Historical Narrative Research Articles

Promoting historical empathy with a local history research project about the pandemic

PurposeWe examined how high school students demonstrated historical empathy through conducting local history place-based research to create an exhibit and companion book about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their community. The majority of existing historical empathy scholarship focuses on classroom-based inquiry of historical events, people and time periods. We contend that broader examination of how historical empathy can be promoted beyond school-based instruction can contribute to the field by examining how student analyses of historical contexts and perspectives, and making affective connections to historical topics of study are needed when engaging in placed-based local history projects.Design/methodology/approachQualitative case study methodology was implemented for this study. A Likert-scale survey with a questionnaire was distributed to 30 high school study participants. Thirteen students gave follow-up interviews. Students’ responses on the surveys, interviews and questionnaires were organized into three categories that aligned to the theoretical framework – identification of historical contexts of the sources that students collected, analysis of how contexts shaped the perspectives expressed in the collected sources and expression of reasoned connections between the students’ emotions and experiences during the pandemic. A rubric was used to examine how students’ writing samples and reflections reflected demonstration of historical empathy.FindingsStudents responded that their local history research about the pandemic contributed to their displays of historical empathy. Students displayed weaker evidence of historical empathy while examining archival resources to explain the historical contexts of the pandemic. Student demonstration of historical empathy was stronger when analyzing community-sourced documents for perspectives and making reasoned affective connections to what they learned about the historical significance of the pandemic. The place-based aspects of this project were strongly connected to the students’ engagement in historical empathy because the sources they analyzed were relevant to their experiences and identities as citizens in their community.Originality/valueDocumenting the diverse human experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic is crucial to preserving the history of this extraordinary time. Every person around the globe experienced the pandemic differently, hence riding out the same storm in different boats. At some point, the pandemic will appear in historical narratives of the social studies curriculum. Therefore, now is an opportune time to ascertain whether place-based local history research about the contexts, perspectives and experiences of community members and children themselves, during the pandemic can foster historical empathy.

ChatGPT-Generated and Student-Written Historical Narratives: A Comparative Analysis

ChatGPT-Generated and Student-Written Historical Narratives: A Comparative Analysis

Another nursing is possible: Ethics, political economies, and possibility in an uncertain world.

Overtaxed by the realities laid bare in the pandemic, nursing has imminent decisions to make. The exigencies of pandemic times overextend a health care infrastructure already groaning under the weight of inequitable distribution of resources and care commodified for profit. We can choose to prioritise different values. Invoking philosopher of science Isbelle Stengers's manifesto for slow science, this is not the only nursing that is possible. With this paper, I pick up threads of nursing's historical ontology, drawing previous scholarship on the historical narratives nurses use to understand themselves. Peeling back nursing's myth to alternate points of origin allows me to consider alternate lines of flight, a speculative adventure in paths not taken but paths that exist nonetheless. I go on to examine what a collective ethic of nursing could be, when we make space for these alternate histories, considering the confluences and conflicts that enable nurses to care and those that inhibit them from doing so. The imperative for this lies in the central importance of the reproductive labour of nursing health care, which leads me to a critique of nursing's capitulation to the pressures of late stage capitalism. This is a problem with ethical and ontological implications both for nursing, and also for those who require nursing care, an imperative to think about the kinds of present/futures for health, care, and health care we might cocreate in collaboration and solidarity with the communities in which nurses are imbricated, shedding the trappings of neoliberalism. There is significant power in the vision and praxis of 28 million nurses and midwives worldwide. Our ethics can guide our imagination which can in turn create possibility. This kind of endeavour-that of dreams and imagination-leads us to what could be, if only we leap.

Science in the service of politics. The cartographic representation of a local territorial context of the Kingdom of Naples in the early nineteenth century

The erudite priest Marciano Di Leo (1751–1819), a prominent personality in the historical and geographical panorama of his time, not only in his home territory, authored a vast literary and poetic production, but also tried his hand at producing some maps, referring to a province of the Kingdom of Naples. At a time when the principles of geodetic cartography had become increasingly known, even locally, hand in hand with improvements in technology and accuracy of measurements, the author reflects the historical narratives of progress of the European (and Neapolitan) Enlightenment and translates them into an unpublished manuscript of statistical, historical, and geographical nature, accompanied by numerous maps of various scales. The rediscovery of a largely unknown—and therefore not very thorough—minor cartographic production underscores the spread even in more marginal contexts of the most innovative ideas and increasingly precise scientific foundations in the cartographic-mathematical representation of the territory. It also illustrates the role of a number of intellectuals in the service of the political choices of their time, in an attempt-often unrealized-to bring about a decisive change of course in public administration, in accordance with Enlightenment ideals and in the spirit of reform that spread throughout Europe thanks to the French Revolution.

