Preliminary Programme

Wed 11 April
    8.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Thu 12 April
    8.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.00 - 18.30

Fri 13 April
    8.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Sat 14 April
    8.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

All days
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Wednesday 11 April 2012 8.30 - 10.30
O-1 ORA01 Trauma and Mourning
JWS Room J355 (J10)
Network: Oral History Chair: Albert Lichtblau
Organizers: - Discussants: -
Devereux Powers : From Voices to Visible Text: Complexities in Transcribing the Narratives of Mississippi Chinese World War II Veterans
This presentation will focus on a history research project on Mississippi World War II veterans of Chinese ancestry, examining their military participation and contributions. In particular, the speaker will describe the challenges posed in the transcription processes. Such difficulties will include understanding the various dialects and regional expressions in ... (Show more)
This presentation will focus on a history research project on Mississippi World War II veterans of Chinese ancestry, examining their military participation and contributions. In particular, the speaker will describe the challenges posed in the transcription processes. Such difficulties will include understanding the various dialects and regional expressions in working with audio and video recordings of speakers from the Chinese diasporic community in the American South; and researching of uncertain or forgotten names of military conflicts, locations/wartime theatres, dates, and events. Making sense of veterans’ memories, influenced and/or shaped by time, nostalgia, and trauma is no mean task. (Show less)

John Powers, Gwendolyn Gong : Making Sense of the Stories of Mississippi Chinese World War II Veterans
The purpose of this presentation will be to identify key themes gleaned from the Mississippi Chinese World War II veterans’ stories. The military narratives reveal historical, social, and cultural insights about the circumstances of these men’s lives in the American South in the 1940s. In particular, their stories ... (Show more)
The purpose of this presentation will be to identify key themes gleaned from the Mississippi Chinese World War II veterans’ stories. The military narratives reveal historical, social, and cultural insights about the circumstances of these men’s lives in the American South in the 1940s. In particular, their stories shed light on the following issues from the perspective of these Chinese narrators: the tri-racial relations in the American South, the absence of educational opportunities, limited military roles based on ethnic stereotyping, “double identities” created by “Paper Son” immigration practices, and consequences of military service.

By analyzing representative themes in the narratives of these World War II veterans, the speaker will show how their military experiences related to their identities/roles and daily lives as members of the Chinese diaspora, thereby yielding a rich and complex cultural life in the Mississippi Delta in the 1940s. (Show less)

Michaela Raggam-Blesch : “Der Riss der Zeit geht durch mein Herz”. Nostalgia and the Narrative of a “Lost Paradise” in Jewish Oral-history Documents after the Shoah
Childhood and youth recollections of Austrian Jewish women and men who were forced to escape Nazi persecution often evoke the narrative of a “lost paradise”, a sheltered world now lost to them. At the same time, the time remembered (1920s and 1930s) is generally known for the radicalization of anti-Semitic ... (Show more)
Childhood and youth recollections of Austrian Jewish women and men who were forced to escape Nazi persecution often evoke the narrative of a “lost paradise”, a sheltered world now lost to them. At the same time, the time remembered (1920s and 1930s) is generally known for the radicalization of anti-Semitic tendencies in Austrian politics and society. As Miriam Gebhardt (Das Familiengedächtnis, 1999) has shown with autobiographies, anti-Semitic incidents well-documented in diaries of that time are often excluded from memory. Oral-history accounts function in much of the same way (Anke Stephan, Erinnertes Leben, 2004). In light of the much more dramatic events after the Nazi take-over, incidents of anti-Semitic hostility prior to the “Anschluss” often seem insignificant and are omitted in some of the accounts. Questions specifically directed to explore this topic often reveal that the nostalgic memories of an idyllic world were, however, rather fragile.

Nostalgia of the “good old times” is a tendency that often increases with age. In the context of oral-history accounts of Jewish women and men who were expelled and uprooted from their home countries, however, the narrative of a “lost paradise” represents a sheltered world that was indeed irrevocably destroyed. It also reveals the deep trauma of persecution and expulsion of people, who experienced historical events as a “rupture in time going through their hearts” (Hertha Pauli) - indicating the complete separation from the world they once were familiar with and the cultural and geographical exile they subsequently experienced.

This paper will focus on oral-history interviews of Jewish women and men who were forced to escape Nazi persecution in Austria, exploring the relationship between memory, history and nostalgia. Differences in the testimonies between former integrated “Westjuden” and Austrian Jews from Eastern-European backgrounds in remembering the past will also be investigated as well as gender aspects. (Show less)



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