Thesis (Ph.D.)--Georgetown University, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

The purpose of this thesis is to discover the ways in which language plays a role in constructing Palestinian collective memory. My research draws mainly upon primary literary sources, including Emile Ḥabībī’s Sudāsiyyat al-ayyām as-sittah and Yaḥyá Yakhlif’s “Tilka al-mara’ah al-wardah” and “Nūrmā wa rajul al-thalj,” and places these texts within a theoretical framework supported by secondary sources. While most prior research has focused on anthropological or geographic approaches to cultural memory studies, my project takes a linguistic approach to understanding how collective memory is shaped. Through analysis of remarkable linguistic features appearing in these short stories, I seek to demonstrate how linguistic reference, personalization of emotion, narrative strategies and temporalities, and metaphorical language create speech acts that facilitate the processes of transmitting individual remembrance into collective awareness that underlie the formation of collective memory. I will also seek to examine the language used in these literary works for forms of rupture, circularity, lack of reference, or ineffability and the ways in which those features are indicative of experiences of trauma and of attempts to grapple with those experiences of trauma. / text

In the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg, the Middle Ages provide several of the most important historical reference points for national identity. This thesis analyses how this period was given its significance. It studies the presentation of several medieval figures through historiography from their own lifetime to the present, how they entered collective memory and a national narrative of history, and how the symbolic values attributed to them shifted according to changing political needs. In addition, it identifies those figures that were forgotten, so as to explore the mechanisms of historiographical selection. The purported founder of Luxembourg is the tenth-century Count Sigefroid, who was (wrongly) regarded as the first ‘count of Luxembourg’ by the late sixteenth century. In his posthumous career he became the builder of the local castle and city, the creator of the country and father of the nation. He is often joined by his mythological fish-tailed wife Melusine, borrowed from a late medieval French roman that already hints at links to the rulers of Luxembourg. The two founders are linked to later themes through Countess Ermesinde. She was a thirteenth-century ruler, rediscovered by nineteenth-century liberals as an early precursor to their political ideals, while a group of Belgian Jesuits used her to foster a pilgrimage tradition. Historiography of the past two hundred years preferred her persona rather than her two husbands’ for creating a continuity within the different medieval dynasties, adding to their national character. Her descendant John of Bohemia was transformed quickly into the national hero par excellence. This process had its origin in late medieval literature where his ‘heroic’ death at the battle of Crécy is remembered. His tomb within the city of Luxembourg helped to keep him in local memory, while the loss of his remains to Prussia in the early nineteenth century created simmering discontent that lasted until their recovery in 1946. Interestingly, John stands for the pinnacle of a glorious age, whereas his successor Emperor Sigismund tended to embody the miserable decline of an era, despite having been endowed with many crowns and titles. This thesis borrows some of its theoretical framework from the study of lieux de mémoire, and makes use of a broad range of different sources, from historical writing to literature, visual art and popular gimmickry.

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited / Reissued 30 May 2017 with correction to department on title page. / Relations between China and Japan suffer under the "history issue", an inability to reconcile these nations' relative perspectives on past wartime events. With emphasis on China's construction of the history issue, this thesis analyzes when and why China calls particular attention to Japan's past aggression and the degree to which China's actions have impacted bilateral relations from 1972 to 2016. Using elements from collective memory, national identity, and balance of power theories, this thesis makes four main arguments. First, provocative Japanese behavior revives the collective memories of past trauma and provokes criticism of Japanese politics. Second, when China perceives threats from Japan, it highlights Japan's past atrocities and lack of contrition to contain Japan's ambitions or gain relative power. Third, when collective memory is the main driver in shaping relations, balance of power plays a more supporting role and vice versa. Last, the public's collective memory and the volatile activation of the public's genuine anti-Japanese sentiments were the strongest factors in explaining the downturn of relations. As the United States implements its security strategy in East Asia, understanding historical disputes and their implications on the security status of the region is crucial, as they will affect agreements with our allies. / Major, United States Marine Corps