Revisiting the bleeding effect in historical cobalt porcelain pigments: Mechanism, influence and technical responses

The bleeding phenomenon, a persistent and widespread issue in the application of cobalt-bearing pigment during porcelain decoration, has spurred different civilisations to develop various response strategies to alleviate this problem. In this study, we challenge the prevailing hypotheses concerning the role of composition and viscosity in determining the bleeding effect on blue-and-white wares, proposing a novel physical model framing it as a diffusion process that occurs within vitreous silicate, where the severity can be qualitatively expressed using the diffusion distance. Drawing upon the phenomenological Fick's law and microscopic diffusion mechanism, we quantitatively discuss the primary physical parameters that influence the diffusion behaviour for the first time, clarifying that the diffusion of cobalt ions is not related to the medium viscosity. Moreover, compared with the microstructural features of blue decors with and without the bleeding effect, we reveal that domestic cobalt particles are all encapsulated by anorthite crystals, acting as a passivation shell to hinder the dissolution of cobalt particles. Significantly, our reinterpretation has broader archaeological implications for the bleeding effect associated with cobalt pigment in ceramics, elucidating the historical trajectories of responsive practices and the multifaceted interplay between resource form, artistic expression and technological advancement across varying environmental and cultural contexts. Overall, these responses to the bleeding effect exemplify the complexities of technological evolution, highlighting that technology is not merely an extension of technical knowledge but also functions as a form of social construction deeply intertwined with its local context. This comprehensive understanding contributes to our understanding of historical narratives in ceramics and the diversity of human ingenuity in ancient societies, with potential implications for contemporary pigment manufacture.

Two concepts of apocalypse and apocalyptic history today

ABSTRACT An apocalyptic imaginary appears so frequently in debates on climate change and the Anthropocene that it might be considered the dominant historical narrative of our time. However, when dealing with apocalypticism, biblical references are not always appropriate. In this article, I argue that we are dealing with two different concepts of apocalypticism, and that the new apocalyptic history is not a negative version of the religious apocalypse. Second, I also argue that the new apocalyptic history nevertheless seems to revolve around the idea of the promise as a specific historical way of binding the past, present and future into a coherent history that, ironically, seems to open up a dialogue with the history of theology.

Emergence of chambers in the Turkish history: the case of Dersaadet Chamber of Commerce (DCC) as a public-agent meta-organization, 1882–1929

Purpose Building on previous historical works, this study aims to develop a framework to represent chambers as meta-organizations and present the case of Dersaadet Chamber of Commerce (DCC), based on this framework, during its emergence and evolution in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Design/methodology/approach In the study, a historical narrative was constructed from primary and secondary data. To complement data collected from the archives a systematic content analysis was used to explore the discourse of the chamber within its serial magazine. Findings It was found that the first chamber of the Ottoman Empire, DCC, was established according to the public law model as an extension of the economic context and the guild order, and it was observed that it increasingly conformed to this model between 1882 and 1929. Originality/value In this study, chamber models are examined for the first time according to the designated features of meta-organizational forms, built on the historical work on chambers. The case of DCC suggested that it adopted a public law model and displayed much continuity, even when significant transitions were observed during the modernization process from Ottoman Empire to Turkish Republic.

HISTORICAL ACTION AND NARRATIVE IN THE CONTEXT OF HISTORIOGRAPHY IN RICOEUR AND RANCIERE

The argument of this study is that a critical encounter between the ‘historiographical’ texts of Ricoeur and Rancière on the theme of historical action and narrative provides us with a fruitful approach to the political stakes of the act of writing history. More specifically, I claim that attention to how these two authors frame narrative agency in the construction of our identities in history reveals two points of salience that give orientation to our attitude toward history, namely, disruption and harmony. Framing history as a problem in this way makes visible the centrality of how to conceive agency within the two poles of modern existence: on the one hand, statistical regularities that govern behavior in the form of impersonal forces and, on the other, individual projects, the trajectories of which form a coherent life (and define autonomy for the subject). The merit of narrative history is to bridge these poles; but it thereby occludes the antagonisms characteristic of modernity. It is in order to make these visible that we need a disruptive attention to the way narratives are constructed retrospectively.

