In Virginia following the Civil War, white and black people formed complex and shifting alliances based on their own self-interests that cut across the lines of established political parties. In this turbulent atmosphere, William Mahone forged a new biracial political coalition called the Readjuster Party in order to transform Virginia’s economy so that it would be competitive in the years to come. Chapter One argues that Mahone’s experience as a soldier and railroad man gave him the political clout needed to enter politics and an industrial vision for Virginia’s future that was markedly different from many of his contemporaries. Chapter Two argues that William Mahone’s leadership of the Readjuster Party, and its advocacy of universal male suffrage and economic reform, created a new political center in Virginia and demonstrates that the actions of both white and black people cannot be viewed as a monolith in the postwar era. Chapter Three demonstrates how William Mahone’s political career was excluded from white Virginians’ narrative of Reconstruction following his death because it provided a historical example of African American suffrage and an attempt to establish fair elections that clashed with Virginia’s established white supremacist social order.

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Gleich dem Individuum benötigen Gesellschaften Vergangenheit in erster Linie zur Selbstdefinition. Eine feste Struktur gesellschaftlich geteilter Vergangenheitsreferenzen erzeugt ein überindividuelles kollektives Gedächtnis, das soziale Rollen und Identitäten determiniert. Was aber geschieht, wenn eine Gemeinschaft ihre Vergangenheit oder wesentliche Teile dieser nicht erinnert? Am Beispiel Russlands wird dargestellt, warum tragische Ereignisse – in diesem Fall die stalinistischen Repressionen – nicht kommemoriert werden und in welcher Weise sich diese weitgehend verdrängten Erinnerungen und die defizitär ausgebildete Erinnerungskultur auf die heutige russländische Gesellschaft auswirken. / Just as the individual person societies need their past first and foremost to define themselves. A fixed structure of socially divided references of the past generates a supra-individual collective memory which determines social roles and identities. However one has to ask oneself what happens if a society does not remember its past or crucial parts of it? By looking at the example of Russia this book illustrates why tragic events – such as in this particular case the Stalinist repression – are not commemorated and how the suppressed memories and the deficiently developed memorial culture is affecting present-day Russian society.

Collective memory emerges within our physical realm through material and spatial manifestations that link personal and collective conceptions of the past and present. The role of the memorial, as the primary urban element of collective memory, aims to encourage selective remembrance and reconciliation as part of a cultural healing process held over time. This thesis is situated in the city of Sofia, at a site of collective traumatic memory: the site of the former G. Dimitrov Mausoleum. Once considered the icon of Bulgarian communism, this building was symbolically demolished in 1999, following the collapse of the regime, leaving a scar in the heart of the city’s fabric and consciousness. This site, along with its abandoned adjacent public square, has become a significant representation of the urge found across all of the former Eastern Bloc countries, to suppress and erase the memory of the recent traumatic past, as a means to heal. However, without any efforts to commemorate, reconcile or face the past, the restrictive environment of oppression during the regime has in turn been replaced by an environment of repression, where mourning has become an impossible task. The modern tradition of public commemoration has been founded upon the notion that permanent monuments as physical objects can become representations of collective memory, preserved through time. Throughout the various attempts to create memorials, this assumption has remained for the most part unquestioned. However, the memorial as such has recently faced a major debate, as the issues of memory and forgetting have emerged as dominant concerns in dealing with the trauma that continues to haunt modern Western culture. Consciously discrediting the reality of the events and the victims associated, the Bulgarian culture has created a form of disconnect between its identity and its collective memory. Challenging the static forms and detached imagery, this proposal will reexamine the traditional definition of the monument as object on pedestal. By revisiting the site where the void left by the demolished mausoleum still haunts those trying to forget, and allowing the memory to emerge back into the collective consciousness, this proposition will allow the trace of the past to be transformed and connected to a new city narrative of remembrance. An engaged and dynamic ritual, beginning and ending at the memorial site, will draw a connection between space, time and memory through a series of new public spaces. Through the recovery of collective memory, it will offer an alternative to the healing process. The memorial is dedicated to the countless victims of censorship and control during the Iron Curtain regime.

