Synopses & Reviews
Memories of catastrophes--both those which occur naturally and those which are consequences of human actions--loom large in the modern consciousness. The volume opens with an investigation of the concepts of catastrophe and collective memory, and the relationships between them. Arguing that a pervasive catastrophic memory may be as disabling as it is instructive, Gray and Oliver stress the necessity of rendering the phenomenon subject to secular critical inquiry. The value of such an approach is then demonstrated in a series of case studies.
Review
"I loved this book--a fabulous topic, powerfully argued. The entire book was riveting. It should become required reading for anyone interested in disaster, war and memory."--Joanna Bourke, Birkbeck College
Synopsis
Investigates the dynamic relationship between experiences of profound social and cultural disruption, and human memory. Critical comparisons are made across a wide variety of catastrophic experiences and memories; not just of war, but also of massacre, genocide, rebellion, famine, partition, shipwreck and fire. The book is an accessible showcase for a wide range of methodological approaches to the study of memory, including literary studies, cultural studies, participant-observation and historical studies, and uses a variety of oral, visual and written sources. Offers a diverse chronological and geographical range of catastrophic cases, from seventeenth-century England to the recent conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, from Ireland to the Indian sub-continent, from Mexico to wartime Leningrad. Well-written and accessible - a fascinating read.
About the Author
Peter Gray is a Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Southampton.
Kendrick Oliver is a Senior Lecturer in American History at the University of Southampton.
Table of Contents
Introduction--Peter Gray and Kendrick Oliver * Remembering the English Civil War--Mark Stoyle * 'Diabolical Design': Charleston Elites, the 1822 Slave Insurrection and the Discourse of the Supernatural--P.A. Cramer * Memory and the Commemoration of the Great Irish Famine--Peter Gray * 'The Greatest and the Worst': Dominant and Subaltern Memories of the Dos Bocas Well Fire of 1908--Glen D. Kuecker * The Titanic and the Commodification of Catastrophe--James Guimond * Doctors and Trauma in World War One: The Response of British Military Psychiatrists--Edgar Jones * Commemorations of the Siege of Leningrad: A Catastrophe in Memory and Myth--Lisa A. Kirschenbaum * the Missing Camps of Aktion Reinhard: The Judicial Displacement of a Mass Murder--Donald Bloxham * Memory and Authenticity: The Case of Binjamin Wilkomirski--Andrea Reiter * Partition Memory and Multiple Identities in the Champaran District of Bihar, India--Kathinka Sinha-Kerkhoff * Bodies Do Count: American Nurses Mourn the Catastrophe of Vietnam--Carol Acton * 'Not Much of a Place Anymore': The Reception and Memory of the Massacre at My Lai--Kendrick Oliver * Remembering Vukovar, Forgetting Vukovar: Constructing National Identity Through the Memory of Catastrophe in Croatia--Rose Lindsey * Who Do You Think You Are Kidding, Mr. Sawoniuk? British Memory of the Holocaust and Kosovo, Spring 1999--Tony Kushner