‘Changing the Course of a Super Tanker’: A Study of Senior and Junior Managers’ Enactments of a Transition Narrative

ABSTRACT This paper investigates how a mnemonic community of a senior and junior generation of frontline managers, respectively with first-hand and second-hand memories of the organizational past, enact a shared historical transition narrative as part of their everyday practice of change management in a Scandinavian telecommunications company. The study shows the importance of actors’ individual trajectories and generational memberships for the understanding of collective memory in organizations. Based on the construct narrative habitus, the paper offers, as its primary theoretical contribution, a practice-theoretical framework for the study of mnemonic socialization and cross-generational dynamics of organizational mnemonic communities. MAD statement This article aims to Make A Difference (MAD) by providing an analysis of junior and senior managers' use of a historical transition narrative during temporally prolonged organizational change. The article offers new perspectives on the use of historical narratives and collective memory to manage change by showing that junior and senior generations of managers are habitually dispositioned to enact shared narratives in different ways. While extant research has shown collective memory to be an effective change management tool, our analysis draws attention to cross–generational dynamics as a particularly influential yet overlooked factor in shaping managerial enactments of shared historical narratives.

‘Unforeseeable’ and ‘inevitable’: Constructions of prison suicide in Scotland’s Fatal Accidents and Sudden Deaths Inquiries

Rates of suicides are on the rise in Scottish prisons. Fatal Accident and Sudden Deaths Inquiries (FAIs) carried out by sheriffs following these deaths provide a valuable source of knowledge regarding how the criminal justice system understands and responds to incarcerated people’s suicides. Informed by literature in critical suicide studies and narrative criminology, we conducted an abductive, narrative qualitative analysis of 37 FAI reports of incarcerated people’s suicides published between 2016 and 2021, in Scotland. We argue that the FAIs explicitly individualise incarcerated people’s suicides, deploying explanatory narratives of (1) mental illness, (2) social history and (3) problematic substance use, while (4) simultaneously emphasising and undermining incarcerated people’s testimony and agency. By conceptualising suicide as paradoxically ‘unforeseeable’ and ‘inevitable’, these narratives shift blame onto the individual while absolving the prison system. Our analysis contributes towards understanding of how institutional procedures are implicated in social scripts and practices around suicide in Scottish prisons.

Fabulating Archival Arts: An Exploration of the Complexities of Politics, History, and Memory in a Postmodern Context

Archival art, which emerged in the last century, has become a significant influence in the art world, challenging the constraints of traditional historical narratives. It offers viewers a more nuanced and inclusive framework for thinking, providing an alternative engagement with history free from dominant past narratives. This paper undertakes a comprehensive analysis of two significant archival artworks, namely the Atlas Group and Sputnik. Through this analysis, it aims to elucidate the societal impacts engendered by archival art that adopts critical fabulation as a strategy. Combining textual and graphic analyses with perspectives from postmodernism and deconstructionism, the research demonstrates that fictional archival art stimulates profound contemplation of the interconnectedness between the past, present, and future through artistic expression. It also examines the emotional impact of revisiting the past, records, and memory. By navigating the complexities and ambiguities of postmodern society through archival artistic expression, we can foster a more inspiring approach to understanding this art form.

Writing Sacred Histories in Late Ottoman Egypt: Zaynab Fawwāz and Qadriyya Kāmil’s Descriptions of Early Islam

Abstract This article studies contrasting notions of historiography in Zaynab Fawwāz and Qadriyya Kāmil’s biographical dictionaries. It begins by offering an overview on these authors’ vitas and delves into the historiographical practices that concerned Ottoman intellectuals in the late nineteenth century. It analyses Fawwāz’s dictionary, al-Durr al-manthūr fī ṭabaqāt rabbāt al-khudūr (1894), which reveals a feminist understanding of Islam as situated within an Arab and pan-Ottoman environment as well as the large arch of Abrahamic monotheism. By highlighting specific figures over others, Fawwāz produces a historical narrative that transcends religious and sectarian divides. The article then introduces Kāmil’s Shahīrāt al-nisāʾ fī l-ʿālam al-islāmī (1924) which depicts a conceptually narrower Islam, shaped by the geo-political circumstances of the early twentieth century. The biographies of the Muslim foremothers Kāmil presents offer normative templates of female piety but are not completely subsumed by the category of gender either. Throughout, the article points to how both authors engage the rules of the biographical genre, arguing that the ways they adhere to or break with its tradition indicate a desire to create new forms of moral and communal belonging.

140-year history of pharyngoesophageal reconstruction.