After World War II, every country that had been touched by or involved in the war had to come to terms with its past. In the case of Switzerland, the Swiss government, the army and some of the country’s leadership established a strong official historical memory of the war, portraying Switzerland as a neutral, benevolent and well-fortified country that remained innocent and untouched by the war. From the 1960s onwards, Swiss artists and intellectuals challenged these myths by presenting alternative views of the Swiss past in their work. Beginning in the 1970s, Swiss historians published an increasing amount of scholarly research concerning Switzerland’s World War II past, and challenging the official historical memory promoted by the government. In the 1990s, after the discovery of thousands of dormant Swiss bank accounts containing Holocaust assets, Switzerland was forced to adopt a more realistic memory of its involvement in World War II. An Independent Commission of Experts, established by the Swiss government, conducted thorough research about Switzerland’s wartime involvement and published its Final Report in 2002.

While most media-memory research focuses on particular cultural repository sites, memorials, traumatic events, media channels, or commemorative practices as objects of study to understand the construction of collective memory, this dissertation suggests it is our activity, participation, and interaction with digital content through multimodal platforms and social media applications that demonstrate how communities articulate shared memory in the new media landscape. This study examines the discursive interpretations of cultural heritage practitioners and participations from the Getty Research Institute, the Prelinger Archive and Library, and the Willamette Heritage Center to better understand how multimodal platforms are being used, how this use is changing the roles of the heritage practitioners and participants in the construction of meaning, and what types of multimodal memory practices are emerging. This research also underscores a reassessment of what constitutes heritage artifacts, authenticity, curatorial authority, and multimodal participation in digital cultural heritage. My methodological approach for this research takes a multilateral form of data collection, including in-depth interviewing, participant observations, and thematic analysis, informed by the theoretical frameworks of collective memory, remediation, and gatekeeping and unified by the social theories of art practice, social constructionism, symbolic interactionism, and actor-network theory. My primary recommendation from this research is that our digital practices of contributing, appropriating, repurposing, and sharing digital content represent new forms of memory practice in a multimodal context. I propose that these multimodal memory practices of interacting with digital content using different devices across different networks coalesce into platformed communities of memory, where communities are shaped and collective memory is shared by our interaction through social networks. I suggest that we need to think of social media output and metadata as being new forms of cultural heritage artifacts and legitimate social records. I also contend that metadata analysis presents new considerations and opportunities for studying the memory of digital content and institutional memory. It is my hope that these conclusions clarify our contemporary memory practices in the digital era so that we can better understand whose voices will be most prominent in the future articulation of how we remember the past.

I examine the origins of the anti-totalitarian collective memory pervading Central and Eastern Europe by tracking the genesis and development of the region’s ubiquitous and state-sponsored memory institutes. I deploy field analysis, prosopography and in-depth interviews to reveal how these hybrid institutes generate a potent anti-communist symbolic repertoire by overseeing alliances and exchanges across political, historiographic and Eurocratic fields. Memory institutes ensure this hegemony fundamentally via two mechanisms: The scientific validation of their activities by way of scholarly co-optation, and its regional legitimation through incursions into European arenas. I conclude that memory institutes are ultimately a key element of post-communist political competition, responsible for creating a durable symbolic advantage for the right’s conservative identity politics.

Based on an ethnography conducted between 2013-2015 within a religious community in Brazil, this thesis investigates the meanings of a growing worldwide religious movement fusing beliefs and identity claims deriving from Judaism and Charismatic Evangelicalism. Unlike Messianic Judaism, where Jewish-born people identified as believers in Jesus remain faithful to their Jewish traditions while observing Charismatic Evangelical practices or Christian Zionism, Evangelicals who emphasise the theological and eschatological importance of Jews living in Israel, this thesis addresses a different dimension of this trend. Focusing particularly on women's conversion narratives, this study investigates the reasons why Charismatic Evangelical Brazilians are actively embracing a version of Judaism that requires them to follow the strict dress codes and purity laws of Orthodox Jews while believing in Jesus as the Messiah. My analysis concluded that the emergence of these communities should be understood as a revival aiming to restore some Charismatic Evangelical practices. Pointing to the moral permissiveness, materialism, individualism, and petitionary rhetoric enforced in their former Charismatic Evangelical churches-influenced by Neo-Pentecostal tenets-they embrace an austere religious style characterised by self- cultivation centred in Jewish ritual and ethos. This pious revival also involves recovering a collective past. References to a hidden Jewish heritage and a 'return' to Judaism are mobilised for justifying the community's strict adherence to Jewish practices. Drawing upon a socio-cultural and gender-sensitive analysis, this study examines the historical, religious and subjective reasons behind this emerging 'Judaising' trend in Charismatic Evangelicalism. This thesis also engages with the literature of religious conversion, morality, cultural change and debates examining hybridisation processes.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2006. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 169-176). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

