Songs for Murdered Sisters is a song cycle by Jake Heggie with poetry by Margaret Atwood based on the murders of three women in Ontario, Canada, all of whom were killed by the same former romantic partner in September 2015. Joshua Hopkins, baritone and brother of one of the women, commissioned composer Jake Heggie to write a cycle to memorialize his sister and draw awareness to the problem of violence against women. This document is to be used by singers and pianists in their performance and preparation of the cycle.

Thesis advisor: Peter H. Weiler / Coming to terms with memory of the Nazi past has been a long and challenging task for the German nation. An important part of this process was the debate over building a national Holocaust memorial in Berlin, called the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe. The debate began in 1989 and has arguably not yet ended. Occurring primarily in periodicals, political speeches and official colloquiums, the Denkmalstreit (memorial debate) was largely about German intellectuals developing a system of dealing with the Holocaust while redefining German identity in their own eyes and those of the world. The famous Historikerstreit (historian’s debate) of the 1980s raised the issues of the burden of shame and guilt on modern Germans, concern over forgetting the Holocaust, the uniqueness of the Holocaust and Jewish persecution, and the need to develop a new national identity. The Denkmalstreit dealt with these issues through the questions of whether to build a memorial and what it would mean, whether the memorial would be for descendents of perpetrators or victims, and what form the memorial should take. After closely examining these issues and the consensus the German intellectuals, politicians and artists reached in order to finally dedicate the memorial in 2005, I argue that Germany has done an exemplary job of coming to terms with the crimes of its past. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2008. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: History. / Discipline: College Honors Program. / Discipline: History Honors Program.

Understood sociologically, denial is best conceptualized as a social practice. As a phenomenon, social denial refers to patterned behaviour where actors both know and do not-know about uncomfortable truths (Cohen, 2001). Put simply, social denial is a socially reproduced blindness in the face of traumatic events and processes. In opposition to social denial is a different social practice, bearing witness. Bearing witness is engaged when society’s actors give voice to those who would otherwise be silent. Drawing on theoretical frameworks from Stanley Cohen’s work States of Denial and Fujiko Kurasawa’s work Global Justice, this thesis aims to critically reflect and explore the registers and mechanisms of both social denial and bearing witness. The exploration of social denial is sociologically relevant, and generally important, as a means for understanding the role it plays in society, and to further understanding what social denial is and how it works. The better actors understand an issue the more capable they are of addressing it. This thesis conducts a media frame analysis of selected published articles from the National Post and the Globe and Mail that speak to the issue of MMIWG. This analysis reveals social denial through the frames “culpable victim”, “poster child”, and “the extra”; and bearing witness through the frame of the “honourable victim”. The analysis and research of this thesis reveal how social denial covers up the relevance of colonialism with respect to MMIWG. Furthermore, it suggests that social denial acts to both camouflage the gritty details underlying MMIWG and erase the identities of MMIWG.

When women are lured away from home, they become vulnerable and cannot survive the violence inflicted upon them by their ‘lovers.’ This thesis explores the ties between two distinct cultural regions, Arabic and Appalachian, to examine the violence against women and what allows these women to escape such situations by using Hanan al-Shaykh’s One Thousand and One Nights: A Retelling and three traditional Appalachian murdered girl ballads. Many of the women in these stories die at the hands of their ‘lovers,’ regardless of their culture of origin. Once removed from their fellow women, they lack a support system that would allow them the strength to survive. While most of the women in these tales die at the hands of their ‘lovers,’ Shahrazad of One Thousand and One Nights: A Retelling survives because she is able to take back some control of the situation by telling her own story, instead of allowing it to be told for her. She survives the bleak situation she has been put in through the support of her sister, who makes it possible for Shahrazad to continue telling her stories. The support Shahrazad receives from her sister allows her to not only save herself, but also to save the lives of other women. This thesis concludes that it is this “sister” support that enables women to survive the violence consistently thrown at them and allows them to take back control of their own narratives.