For over a century, circumferential pharyngoesophageal junction reconstruction posed significant surgical challenges. This review aims to provide a narrative history of pharyngoesophageal junction reconstruction from early surgical innovations to the advent of modern free-flap procedures. The review encompasses three segments: (1) local and/or locoregional flaps, (2) visceral transposition flaps, and (3) free-tissue transfer, focusing on the interplay between pharyngoesophageal junction reconstruction and prevalent surgical trends. Before 1960, Mikulicz-Radecki's flaps and the Wookey technique prevailed for circumferential pharyngoesophageal junction reconstruction. Gastric pull-up and colonic interposition were favoured visceral techniques in the 1960s-1990s. Concurrently, deltopectoral and pectoralis major flaps were the preferred cutaneous methods. Free flaps (radial forearm, anterolateral thigh) revolutionised reconstructions in the late 1980s, yet gastric pull-up and free jejunal transfer remain in selective use. Numerous pharyngoesophageal junction reconstructive methods have been trialled in the last century. Despite significant advancements in free-flap reconstruction, some older methods are still in use for challenging clinical situations.

The (un)tenable flaneuse: an inquiry into the politics of women walking in war-entrenched Kabul

ABSTRACT The article will trace the interrelations between Kabul’s constructed spatiality and the implications of women’s walks through the landscape in two primary texts – Taran Khan’s Shadow City: A Woman Walks Kabul and Samira Makhmalbaf’s At Five in the Afternoon – to trace the unique discourse and modalities of women’s resistance that they generate against oppressive state-sponsored narratives of history. The first part of this article will attempt to delineate the changes in the spatio-geographical landscape of post-2001 Kabul, which I argue was a twofold project of both architectural and epistemic violence. The subsequent sections will interrogate how the walks of the female protagonist in the texts become an agential assertion of resistance against this project of cultural effacement, as they attempt to reinscribe the history of Kabul in manifold different ways which radically challenge state-sponsored authoritarian narratives. Finally, I will argue how both these women, through their urban presence and walks, inhabit as well as set into motion a ‘third space’, after Bhabha’s theorisation of the same, which repurposes existing spatio-ideological markers and multiplies them with new meaning and radical potentialities.

Thinking with Rosa: assent in philosophy of the Islamic world

ABSTRACT In Thinking with Assent: Renewing a Traditional Account of Knowledge and Belief, Maria Rosa Antognazza offers a historical narrative of pre-modern epistemology. She argues that until very recently, philosophers generally held that “knowing and believing are distinct in kind in the strong sense that they are mutually exclusive mental states”. This paper tests, and ultimately confirms, that account by applying it two thinkers of the Islamic world, al-Fārābī (d.950 CE) and Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna, d.1037 CE). It is shown that both of them used the term ‘assent (taṣdīq)’ as an umbrella term covering two very different states, knowledge and belief. In the case of Ibn Sīnā, this contrast is ultimately tied to his sharp distinction between immaterial intellective thinking and embodied thinking that uses a physical organ.

Uncertain Blackness: The Mysterious Case of Joseph Stadler

Abstract Historians have identified George Coleman Poage as the first African American Olympian. Poage won two bronze medals in the hurdles at the 1904 St. Louis Olympics. In that same year, the name of another potential Black Olympian, Joseph Stadler, appeared briefly in a few newspaper stories previewing the games. Stadler clearly competed in St. Louis, winning a silver medal and bronze medal in the now-archaic forms of standing jumps. Whether he should join Poage on the roster of pioneering African American Olympians, however, remains a mystery among Olympic researchers—as does his racial identity. Analyzing the historical record regarding these claims and employing new information from census data and other public records reveals that Stadler was most likely white. His “misidentification,” however, reveals more than just a trivial episode about an inaccurate reading of racial identity from limited sources. The long history of narratives about Joseph Stadler's identity reveals important patterns about the social construction of race, illuminates the complexities of more than a century of seeking to depict the Olympics as a fulcrum of racial progress in American culture, and showcases the dangers of attempting to read “race” from historic photographs.

Materializing the public sphere in American religious history

AbstractThis article reviews scholarship in American religious history around the concept of the public sphere. Considering that the public sphere was readily aligned with the productions of the printing press, ‘materializing’ surveys works that have relied upon, expanded, and critiqued print's centraility to early American religious public culture. Recent attention to materiality has also encouraged greater attention to contingencies, locality of circulation, and specificity of audiences in our studies of public texts that would trouble technological determinisms that readily aligned Protestant ascendance, secular modernity, and print publishing with democratization. The essay concludes with new questions regarding print culture, calls for greater multimedia approaches to our study of media objects, and posits the importance of critically evaluating what we count as public or private in our historical narratives about religious communities.

