The town Aš, its whole region, used to be the place permanently inhabited by people of German origin, as all the historical documents report. After the end of the world war two, people of German origin were forced to leave their homes which were built and handed over throughout the centuries and therefore became the prominent bearers of Aš region tradition. This long lasting continuity of inhabitation by these people was unnaturally intrerrupted and many places and settlements lost their memories. The new residents had to build the relationship to their new homes from the beginning. The aim of this thesis is to describe the places of memory which are, owing to nationalistic and religious character of the region, entirely tied to German history, and by means of their analysis find out how the newcomers' relationship to their new homes developed. The focus will be taken on the time period after 1945 and, especially, time period after 1989 when, on account of easing political situation, the new and old memory places could be viewed more objectively than before.

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The aim of this dissertation is to discuss the image of the city of Diyarbakır as emerging from Kurdish and Turkish literature throughout the twentieth century. Diyarbakır city represents a highly contentious place in socio-political and cultural terms for the Kurdish vis-à-vis the Turkish imagined community. The first chapter is dedicated to the image of the city previous to the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923 as emerging from accounts of travellers from different ages and different languages. Then, in four different chapters, four different corpuses of Turkish and Kurdish literature are taken under the focus of the analysis. Each corpus allows the discussion of certain aspects and themes related to the city. Overall, each chapter and each corpus constitute a piece of the deconstructed literary image of the city, which is at the centre of this research. Since Diyarbakır is a contested city, its representations are deeply involved in processes of appropriation and symbolization of place. Therefore, in the shaping of literary Diyarbakır throughout the twentieth century, the conflicting political dynamics between the Turkish State and local Kurdish actors play a crucial role.

This essay’s primarily focus is on the common discourse about the persisting effects of the past in the present in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale(1985)and Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred (1979).These novels are the testimonies of the protagonists Offred and Dana who shares their experience of traumatic violence and oppression. Dana, with her ability to time travel, will see her present time in clearer light as she experiences the life of a slave on an antebellum plantation. Offred, the Handmaiden owned by the totalitarian regime Gilead, portrays her contemporary life in parallel to remembering her former and thus describing Gilead’s increasing authority. Based on different theorists and concepts in the field of cultural memory studies, this essay examines the tension between memory and history, the distantness towards the past and the problematics with representations of traumatic events. As I argue that the voices of Dana and Offred calls attention to the importance of perspective and of sharing stories, they are also an act of hope, therapy and resistance; an act that also make possible a critique of the processes of the production of historical knowledge.

The relation between memory and identity is significant, particularly if an identity-establishing entity such as a state has vanished. In the context of GDR memory, this pertains to the type of memory discourse: what is remembered, how, and by whom? What are the differences in the discourse about East German memory between the US and Germany? Based on approaches of the Aleida Assmann’s approaches to individual, collective, and cultural memory this thesis seeks to examine the notion and impact of archives in collective memory processes and to analyze the extent to which the medium of film as a concrete and abstract archival complex can represent a part of individual and collective memory. Therefore, I combine the notion of the archive – based on approaches of Benjamin and Foucault – with memory discourses, going beyond the archive’s material character. Furthermore, in my analysis I follow the media studies’ definitions of film as a material-based dualistic, communicative and semiotic system. The analysis focuses on the work of the DEFA Film Library at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, which is important for American utilization and circulation of DEFA films and the distribution of audiovisual images of and about the former GDR. The DEFA Film Library is the only archive and research center outside of Germany devoted to a broad spectrum of filmmaking from and related to the former GDR. The DEFA Film Library has been distributing DEFA movies and providing materials for media education since the early 1990s. In this thesis, I examine the multilayered role of the DEFA Film Library in US-East German sociocultural relationships, particularly with respect to its impact on raising awareness of East German culture, history and politics through public and academic film programming and exchange. Using the DEFA Film Library’s work as a case study, I analyze the political impact of film work amidst the challenges of preserving, circulating, and communicating the audiovisual memory of the GDR.

Through a case-study of the project Kingorama by Hamid Rachmanian, this essay examines how the Iranian epic Shahnameh by Abol Qasem Ferdowsi is manifested outside Iran today and how it can be viewed as a cultural memory in motion. Questions concerning Iranian identity and the transcultural movement of memory are explored through a theoretical framework consisting of Astrid Erll’s “travelling memory” and of history as something which can be ‘used’ or ‘constructed’ through remediation and performativity. The essay also applies a methodological framework within which Iranian identity is understood through five historical dimensions, from pre-islamic Iran to modern Iran. The results of the study show that the Kingorama-project embraces a multilayered understanding of Iranian identity and that it mediates a shift where Shahnameh is not seen foremost as a national epic, but as being of universal importance.