This study investigates the existence of an ethnic separation in different settings of leisure activities. I examine the relationship between race, gender, socioeconomic status, and education with respect to the usage of popular cultural activities and high cultural activities to demonstrate the racial disparity occurring in both. A literature review pertaining to the usage of outdoor recreation, as in camping and hiking evidences the influence of racism on the disparity in Non-white participation. In contrast to out-door leisure activities, literature evidences the influence of class instead of race for the disparity in indoor leisure activities. Using the 1993 General Social Survey (GSS), I am able to arrive at the conclusion that the type of leisure chosen by an ethnic group relates much less to the educational level, economic status or the place of residence as it does to the perception of the socially constructed settings.

Collective memory emerges within our physical realm through material and spatial manifestations that link personal and collective conceptions of the past and present. The role of the memorial, as the primary urban element of collective memory, aims to encourage selective remembrance and reconciliation as part of a cultural healing process held over time. This thesis is situated in the city of Sofia, at a site of collective traumatic memory: the site of the former G. Dimitrov Mausoleum. Once considered the icon of Bulgarian communism, this building was symbolically demolished in 1999, following the collapse of the regime, leaving a scar in the heart of the city’s fabric and consciousness. This site, along with its abandoned adjacent public square, has become a significant representation of the urge found across all of the former Eastern Bloc countries, to suppress and erase the memory of the recent traumatic past, as a means to heal. However, without any efforts to commemorate, reconcile or face the past, the restrictive environment of oppression during the regime has in turn been replaced by an environment of repression, where mourning has become an impossible task. The modern tradition of public commemoration has been founded upon the notion that permanent monuments as physical objects can become representations of collective memory, preserved through time. Throughout the various attempts to create memorials, this assumption has remained for the most part unquestioned. However, the memorial as such has recently faced a major debate, as the issues of memory and forgetting have emerged as dominant concerns in dealing with the trauma that continues to haunt modern Western culture. Consciously discrediting the reality of the events and the victims associated, the Bulgarian culture has created a form of disconnect between its identity and its collective memory. Challenging the static forms and detached imagery, this proposal will reexamine the traditional definition of the monument as object on pedestal. By revisiting the site where the void left by the demolished mausoleum still haunts those trying to forget, and allowing the memory to emerge back into the collective consciousness, this proposition will allow the trace of the past to be transformed and connected to a new city narrative of remembrance. An engaged and dynamic ritual, beginning and ending at the memorial site, will draw a connection between space, time and memory through a series of new public spaces. Through the recovery of collective memory, it will offer an alternative to the healing process. The memorial is dedicated to the countless victims of censorship and control during the Iron Curtain regime.

Thesis (MA(Kreatiewe skryfkuns))-University of Pretoria, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

In 1990, ten years after the Sandinista revolution's triumph, came its end. What followed were anti-Sandinistas' attempts to erase Nicaragua's revolutionary past and Sandinistas' defense of that project and the party that represents it, the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN). For most Sandinistas, to publicly remember the revolution was a form of defense. Their memories were considered counter-hegemonic ones that reminded people that the past and the revolution's propositions still had value. However, Sandinistas' revolutionary narratives of the past are not free of problems and contradictions. The FSLN has popularized a Sandinista collective memory that idealizes the revolution. This is an indulgent memory that avoids talking about mistakes and problems. It is also a sentimental memory that links sandinismo to high morals and goodness and, in doing so, inhibits questioning the past and the present. This collective memory hinders discussions about other Sandinista memories, but, most importantly, it legitimizes problematic continuities in the way power is exerted; continuities which are not unique to sandinismo. This dissertation analyses how Sandinista peasants from a region in the old agrarian frontier of the country remember the revolution. In analyzing their memories one can see the ways in which the revolution is felt, the meaning of sandinismo among that population, and the kinds of political compromises they have to make today. Their memories show that the strength of the FSLN lies not only in economical or political interests, but also in the way the narratives of the past reaffirm attachments built over thirty years or more. While remembering the revolution's political ideals continues to be an important political statement and source of inspiration, constant critiques should be part of any memory work. To start with, memory work needs to acknowledge the constructed character of any memory, be those personal or collective, and the omissions that constitute them. To do so entail recognizing that memories are made of exclusions, repetitions, and forgetting and that the political work of memory not only never ends but involves the difficult task of questioning itself. / text

