Historical Imagination Research Articles

Kārwān’s talking forest: Materiality, poetic imagination, and the metaphysics of war violence

ABSTRACT Pir Muhammad Karwan’s 2000 poetry collection Da Xāperey Werghowey traces a history of materiality, emotion, and imagination across human-environmental systems as they are militarized over twenty years in Afghanistan. At the same as it is a unique narration of the wars, this project is a cosmopolitical one. In dialog with other essays in this issue that point to the life of the immaterial in present-day traditions, I show how Kārwān’s bottom-up psycho-history draws on Persianate-classical, Pashto-popular, and embodied knowledges to critique both imperial and Islamist modernity on ontological grounds. It aims to undermine the borders of self and other that geopolitical violence embeds everywhere: barriers between human and other beings, humans and other humans, imagination and material.

El teatro como un acontecimiento pedagógico de Juan Campesino

The first part of this book was led by a historical vision and synthetic purposes, the avatars of the recently named “theatre pedagogy” being reviewed in their different aspects: theatre in school, school theatre, curricular design, institutional programs, teacher training, drama in the classroom, focusing mainly on the case of Mexico, although without leaving aside, certainly, the place that our country occupies in the framework of global culture. The second part goes into a pedagogical perspective regarding children’s developmental processes, the educational aspects of theatre and, above all, of that phenomenon which is common to theatrical art and to a certain genre of games, usually known as theatricality.

Visualising truth-telling through Indigenous community-specific vernacular photography in Canada and Australia

The emphasis in Indigenous photographic scholarship has largely been on Indigenous subjects viewed through a colonial lens. It is often assumed that impoverished communities did not have cameras or photographic archives, given the vulnerability and mobility of their lives. However, cameras, although scarce, were present. This is demonstrated in the photographic legacies of Ngarrindjeri families in south-eastern Australia and Qu’Appelle Valley Métis families in Saskatchewan, Canada, investigated in this article. Both groups share similar histories in marginalised settings – ‘one mile camps’ in Australia and ‘Road Allowance’ communities in Canada. The archives created by generations of Indigenous photographers are both familiar and unique. They depict smiling groups posed in front of cars and homes, although the backdrops are very different to the middle-class and suburban settings typical of vernacular photography more widely. Photographic archives in these communities are comparatively sparse, and thus more precious. Importantly, we see the matriarchs who anchored large, extended families, and evidence of their Indegenous knowledges and the survival skills that provided for them. Working with these photographs in deep engagement with communities and their long-held knowledge reanimates these images in contemporary contexts to facilitate the reclaiming of land, connection and family. We argue that such images represent unparalleled forms of truth-telling, offering a nuanced visual history unavailable from other sources.

A microhistory of architecture historical imagination and the Bauhaus

ABSTRACT In this paper, we develop the notion of historical imagination as a methodological practice in microhistory. The relevance of microhistory for organization research goes beyond the focus on the small scale, as its methods involve tracing the sources that allow us to reconstruct lived experience. We use the Bauhaus School as a case study to illustrate how microhistorical methods and historical imagination can reconstruct the perception and impact of a novel design aesthetic in their historical context. Here we draw on ego-documents as key to historical imagination and define a related type of source, alter-documents, that report on how others are experienced by the self. By bringing historical imagination to microhistory, we introduce methodological rigor and reflexivity to the approach. Our study also contributes to a better understanding of the methodological practice of narrative construction through historical imagination and demonstrates its usefulness for understanding the aesthetic experience of architecture and space in the past.

The Politics of Memory and Its Limits in Conflict with Oral Tradition: The Interwar Period in the Imagination of the West Belarusian Population

Abstract Often overlooked on the world stage, the Republic of Belarus harbours a complex historical narrative interwoven with its national identity and political landscape. While the country is known for widely representing the cult of the Great Patriotic War and its importance to the local historical imagination, this article focuses on a less explored era: the interwar period. The study examines the coexistence of state-sponsored historical narratives and local oral traditions in attempts to shed light on the complicated relationship between personal memories and official discourses. By applying a multidisciplinary approach that includes anthropology, history and political science, this study sheds light on the dynamics that shape Belarusian historical consciousness. The research focuses on how the state narrative intersects with and excludes personal memories from the broader discourse in order to illuminate the limits of state authority in shaping collective memory.