No description available.

The ongoing Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) crisis has affected thousands of families throughout the United States and Canada, resulting in probable trauma to children in the families and communities for generations. Although awareness of the crisis has been growing in recent years through avenues such as social media (#MMIW, etc.), little action has been taken to stem the crisis and its effects. The effects of the crisis on the children left behind is a compelling question that is not often addressed in the media, however. A systematic review of the scientific literature from the United States and Canada was conducted with the addition of gray literature due to limited results found in the scientific literature. The gray literature examined included relevant websites of relevant organizations and news articles. Results of the study demonstrated a dearth of data related to children and MMIW, with no research studies found. The articles analyzed were primarily focused on recommendations and did not specifically address the effects of MMIW on children. Gray literature findings included mention of some policy actions on state and national levels, including many calls to action that have not yet been addressed or implemented. The lack of data regarding the support needs of children affected by MMIW may be one of the reasons actions have been largely absent. One of the possible courses of action may be to better support Native/Indigenous scholars who have insider status. The MMIW crises is deeply personal and perhaps overwhelming to research, indicating support needs for Native/Indigenous scholars in addition to funding.

No description available.

Since unification the memorial landscape of Berlin and its surrounding territories has shifted and expanded exponentially. The majority of this change has occurred within the past ten years, as commemoration of the Holocaust and educational programmes on the National Socialist period have become not only prevalent, but a necessary and expected contribution to the shaping of German identity and memorial culture. In the past decade memorial museums and sites of remembrance, such as the House of the Wannsee Conference, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, and the former Sachsenhausen and Ravensbrück concentration camps, have contributed to and been impacted by the formation of a globalised memory of the Holocaust. As major and internationally renowned institutions, these sites offer unique insight into the nature of current memorial culture and recent approaches to memorialising and commemorating the past. Through an analysis of their exhibition spaces (online, permanent, temporary) and educational programmes (guided tours, seminars, and workshops), this dissertation will attempt to identify how these sites contribute to the formation of a globalised memory. Though each of these four sites possesses a different connection to the history of the Holocaust, and their own alternative approach to presenting and commemorating this history; this variation will provide insight into the divergent landscape of memorialisation within Germany, while also highlighting the common approaches, and practical issues that are of concern to these institutions. Overall the main aim of this thesis will be to demonstrate how memorialisation of the Holocaust, at sites within Berlin and Brandenburg, is no longer defined and shaped solely by the nation state, but rather is influenced by and contributes to international trends of remembrance and a globalised memory of the Holocaust.

No description available.

Évaluation des services d'un organisme communautaire venant en aide aux proches de personnes assassinées et disparues / Le but de la recherche est d’identifier les besoins des proches de personnes assassinées et disparues afin de comparer les similitudes et les différences entre les deux groupes de proches de personnes victimes. À l’aide d’un questionnaire construit conjointement avec un organisme d’aide aux familles des victimes, deux conclusions peuvent être tirées. Les proches de personnes assassinées seraient plutôt à la recherche de services axés sur le soutien psychologique et émotionnel, alors que les proches de personnes disparues prioriseraient les services visant à combler des besoins plus pratiques, pour gérer la crise engendrée par la disparition d’un proche. Ces résultats sont cohérents avec la recherche sur les proches de personnes assassinées et disparues. Toutefois, les résultats sont influencés par des limites importantes, dont la petite taille de l’échantillon. / The objective of the research is to identify the needs of families of murdered and missing people. This would allow to compare similarities and differences between the needs of these groups of victims. A questionnaire was buit in cooperation with an organization helping families of missing or murdered victims. Two conclusions were drawn from the results. Families and friends of murdered people were looking for psychological and emotional support services. In comparison, families and friends of missing people were looking to fill more practical needs, such as managing the crisis following the disappearance of a member of their family. These results are consistent with research on family and friends of murdered and missing people. However, these conclusions are limited by important gaps in the research, such as a small sample.