From Mother of Society to a Teacher Qualified for Post-graduate Studies – Continuity and Change in a Local Pre-school Education. The aim of this thesis is to throw light upon the basic values and representations of knowledge within a local female teacher education tradition and identify what kind of expectations are held of a pre-school teacher over time. The main question concerns central values and notions in a local pre-school teacher education regarding what is expected of a recognised pre-school teacher between the beginning of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century. A key interest is how these underlying values and notions are maintained and how they are transformed over time. Another interest is how these values and notions are maintained and transformed when they meet other teacher education traditions and when they are confronted with traditional academic values. The preschool teacher education is deeply rooted in a female tradition and the study presented here also focuses on the role that gender plays in the formation, changes and continuity of the central values in pre-school teacher education. The empirical sources include in-depth-interviews with 22 lecturers and supervisors from a local pre-school education in addition to document studies of selected materials from the archives of the Department of Education at Örebro University and at the Örebro University Library. The historical context and the dimension of time have been analysed using James Wertsch’s (2002) conception of voices of collective remembering in addition to the concepts of knowledge cultures (Englund & Linné 2005, Nerland 2008) and communities of practice (Lave and Wenger 2003). The results presented in this dissertation indicate that major shifts have occurred in the collective memory of the local pre-school teacher education during the 20th century and the first years of the 21st century. I have distinguished seven historical periodic themes in the analysis. These are: Mother of society – formation of a new female activity system (ca 1902–1942), All-round kindergarten leader (ca 1942–1963), Personality development and child observation (ca 1963–1972), Developmental psychology and dialogue pedagogy (ca 1972–1977), Education in a university setting and a citizen of society (ca 1977–1983), Reflective child pedagogue (ca 1982 1993) and Teacher of younger children – qualified for a research tradition (ca 2001– 2007).

Šiame darbe siekiama kompleksiškai pažvelgti į Černobylio pasekmes, aktualias XXI amžiuje per socialinės atminties, diskursų, ekologinės sąmonės perspektyvą. Tokio pobūdžio darbų per pastaruosius penkerius metus Lietuvoje praktiškai nėra atlikta. Darbo problema – kokį, kokio dydžio poveikį ir kokioms grupėms padarė Černobylio katastrofa, kurios padariniai jaučiami iki šiol. Tas iki galo nėra nustatyta, nes koncentruojamasi į politinius (energetinio saugumo, grėsmių), sveikatos tyrimus, kompleksiškai nenagrinėjama kaip Černobylis paveikė ekologinę sąmonę, sociopolitinius diskursus, socialinę atmintį ir grėsmės suvokimą. Objektas: aktualus Černobylio ekologinis, politinis ir socialinis poveikis grėsmės suvokimo kontekste. Tikslas: Ištirti aktualų Černobylio ekologinį, politinį ir socialinį poveikį grėsmės suvokimo kontekste. Darbo aktualumas garantuoja 2011 m. kovo 11 d. įvykiai Fukušimoje, paskatinę iš naujo įvertinti atominės energetikos grėsmes ir Černobylio palikimą. Lietuvai uždarius IAE, svarstant dėl VAE, Baltarusijai ir Rusijai planuojant statyti savo jėgaines kyla ne tik energetinio saugumo, bet ir grėsmės suvokimo klausimas. Ar mes gyvename rizikos, ar dvigubos rizikos visuomenėje? Darbas suskirstytas į tris dėstymo dalis. Pirmoji skirta socialinei atminčiai ir diskursų analizei, antroji – ekologinės sąmonės tyrimams ir trečioji – Černobylio ir Fukušimos avarijų atgarsiai užsienio ir Lietuvos internetinėje žiniasklaidoje. Darbe taikytas analitinis, kritinis... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The theme of this study is the impact of the Chernobyl atomic power plant disaster (seen as a deterrent and a threat at the same time), on the socio-political discourse, collective memory and ecological consciousness. The problem raised in this study is deals with the ways to describe how and what kind of impact did Chernobyl have and who has felt it the most. The problem is still a topical issue considering the fact that most of the studies made by the Lithuanian scholars are concerned with one exact aspect of this complex theme. Thus the object of this study is the social, political and ecological impact seen in the light of the menace perception. The object implies the aim of this study – to seek out the ways this three-folded impact reveals itself. This study has a great significance because of the late events in Japan which lead many to the rethinking of nuclear policy, especially after the protests had erupted. As in Lithuania, the situation has not changed much as no new social movements started and people remain quite indifferent to the broader consequences of the energetic problems Lithuania now faces. The methods used in this study are the following: analytical, critical, comparative and descriptive while giving a strong emphasis on a theoretical basis needed for a successful understanding of such complex theme. The conclusions of this study would be that the Fukushima accident helped to rethink nuclear policy in many countries and ensure the goal of... [to full text]