The Hashemite Regime on Jordanian Postage Stamps: A Visual History of Nation-Building

This study will examine the political use of stamps to preserve the Hashemite heritage. It will focus on how Jordanian stamps combine images of the Hashemite royal family with Arab, Islamic, and Palestine-themed symbols to strengthen the legitimacy and stability of the Hashemite monarchy and develop a Jordanian national identity. In the first period (1921–1947), stamps emphasized images of King Abdullah I, founder and first monarch of the Emirate of Transjordan, to bolster legitimacy of Hashemite rule in Transjordan and forge a bond between Transjordanians and Hashemites. In the second period (1948–1967), Palestine motifs complimented images of the Hashemites to construct a hybrid identity consisting of one Jordanian family including Transjordanians and Palestinians. In the third period (1972–1999), Transjordanian, Arab and Islamic, and military themes accompanied Hashemite images. This tumultuous period witnessed Israel’s conquest of the West Bank, the 1971 Black September insurgency between the Jordanian army and fedayeen, and King Hussein’s West Bank disengagement decision in 1988. While Palestinian and Transjordanian themes fluctuated, recurrence of Hashemite images and symbols sought to convince Jordanians that the kingdom’s long-term stability and security will always be destined with the monarchy even if its borders or relationship with the Palestinians change.

Rape as a Form of Sexual Violence During the Holocaust (Evidence From General District Volyn-Podillia)

The purpose of the paper is to uncover rape as the most criminal form of sexual violence directed at Jewish women during the Holocaust (in the example of the General District Volyn-Podillia). The scientific novelty of the paper is in the fact that rape as sexual violence directed at Jewish women during the Holocaust in a single territory (Volyn and Podillia) has been singled out and analyzed for the first time in a separate study. The research methodology is based on the principles of scientism, historicism, objectivity, problematic-historical, and searching methods, as well as methods of analysis and systematization. The oral history method has become important in the study. Conclusions. Rape, in the context of sexual violence, was a common practice during the Holocaust. Such crimes were committed by German soldiers, the Gestapo and other occupiers, their minions – collaborators, the Ukrainian police, as well as civilians, neighbors, rescuers, and ‘ordinary men’. Despite the prohibition of sexual relations between Germans and Jewish women, that rule was not enforced either in Germany or in the territories it occupied. The waves of sexual violence in the analyzed territories of Volyn and Podillia could be considered the initial period of the occupation, staying in the ghetto, and ‘Final Solution to the Jewish Question’, as well as the period of hiding. The conclusions of the study show that the committed sexual crimes depended more on mercantile reasons, satisfying the sexual needs of the rapists than on their ideological/anti-Semite or political preferences. Enforcers of the Ukrainian police during their service in the civil administration of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine, who, by virtue of their official duties, were most often in contact with Jews and had the opportunity to commit violence against them, were widely involved in the crimes committed. Gang rapes were frequent, indicating the impact of brutalization and violence during the war, and the perpetrators’ belief that they would not be punished. Sometimes after rape, women were tried to be killed in order to conceal the traces of the crimes. Jewish women had a ghost of a chance of defending themselves. They succeeded only in some cases. Sexual violence affected not only women and girls but also men, for whom it was an act of humiliation, a manifestation of their inability to protect women. Funding. This project has received funding through the EURIZON project, which is funded by the European Union under grant agreement No. 871072. Also, this study was carried out thanks to access to sources from the collection of ‘Visual History and Education’ of the Shoah Foundation (University of Southern California, USA) and oral testimonies of Yahad-In unum (Paris, France).

Traditional Worldviews, Strategic Culture and Revolutionary Mentality: The Case of People’s Republic of China

This article explores China’s ambitions to become a global hegemon in the 21st century. The research traces the origins of these ambitions in China’s strategic culture and system of ideas and representations. Forming a geopolitical study in this way, this article zooms in the concepts of ‘middle’, ‘Middle Kingdom’ and Tianxia. ‘Middle’ symbolises China’s centrality and moral authority; ‘Middle Kingdom’ embodies the idea of a state where political power is concentrated; and Tianxia represents China’s historical visions of the global order. The research results show that China’s traditional worldviews suggest ambitions for a leading status in the international chessboard, which is confirmed by China’s aspects of revolutionary mentality and development of the military power. While the extent to which China will ascend to a leading role remains uncertain, understanding China’s identity—via its strategic culture—is crucial for grasping both China’s ambitious policy and its impact on the world.

Finding a “continuing city”: John Marrant’s Narrative Mapping as Geographical and Historical Imaginaries

Finding a “continuing city”: John Marrant’s Narrative Mapping as Geographical and Historical Imaginaries

Disappearance of the face: From early photography to facial recognition systems

In this article I analyse the hidden genealogical link between portrait photography, used for criminological and psychiatric purposes, and contemporary systems of biometric identification of the human face. The aim is to highlight the shift between the emphasis on the importance of the human ‘expert eye’ in recognizing the face when talking about nineteenth-century photography and the use of computer technology that produces and reads digital facial images. In both cases, however, these are modes and variants of reducing and flattening the human face; the face itself disappears under the onslaught of technologies of vision and mediation, becoming a mere data set. Special attention is devoted to the pose, the frontal view, which is the technological a priori of the empirical possibility of recognition, articulated through the history of visualization of the face from early portrait photography to facial recognition systems. Consequently, what we call the ‘face’ is a simulacra of individual the face presented to the apparatus: the ‘real’ face is transposed upon multiple technological layers (camera – plates – photographic surface), losing its characteristic features to be re-written according to specific techniques of measurement.

Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Against Romani Women and Girls in Occupied Poland during World War II

ABSTRACT This paper examines the various forms of sexual violence experienced by Romani women and girls in occupied Poland during World War II. These acts were perpetrated by German soldiers and SS men and their collaborators, in particular Ukrainian nationalists, as well as by Soviet soldiers during the period of liberation. Romani women found themselves in an especially precarious situation due to both Nazi persecution as well as long-standing history of exoticization and sexualization of Romani women in Europe, dating back to the eighteenth century. The persecution of Romani people during WWII, including sexual violence and assault of Romani women and girls, still remains on the margins of Holocaust research. Moreover, the harmful and traumatic experiences of gender-based violence continue to remain taboo subjects within Romani culture. Drawing on testimonies of Romani survivors collected in Polish by the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, this article examines how the affected women and girls, as well as other survivors, talked or rather remained silent about sexual violence. I also discuss the forms, situations, and patterns of violence perpetrated by various groups and explore the influence of cultural assumptions and situational conditions on sexual and gender-based violence against Romani women and girls.

역사, 인종, 젠더와 ‘쌍안경 비전’ - 데이비드 브래들리의 『체니스빌 사건』

David Bradley's The Chaneysville Incident deals with how John Washington, a black male historian, excavates five generations of his family's history and restores the histories of his family and black Americans buried by dominant narratives. This paper first examines the resistance narratives of John's ancestors that he discovers through 'counter-memories' such as Old Jack's storytelling and the records kept by his father and great-grandfather. It then examines how John, frustrated by the limitations of Western historical methodology, uses historical imagination and African notions of death to uncover his father’s suicide as well as the deaths of his great-grandfather and fugitive slaves. Thus it is revealed that employing both oppositional epistemologies leads John to confront the truth of his family history. Furthermore, the paper explores how John's hatred of whites and women begins to unravel as he unearths his family history and begins to move away from fixed ideas about race and gender. Through John's transformation, Bradley suggests a shift in perception that does not favor either of the opposing perspectives, but rather connects the dots between them, as an attitude which American society should seek for in the post-civil rights era when racial tensions still persist.

WHAT ARE “TEMPORALITIES” IN HISTORY?

ABSTRACTThe question of which “temporalities” underpinned historical processes in the past has increasingly become the focus of historical interest in recent years. In his brilliantly written study of Prussian history, Time and Power: Visions of History in German Politics, from the Thirty Years’ War to the Third Reich, Christopher Clark attempts to answer this question by turning to four Prussian statesmen and politicians who each followed different temporalities in their private and public lives. The benefit of his study lies not least in a better understanding of the concept of “temporality” and its significance for historical processes.

Plotting the Dystopianism in Munis Arazaz’ Confessions of Silencer

Objectives: This paper conveys a critical analysis of Munis Arazaz’ Confessions of Silencer raising significant questions on the nature of dystopia in the Arab World during the 1980s. The novel designates the upsurge of authoritarianism and how people are manipulated. Methods: The study employed the inductive and deductive methods, as well as the analytical approach, regarding the literary function of dystopia. It explored how dystopia was employed as a literary tool in the novel Confessions of Silencer, and why it became a significant structural component in it. This study provides an adequate interpretation of the concept of dystopia by gathering data and evidence from articles and books, and subsequently analyzing and applying them to the selected novel. Results: The analysis elucidated the writer’s use of techniques such as narrative suspense to respond to instances of violence in this era. It also explored techniques in which Munis Arazaz’ Confessions of Silencer can help in recognizing dystopia in the Arab regime. It specifically emphasised the reactions to dystopia and considered the status of literature as an approach to create awareness about the violence of Arab regimes. Conclusions: The conclusion maps how Arazaz employed dystopia in his Confessions of Silencer and used his literary historical imagination to deliver a comprehensible narrative. It pointed to the Arab Regimes’ exploitation and authoritarianism.

