages were crossed by affective intensities that worked to produce students’ political subjectivities as collective and agentic. This affective work was produced with other members of the school community and sometimes was met with anger, policing practices, and desires to exclude students from particular historical narratives. The data for this article were produced within a yearlong critical ethnographic study on the processes of production of high school feminist students’ gender and political subjectivities in Chile, which included participant observation, testimonios interviews, art-based collective testimonios workshops, and analysis through affect theory. The findings show the types of historical and political narratives and symbols used by students, what affective intensities that crossed these symbols did to the students’ political subjectivities, and the conflicts these intensities produced within the school community. The article concludes by examining how these findings might open new questions within the field of social studies education research.

<p><b>Previous literature has outlined the impacts that the colonisation of Aotearoa New Zealand has had on Māori and how these impacts persist through the intergenerational transfer of trauma which has resulted in socioeconomic deprivation and cultural marginalisation. This thesis will examine whether historical land alienation, based on the unique experiences suffered by different iwi (tribes), explains aspects of the variation observed in contemporary economic, social and cultural outcomes of different iwi. It draws from and contributes to the literature on historic trauma, post-development theory, and path dependency. </b></p><p>To examine these issues, the thesis uses geospatial data of Māori land holdings through different points in time and links it to contemporary cultural and socioeconomic outcomes (by iwi) using data from the 2013 New Zealand census and Te Kupenga. It also explores the relationship that the landholdings have with iwi population growth and Land Use Capability (LUC) class, utilising ordinary least squares (OLS) and ordered logit regression modelling. The analysis also includes a dummy variable for iwi who suffered land alienations via confiscation. </p><p>The thesis makes several findings. First, it finds that iwi who had a large proportion of arable land were more likely to experience the greatest proportion of land loss overall. This reaffirms the historical narrative that Māori land that was suitable for arable use was targeted for acquisitions and confiscation and inevitably alienated from iwi in order to establish and facilitate European settlement. </p><p>Second, there is a negative relationship between land loss and certain contemporary cultural wellbeing measures, such as te reo Māori proficiency. This supports the narrative that the displacement of iwi from their land impacted intergenerational wellbeing and led to the loss of cultural efficacy and wellbeing for contemporary iwi members, through the deterioration of many established social structures. </p><p>Third, the findings suggest that Māori culture serves an important function of providing resilience for iwi against historic trauma, particularly for those iwi that experienced a ‘cataclysmic’ historic trauma event through confiscation. The findings also illustrate the importance of reconnecting people with their whenua and traditional iwi boundaries (rohe) and the central role this has in improving the wellbeing outcomes of iwi through the strengthening of culture. </p><p>Fourth, there is a positive relationship between historic land loss and contemporary cellular access. This contributes to the literature on evolutionary economics and historic path dependency of infrastructure investment and development, specifically in relation to cellular infrastructure, with it suggesting that contemporary access to internet and cellular infrastructure is predicated on early European investment in infrastructure. </p><p>The findings from this thesis illustrate the central role that mātauranga and tikanga Māori have in enhancing the wellbeing of Māori. It shows how this cultural knowledge operates as a source of resilience for Māori, with it having the potential to support healing from historic trauma; trauma which continues to affect the wellbeing outcomes of contemporary Māori. Thus, this thesis may be useful in the development of policies that contribute towards improving the wellbeing outcomes of Māori through the cultural empowerment of whānau, hapū and iwi.</p>

<p><b>Previous literature has outlined the impacts that the colonisation of Aotearoa New Zealand has had on Māori and how these impacts persist through the intergenerational transfer of trauma which has resulted in socioeconomic deprivation and cultural marginalisation. This thesis will examine whether historical land alienation, based on the unique experiences suffered by different iwi (tribes), explains aspects of the variation observed in contemporary economic, social and cultural outcomes of different iwi. It draws from and contributes to the literature on historic trauma, post-development theory, and path dependency. </b></p><p>To examine these issues, the thesis uses geospatial data of Māori land holdings through different points in time and links it to contemporary cultural and socioeconomic outcomes (by iwi) using data from the 2013 New Zealand census and Te Kupenga. It also explores the relationship that the landholdings have with iwi population growth and Land Use Capability (LUC) class, utilising ordinary least squares (OLS) and ordered logit regression modelling. The analysis also includes a dummy variable for iwi who suffered land alienations via confiscation. </p><p>The thesis makes several findings. First, it finds that iwi who had a large proportion of arable land were more likely to experience the greatest proportion of land loss overall. This reaffirms the historical narrative that Māori land that was suitable for arable use was targeted for acquisitions and confiscation and inevitably alienated from iwi in order to establish and facilitate European settlement. </p><p>Second, there is a negative relationship between land loss and certain contemporary cultural wellbeing measures, such as te reo Māori proficiency. This supports the narrative that the displacement of iwi from their land impacted intergenerational wellbeing and led to the loss of cultural efficacy and wellbeing for contemporary iwi members, through the deterioration of many established social structures. </p><p>Third, the findings suggest that Māori culture serves an important function of providing resilience for iwi against historic trauma, particularly for those iwi that experienced a ‘cataclysmic’ historic trauma event through confiscation. The findings also illustrate the importance of reconnecting people with their whenua and traditional iwi boundaries (rohe) and the central role this has in improving the wellbeing outcomes of iwi through the strengthening of culture. </p><p>Fourth, there is a positive relationship between historic land loss and contemporary cellular access. This contributes to the literature on evolutionary economics and historic path dependency of infrastructure investment and development, specifically in relation to cellular infrastructure, with it suggesting that contemporary access to internet and cellular infrastructure is predicated on early European investment in infrastructure. </p><p>The findings from this thesis illustrate the central role that mātauranga and tikanga Māori have in enhancing the wellbeing of Māori. It shows how this cultural knowledge operates as a source of resilience for Māori, with it having the potential to support healing from historic trauma; trauma which continues to affect the wellbeing outcomes of contemporary Māori. Thus, this thesis may be useful in the development of policies that contribute towards improving the wellbeing outcomes of Māori through the cultural empowerment of whānau, hapū and iwi.</p>