Fiction as Testimony

This article explores the fraught relationship between the terms ‘fiction’, ‘creativity’, ‘literature’ and ‘testimony’ in Holocaust and trauma studies. It argues that the main challenge in reading witness literature is to read testimony as both factual and potentially fictional at the same time when no metatextual corroboration is available. This anxiety of testimony originates in some key texts in Holocaust and trauma studies: I analyse for the first time the repercussions of fictional passages in Primo Levi's If This is a Man (1947), The Truce (1963) and Charlotte Delbo's Auschwitz and After (1985). These sections in no way attenuate the veracity of the overall narratives of survival. Rather than presenting the fictional as fact in bad faith, these books demonstrate the importance of creativity in responding to historical events, particularly when there are no existing historical narratives to present an alternative view. They also emphasise the current critical dichotomy in Holocaust and trauma studies between what Sara Guyer terms the ‘non-representational character’ of literature from ‘the representational character of testimony’. If we attempt to think beyond this binary between fictional literature and books about witnessing, it is possible to reflect on how fiction itself can operate as a form of testimony.

A Man for All Seasons: Mosaddeq's Image and Legacy in Contemporary Iran

The unwavering commitment of the people to the leadership of the Islamic Revolution, coupled with the willingness of political elites to demonstrate selflessness and sacrifice, can effectively thwart any potential colonial ambitions that might once again threaten the nation. The historical backdrop of the 28 Mordad coup (August 19) serves as a valuable lesson for the years to come in our country. Much like how colonialists were defeated during the uprisings of the 30 Tir (July 21), the 25 Mordad (16 August), and the events of the autumn of 2022, this legacy of resistance and resilience can endure into the future.If seventy years ago, foreigners orchestrated the tragic coup on the 28 Mordad 1332 (August 19, 1953) against the Iranian people, today, the rulers of Iran have instigated a new coup against the happiness and rightful demands of the people. . . . Do the rulers not learn from the consequences of the 28 Mordad coup, which resulted in the 1979 Revolution? The seventieth anniversary of the 1953 coup d’état that toppled the government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq prompted a moment of reflection in Iran, shedding light on a pivotal chapter in the country's modern history. The two quotations presented above, each in its distinctive way, invoke the profound and enduring consequences of those tumultuous years while drawing pertinent connections to contemporary circumstances. They establish a link between the fateful events leading to the coup and the 2022 surge of civil unrest and waves of protests under the slogan Women, Life, Freedom (Zan, Zendegi, Azadi), sparked by the tragic death of Jina Mahsa Amini in police custody that September after she was arrested for violating the Islamic Republic's dress code. Each quotation reflects a continuity of collective memory and the use of historical narratives to shape current perspectives.

Strengthening character of cultural conservation through an android application containing public history for high school students in Indonesia

Introduction. The cultural heritage passed down by our ancestors to the next generation must be preserved. It is necessary to understand the history of the formation and development of the preservation of this cultural heritage to know its importance. Innovative methods are needed to increase the awareness and understanding of the younger generation regarding the history and conservation of cultural heritage. This research aims to analyze the strengthening of the character of cultural conservation when students learn history using an Android application with public history content. The public history content developed contains historical narratives of Semarang, as shown in videos. Information about the content is compiled using historical methods, including discussions about the importance of understanding historical heritage conservation for a society. Study participants and methods. This research involved 25 students in the experimental class and 25 in the control class to test the effectiveness of the Android application on students' cultural conservation characteristics. This research was conducted at SMA 5 Semarang (a High School) in Central Java Province, Indonesia. This school is one of the schools in the province with intense research activities. This study uses a quantitative research approach with quasi-experimental methods. The statistical method used is the Pearson chi-square test to evaluate the relationships between relevant categorical variables. Results. The results showed that high school students in the experimental group had a higher understanding and appreciation of public history and cultural conservation than students in the control group. The calculation results (χ² = 8,72; α < 0,05) conclude a significant relationship between the use of Android applications and interest in cultural preservation activities. So, the Android application is called DiHistory, developed to increase students' access to information on historical objects or buildings. This application was developed by the Research Center from the History Education Laboratory at Universitas Negeri Semarang, Indonesia. The application is practical in increasing the interest and motivation of high school students to study public history and strive to participate in preserving the local cultural heritage. Practical significance. This research has practical significance in education and cultural preservation in Indonesia. Through the development of the DiHistory application, which contains public history, this research has been proven to strengthen the character of secondary school students by introducing and increasing their understanding of Indonesia's cultural heritage. This research also shows the impact on strengthening character, student involvement, understanding cultural preservation, and increasing awareness. This research combining these aspects, this research has practical significance, which can positively contribute to education, student character, and cultural preservation in Indonesia.