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In this MA thesis I want to examine if it is possible to be writing a historical narrative with other tools than words. Rufina Bazlova is a Belarusian textile artist, currently based in Prague, who is telling us her narrative about the falsified elections in Belarus held in August 2020. She does it using embroidery, strongly connected with traditional Belarusian symbols used in the crafts that has been an important source of belief in everyday life for women in Belarus since the early 11th century. What kind of narrative is the artist telling us? In what way can her embroidery be seen as cultural memories? I am using the methods formal analysis by Heinrich Wölfflin and iconography and iconology by Erwin Panofsky to explore the hidden meanings in five of Bazlovas embroidery pieces, Female solidarity, Parliament House, Streets of Belarus, Solidarity with Soligorsk and Run from a gun. They are all a part of the work of art named Belarusian Vyzyvanka. I am placing Bazlovas embroidery in the context of cultural memories by looking at them with the eyes of different researchers in the field of cultural memory studies. The thesis has a range from descripting the meaning of traditional textile symbols to implementing the methods of art history. I am continuing with placing the embroidery into the field of cultural memory studies and asking questions about freedom of speach and the political situation in Belarus today. I am looking back in the Belarusian history to find some of my answers and I am adding a transnational perspective to my examination.

Over the last fourteen-hundred years, Muhammad ibn ʿAbd Allah (d. 632) has been depicted and portrayed in a variety of ways by numerous scholars, theologians, and polemicists. My dissertation offers a unique approach to the “historical Muhammad” as it develops a new method to examine extant primary sources related to his life. I include available sources that provide pertinent information on Muhammad’s life, including the Qur’an, hadith literature, sira-maghazi (biographies and expeditions), and non-Muslim accounts. My research is original because it adopts current historical Jesus scholarship, particularly modern cognitive studies of memory, and uses it on extant sources related to Muhammad’s life. More specifically, I explore how memory, oral tradition, and oral transmission play vital roles in understanding how Muslims remembered their Prophet and how the circumstances of later generations shaped and influenced their commemoration of his life. By adopting this scholarship, which will be contextualized to examine early Muslim literature, I offer a new perspective on surviving sources, the context of seventh-century Arabia, and the function of memory for the nascent Muslim community. I also apply my method on eight significant, polemical, or neglected events that are traditionally believed to have taken place during Muhammad’s life in Mecca and Medina. In sum, my dissertation offers a dynamic cross-disciplinary venture, encompassing the intersection of innovative, modern critical inquiry and early Islamic literature. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This dissertation examines the field of the “historical Muhammad” and applies a new method on extant primary sources related to Muhammad’s life. I conduct a literature review of scholars’ reconstructions of his life, beginning as early as the seventh century. I also explore numerous primary sources on Muhammad, pointing out their benefits and disadvantages. Next, I overview the quests for the historical Jesus and analyze methods that were established over the last hundred years. In my dissertation, I adopt historical Jesus scholarship, namely memory studies, to develop an original method that provides a unique understanding and fresh perspective of the historical Muhammad. Over the last two chapters, I conduct eight case studies employing my method on events from Muhammad’s life in Mecca and Medina. This dissertation demonstrates that we could reconstruct a reasonably coherent picture of events surrounding Muhammad’s life.

<p>  </p> <p>Retired from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2007, the Chief Illiniwek mascot remains a pervasive image throughout the Champaign-Urbana, Illinois area. This dissertation explores the concept of collective memory, particularly in memory’s role in forming a collective identity. Chief Illiniwek, for many in this community, symbolizes honor and loyalty. More broadly, the Chief is part of the community’s collective memory and discussing the Chief evokes feelings of pride and nostalgia for many community members. This work puts Native American sports mascots in conversation with other controversial objects such as monuments to Confederate soldiers and Christopher Columbus – both of which are images of great pride for some groups and hate and exclusion for others. </p> <p>This dissertation also explores the rise of the internet’s role in memory-making and preservation. I analyze the content posted in two Facebook groups dedicated to preserving the memory of Chief Illiniwek, and in some cases campaigning to reinstate him as the mascot/symbol of the university. Additionally, I analyze the material culture of Chief Illiniwek by exploring the current state of buying used and new Chief Illiniwek merchandise. I connect the current collecting of Chief merchandise to the historical practice of museums and academics collecting indigenous material culture and human remains. Both acts are predicated on the perceived need to preserve a group that no longer exists and alter narratives to fit within a white supremacist framework. </p> <p>I argue that the Chief maintains a presence within the Champaign-Urbana community due to the power of collective memory. More specifically, the Chief works as a way to memorialize a white supremacist culture. Efforts to rid Chief imagery are met with outrage and disgust by supporters and in these groups any supporters refer to those that are anti-Chief as outsiders or politically correct activists. I argue that the Chief debate extends far beyond the confines of the university and should be discusses as a community issue rather than a campus problem. As the university continues to distance itself from this racist imagery, many in the community still celebrates the Chief and the image continues to circulate and be displayed. </p>