Realism, Postmodernism and/as Metanarrative

Abstract The question of how realism and metanarratives are related in the philosophy of history does not seem to have been widely discussed. Whereas there are distinct philosophical and political senses of ‘realism’, contrasting with ‘idealism’ and ‘utopianism’ respectively, ‘metanarrative’ has a singular meaning based on Jean-François Lyotard’s sceptical definition of postmodernism as “incredulity towards metanarratives”. Lyotard defined metanarratives as philosophies of history that serve some legitimatory function, but claimed that their importance was waning. From this point of view, postmodernism can be described as a species of philosophical ‘realism’. But the appearance of Francis Fukuyama’s ‘end of history’ thesis, which explicitly presented itself as a neo-Hegelian critique of political realism, suggested that Lyotard had underestimated the enduring power of metanarrative insofar as it served the interests of the American liberal-democratic capitalist order. For Jacques Derrida, Fukuyama’s work thus underlined the importance of breaking with what he called ‘onto-theological’ visions of history, although Derrida himself could be seen as authoring a metanarrative in the service of European social democracy. But if so, Derrida’s approach to metanarratives was very different in kind to contemporary religious and nationalistic versions. One way to resolve the difficulty is to make a distinction between modern ‘utopian’ and postmodern ‘realist’ versions of metanarratives.

Historical themes in Elmira Galimova’s operas

The article systematizes the material on various principles of reflecting historical subjects in Tatar opera. It gives a detailed analysis of the art opera “The Wing of Syuyumbike” to a libretto by Fleura Yanysheva and the opera “Kul Sharif’ to a libretto by Farit Yakhin and the music by Elmira Galimova where the tragedy of the loss of statehood and the fall of the Kazan Khanate are revealed through the tragic fates of famous personalities (Kul Sharif, Tsarina Suyumbike). We prove that the opera “Kul Sharif’ is an interesting example of combining historical-descriptive and biographical approaches with “historical imagination”, while the symbols in the art opera “The Wing of Syuyumbike” are based on legendary and mythological material.

A Research on the Historical Imagination of Japanese Contemporary Opera ≪Aniō-Hime≫

A Research on the Historical Imagination of Japanese Contemporary Opera ≪Aniō-Hime≫

A Novel Time-Aware Deep Learning Model Predicting Myopia in Children and Adolescents

ObjectiveTo quantitatively predict children’s and adolescents’ spherical equivalent by leveraging their variable-length historical vision records. DesignRetrospective analysis. ParticipantsEight hundred ninety-five myopic children and adolescents aged 4-18 years, with a complete ophthalmic examination and retinoscopy in cycloplegia prior to spectacle correction were enrolled in the period from January 1st 2008 till July 1st, 2023 at the University Hospital “Sveti Duh”, Zagreb, Croatia. MethodsA novel modification of Time-Aware Long Short-Term Memory (T-LSTM) was used to quantitatively predict children’s and adolescents’ spherical equivalent within 7 years after diagnosis. Main Outcome MeasuresThe utilization of Extended Gate Time-Aware Long Short-Term Memory (egT-LSTM) involved capturing temporal features within irregularly sampled time series data. This approach aligned more closely with the characteristics of real-world data, increasing its applicability and contributing to the early identification of myopia progression. ResultsThe testing set exhibited a mean absolute prediction error (MAE) of 0.10±0.15 D for spherical equivalent. Lower MAE values were associated with longer sequence lengths, shorter prediction durations, older age groups, and low myopia, while higher MAE values were observed with shorter sequence lengths, longer prediction durations, younger age groups, and in premyopic or high myopic individuals, ranging from as low as 0.03±0.04 D to as high as 0.45±0.24 D. ConclusionExtended Gate Time-Aware Long Short-Term Memory capturing temporal features in irregularly sampled time series data can be used to quantitatively predict children’s and adolescents’ SE within seven years with an overall error of 0.10±0.15 D. This value is substantially lower than the threshold for prediction to be considered clinically acceptable, such as a criterion of 0.75 D.

Nick Mansfield and Martin Wright, Made by Labour: A Material and Visual History of British Labour c. 1780–1924

Nick Mansfield and Martin Wright, <i>Made by Labour: A Material and Visual History of British Labour c. 1780–1924</i>

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Third Heaven: Reading the Secret Book of James (NHC I,2) with a Parodic Imagination

Abstract: From its appearance of the risen Lord to its heavenly ascent the Secret Book of James (NHC I,2; Ap. Jas .) is imitative of other early Christian revelatory literature. Scholarship has attended to these points of similarity to situate this text in relation to others and has found it to be the product of an educationally elite community. Its imitation, however, is marked with critical twists that point to essential difference as well as similarity. Parody, an intertextual mode marked by this type of imitation with critical difference, was well known in literary circles of the first several centuries. The works of Lucian in particular demonstrate how parody could be used as a vehicle for displays of educational bravado as well as social commentary, both of which might also characterize Ap. Jas . Reading through a lens of parody, or with a parodic imagination, brings into focus new interpretive possibilities for Ap. Jas ., along with its elite author and audience, and their posture toward the diverse landscape of early Christianity around them. Correspondingly, it stands to expand our historical imagination concerning the means and modes of discourse accessible to early Christian groups carving out identities for themselves within that landscape.