In der vorliegenden Diplomarbeit wird untersucht, welchen Einfluss kollektive Erinnerung und offizielle Geschichtsschreibung auf die Bildung kollektiver Identitäten haben und speziell auf Israel bezogen, wie und ob aus der Erinnerungskultur an die Shoah Handlungsmotivationen im gegenwärtigen Konflikt abgeleitet und diese mit Bezug auf die Shoah legitimiert werden. Der Focus im theoretischen Bereich der Arbeit liegt in erster Linie auf der Entstehung kultureller Gedächtnisse und kollektiver Identitäten speziell auf den Dynamiken, die sie in Großkollektiven wie Nationen entwickeln, in denen mehrere Erinnerungsdiskurse und Gruppenidentitäten der gesamtgesellschaftlichen Integration bedürfen. Des weiteren wird der Frage nachgegangen in welchem Verhältnis moderne Geschichtswissenschaft und kollektive Erinnerung zueinander stehen. Ist eine echte Trennung von Geschichtswissenschaft und kollektiver Erinnerung in der gelebten Realität einer Gruppe überhaupt möglich, vor allem, wenn ihr Gegenstand eine zentrale Rolle im kulturellen Gedächtnis des Kollektivs einnimmt und exponiert zur Identitätskonstruktion herangezogen wird, wie die Shoah in Israel? Hier schließt sich die Rezeption der Entwicklung der Shoah-Erinnerung in Israel von der Gründung des Staates bis heute an. Untersucht wird hier, welchen Stellenwert die Erinnerung an die Shoah zu den verschiedenen Zeiten im Selbstbild der jüdischen Israelis einnahm und warum sie immer wieder Eingang in tagespolitische Diskurse und Entscheidungen fand. Kommt es in Zeiten der äußeren Bedrohung durch Selbstmordanschläge oder andere außen- und innenpolitischen Unsicherheitssituationen zu einer verstärkten Projektion der Shoah-Erinnerung auf die Gegenwart? Dieser Frage wird im dritten Teil der Arbeit an Hand einer Zeitungsanalyse nachgegangen. / This diploma thesis analyses the impact of the collective remembrance and the official historiography on the collective memory. The specific question concerning Israel is asking if the actions in the ongoing conflict are derived and motivated from the cultural remembrance of the Shoah and how are these actions legitimized in reference to the Shoah. The theoretical focus of this paper lies in the genesis of the cultural commemorations and collective identities, specifically on the dynamics that have developed in large groups such as in nations, where different discourses of remembrance and group-identities require integration to society as a whole. Furthermore the question how historical science and collective memory relate to one another is pursued. Is it possible that there is a definite distinction between the historiography and the collective memory of the living group’s reality, particularly when the subject plays a major roll in the cultural recommendation of the collective society, such as the Shoah in modern Israel? This is followed by an analysis of how the remembrance of the Shoah has developed in Israel from its foundation as a state to modern times. The specific subject of interest here is the relative importance of how the remembrance of the Shoah has affected the self-perception of Jewish Israelis and why it consistently penetrates current political affairs and their decisions. Can there be found an increased projection of the Shoah remembrance in the present in situations of inner- and outer political interference, for example by suicide-bombings or in times of external and internal uncertainty? This question is pursued in the last part of this paper through newspaper analysis.