‘For such loss ... abundant recompence’ (‘Tintern Abbey’, 88- 9): this formula governs a view of elegy now, apparently, become normative. Something works to redeem the harrowing logic of ultimate loss, perhaps even—as in certain Christian and Marxian mythoi—to transform it into splendour. In its lowest common denominator the formula traces out a dismal science of balanced books or capitalist growth. More impressive and even thrilling is the cancellation of loss executed through a general economy of gift-giving or potlatch. Of course ‘civilized’ cultures—witness the historical evolution of Christianity—have always tried to restrict the economy of wholesale sacrifice, to bring order and a measure of reasonableness to the sad, ecstatic, or spectacular stories of the deaths of kings.

The chapter begins with a poignant experience from the author’s own childhood to provide a grounding framework for how historical trauma experiences may contribute to scarcity mindsets and a lack of communication among Asian American families. A brief overview of Asian American history is provided to contextualize how scarcity mentalities and other forms of inter-ethnic competition can be traced back to the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad as well as the 1965 Hart-Cellar Act. Next, the chapter describes how migration histories to the United States, experiences of discrimination, and other culturally embedded stressors may lead to historical trauma narratives in ways that impact families, worldviews, and unhelpful cultural scripts. Finally, readers will explore how present-day values, unhelpful cultural scripts, and family narratives may have evolved from historical forms of anti-Asian discrimination.

Professional clinicians and human services providers are increasingly attributing the mental health problems of American Indians (AIs) to historical trauma (HT). As an alternative to established psychiatric disorders, AI HT was formulated to explain enduring mental health disparities as originating in tribal experiences of Euro-American colonization. As a result, AI HT has been described as the collective, cumulative, and intergenerational psychosocial disability resulting from massive group-based oppression, such as forced relocation, political subjugation, cultural domination, and genocide. One objective of the HT construct is to frame AI distress and dysfunction in social and historical terms. Given widespread indigenous experiences of colonization, the debilitating effects of HT are presumed to affect most AI communities today. With this background in mind, I explore AI HT with specific reference to a "war narrative" obtained by an anthropologist in 1901 from an elderly Gros Ventre woman. In this account, Watches All described her participation in a historic intertribal battle, and her subsequent captivity and escape from the enemy during the late 1860s. This historical narrative references many first-hand experiences that would today be identified as traumatogenic. Interestingly, however, this account complicates several assumptions underlying AI HT, leading to vexing questions of whether Watches All's ordeal actually qualifies as an instance of AI HT. No matter how one answers these questions, such ambiguity highlights serious theoretical confusions requiring elaboration and refinement if AI HT is to remain a useful construct in the behavioral health sciences.

In the middle of the nineteenth century, Marcus Clarke famously described the Australian outback as displaying a 'Weird Melancholy' (qtd. in Gelder 116). The strange sights, sounds, and experiences of Australia’s rural locations made them ripe for the development of the European genre of the Gothic in a new location, a mutation which has continued over the past two centuries. But what does it mean for Australia’s Gothic landscapes to be associated with the affective qualities of the melancholy? And more particularly, how and why does this Gothic effect (and affect) appear in the most accessible Gothic media of the twenty-first century, the television series? Two recent Australian television adaptations, Wake in Fright (2017, dir. Kriv Stenders) and Mystery Road (2018, dir. Rachel Perkins) provoke us to ask the question: how does their pictorial representation of the Australian outback and its inhabitants overtly express rage and its close ties to melancholia, shame and violence? More particularly, I argue that in both series this rage is turned inwards rather than outwards; rage is turned into melancholy and thus to self-destruction – which constructs an allegory for the malaise of our contemporary nation. However, here the two series differ. While Wake in Fright posits this as a never-ending narrative, in a true Freudian model of melancholics who fail to resolve or attend to their trauma, Mystery Road is more positive in its positioning, allowing the themes of apology and recognition to appear, both necessary for reparation and forward movement.

The hope for reconcilable bilateral relations between Pakistan and Bangladesh is still haunted by the traumatic split of East and West Pakistan in 1971 and the persistence of official lies. A historical reconstruction of the past is one of the markers that can begin the process of truthful remembering that allows for forgetting and reconciliation. I argue that Sorayya Khan’s novel Noor (2003) can be read as an attempt, what Paul Ricoeur expects from writers, to remember the sufferers of history, who are silenced through the dominant narrative of national history. I contend that Khan inextricably weaves a history of victimization and trauma into Noor, helping the Pakistani nation confront a violent history of invisible injuries – silence, suffering and loss, genocide denialism, and the violation of human rights. It is also argued that, apart from telling the past, the novel challenges the established denial mechanisms – the politics of denialism. In Pakistan, genocide denialism and historical amnesia persist, and the history of victimization is swept under the carpet. Since Pakistan’s literary and academic responses to 1971 have been scant, previous studies on Noor disregard the relationship between a history of victimization, trauma, and denialism. Through a post-conflict reading of the novel in relation to the 1971 conflict between West and East Pakistan, I explore a genocidal past that has been silenced through epistemic violence.

‘Sad Stories of the Death of Kings’: <i>The Hollow Crown</i> and the Shakespearean History Play on Screen

In this paper we point out the significant impact that historical trauma narratives may have on the current international security environment, especially in our area. To this end, we will analyze the impact of historical trauma narratives spread by the elites and governments of Hungary, Russia and Turkiye, which are meant to justify and fuel policies, attitudes and strategies that have a potential negative impact on regional security. This exact same type of narrative has fuelled the justification for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and are also fuelling aggressive and revisionist foreign policies from Ankara and Budapest, creating a climate of tension and security risks in our region. While there are definitely various real historical traumas and suffering that need to be properly addressed and reconciled with throughout the world, there are also cynical weaponizations of these traumas, manipulated by politicians and academics alike, for personal, political, and geopolitical benefits.

In troubled societies narratives about the past tend to be partial and explain a conflict from narrow perspectives that justify the national self and condemn, exclude and devalue the 'enemy' and their narrative. Through a detailed analysis, Teaching Contested Narratives reveals the works of identity, historical narratives and memory as these are enacted in classroom dialogues, canonical texts and school ceremonies. Presenting ethnographic data from local contexts in Cyprus and Israel, and demonstrating the relevance to educational settings in countries which suffer from conflicts all over the world, the authors explore the challenges of teaching narratives about the past in such societies, discuss how historical trauma and suffering are dealt with in the context of teaching, and highlight the potential of pedagogical interventions for reconciliation. The book shows how the notions of identity, memory and reconciliation can perpetuate or challenge attachments to essentialized ideas about peace and conflict.

This study focuses on the artistic strategies of representing historical past in two Afrofuturist novels: «Kindred» by Octavia Butler and «War Girls» by Tochi Onyebuchi. The author examines how these texts, rooted in distinct geographical and cultural contexts—African American and Nigerian—conceptualize the past as a constituent of collective memory, historical trauma, and cultural identity. Special attention is paid to the integration of the past into the structure of speculative fiction, its narrative functions, and its role in shaping future imaginaries. The comparison of the two novels reveals both shared tendencies within Afrofuturist writing and region-specific approaches to historical material and postcolonial or discriminatory experiences. The research employs comparative literary analysis, narratological tools, and the methodology of Postcolonial Studies. An anthropological perspective is applied to account for localized practices of collective memory, cultural coding, and divergences in historical narratives in Nigeria and the United States. The theoretical framework is informed by contemporary Afrofuturist scholarship. The past is interpreted as a narrative-generative element within the texts. This article presents the first comparative analysis in Russian literary studies of past representation in Afrofuturist fiction from Nigeria and the United States. It identifies a key distinction: in the U.S. Afrofuturist tradition, the past is portrayed as trauma requiring emotional reconstruction, whereas in the Nigerian tradition, it emerges as a cyclical history necessitating caution and reinterpretation. The study delineates divergent narrative strategies—from direct temporal immersion in the history of slavery (U.S.) to allusive transpositions of civil war into a futuristic setting (Nigeria). It demonstrates that speculative fiction operates in both contexts as a tool for cultural and political reflection. The findings contribute to refining the conceptual apparatus of Afrofuturist criticism and open new directions for Afrofuturist research within Russian humanities.