Ghosts in contemporary African diasporic literature : re-visioning history, memory and identity

Starting from the observation that ghosts are strikingly recurrent and prominent figures in late-twentieth African diasporic literature, this dissertation proposes to account for this presence by exploring its various functions. It argues that, beyond the poetic function the ghost performs as metaphor, it also does cultural, theoretical and political work that is significant to the African diaspora in its dealings with issues of history, memory and identity. Toni Morrison's Beloved (1987) serves as a guide for introducing the many forms, qualities and significations of the ghost, which are then explored and analyzed in four chapters that look at Fred D'Aguiar's Feeding the Ghosts (1998), Gloria Naylor's Mama Day (1988), Paule Marshall's Praisesong for the Widow (1983) and a selection of novels, short stories and poetry by Michelle Cliff. Moving thematically through these texts, the discussion shifts from history through memory to identity as it examines how the ghost trope allows the writers to revisit sites of trauma; revise historical narratives that are constituted and perpetuated by exclusions and invisibilities; creatively and critically repossess a past marked by violence, dislocation and alienation and reclaim the diasporic culture it contributed to shaping; destabilize and deconstruct the hegemonic, normative categories and boundaries that delimit race or sexuality and envision other, less limited and limiting definitions of identity. These diverse and interrelated concerns are identified and theorized as participating in a project of "re-vision," a critical project that constitutes an epistemological as much as a political gesture. The author-based structure allows for a detailed analysis of the texts and highlights the distinctive shapes the ghost takes and the particular concerns it serves to address in each writer's literary and political project. However, using the ghost as a guide into these texts, taken collectively, also throws into relief new connections between them and sheds light on the complex ways in which the interplay of history, memory and identity positions them as products of and contributions to an African diasporic (literary) culture. If it insists on the cultural specificity of African diasporic ghosts, tracing its origins to African cultures and spiritualities, the argument also follows gothic studies' common view that ghosts in literary and cultural productions-like other related figures of the living dead-respond to particular conditions and anxieties. Considering the historical and political context in which the texts under study were produced, the dissertation makes connections between the ghosts in them and African diasporic people's disillusionment with the broken promises of the civil rights movement in the United States and of postcolonial independence in the Caribbean. It reads the texts' theoretical concerns and narrative qualities alongside the contestation of traditional historiography by black and postcolonial studies as well as the broader challenge to conventional notions such as truth, reality, meaning, power or identity by poststructuralism, postcolonialism or queer theory. Drawing on these various theoretical approaches and critical tools to elucidate the ghost's deconstructive power for African diasporic writers' concerns, this work ultimately offers a contribution to "speciality studies," which is currently emerging as a new field of scholarship in cultural theory.

From the medicalisation of dementia to the politics of memory and identity in three Spanish documentary films:Bicicleta, cullera, poma, Las voces de la memoria and Bucarest: la mem��ria perduda

This paper explores how the concept of Alzheimer���s disease (AD) is constructed through Spanish media and documentary films and how it is represented. The article analyses three documentary films and the cultural and social contexts in and from which they emerged: Sol����s Bucarest: la mem��ria perduda [Bucharest: Memory Lost] (2007), Bosch��s Bicicleta, cullera, poma [Bicycle, Spoon, Apple] (2010) , and Frabra���s Las voces de la memoria [Memory��s Voices] (2011). The three documentary films approach AD from different perspectives, creating well-structured discourses of what AD represents for contemporary Spanish society, from medicalisation of AD to issues of personhood and citizenship. These three films are studied from an interdisciplinary perspective, in an effort to strengthen the links between ageing and dementia studies and cultural studies. Examining documentary film representations of AD from these perspectives enables semiotic analyses beyond the aesthetic perspectives of film studies, and the exploration of the articulation of knowledge and power in discourses about AD in contemporary Spain

Autobiographical memory, autonoetic consciousness, and identity in Asperger syndrome

Previous results from research on individuals with Asperger syndrome (AS) suggest a diminished ability for recalling episodic autobiographical memory (AM). The primary aim of this study was to explore autobiographical memory in individuals with Asperger syndrome and specifically to investigate whether memories in those with AS are characterized by fewer episodic 'remembered' events (due to a deficit in autonoetic consciousness). A further aim was to examine whether such changes in AM might also be related to changes in identity, due to the close relationship between memory and the self and to the established differences in self-referential processes in AS. Eleven adults with AS and fifteen matched comparison participants were asked to recall autobiographical memories from three lifetime periods and for each memory to give either a remember response (autonoetic consciousness) or a know response (noetic consciousness). The pattern of results shows that AS participants recalled fewer memories and that these memories were more often rated as known, compared to the comparison group. AS participants also showed differences in reported identity, generating fewer social identity statements and more abstract, trait-linked identities. The data support the view that differences in both memory and reported personal identities in AS are characterized by a lack of specificity.

An everyday nostalgia: Memory and the fictions of belonging

In 1984, George Orwell presented the future as a dystopian vision, where everyday existence was governed and redefined by an oppressive regime. Winston Smith's daily duties at the Ministry of Truth involved the invention, rewriting and erasing of fragments of history as a means of perpetuating contentment, uniformity and control. History, as Orwell described it in the novel 'was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary.' More that a quarter of a century after the publication of 1984, Michel Foucault discussed the cinematic representation and misrepresentation of French history and identity in terms of what he called the manipulation of 'popular memory'. In what was tantamount to a diluted version of Orwell's palimpsestic histories, Foucault stated that 'people are not shown what they were, but what they must remember having been.' This paper will investigate notions of memory, identity and the everyday through a discussion of the community of Celebration in Florida. Conceived in the 1990s, Celebration was designed around a fictionalised representation of pre 1940s small town America, using nostalgia for a mythologised past to create a sense of comfort, community and conformity among its residents. Adapting issues raised by Orwell, Foucault and Baudrillard, this paper will discuss the way in which architecture, like film and literature, can participate in what Foucault discussed as the manipulation of popular memory, inducing and exploiting a nostalgia for an everyday past that that never really existed.

Expectancy-based associative and identity priming in pronunciation

Evidence for expectancy-based priming in the pronunciation task was provided in three experiments. In Experiments 1 and 2, a high proportion of associatively related trials produced greater associative priming and superior retrieval of primes in a subsequent test of memory for primes, whereas high- and low-proportion groups showed comparable repetition benefits in perceptual identification of previously presented primes. In Experiment 2, the low-proportion condition had few associatively related pairs hut many identity pairs. In Experiment 3, identity priming was greater in a high- than a low-identity proportion group, with similar repetition benefits and prime retrieval responses for the two groups. These results indicate that when the prime-target relationship is salient, subjects strategically vary their processing of the prime according to the nature of the prime-target relationship.

The Past, Polish politics of memory, and stereotyping: an intercultural perspective

The main idea of the article is to consider the interdependence between Politics of Memory (as a type of narrating the Past) and Stereotyping. The author suggests that, in a time of information revolution, we are still constructing images of others on the basis of simplification, overestimation of association between features, and illusory correlations, instead of basing them on knowledge and personal contact. The Politics of Memory, national remembrance, and the historical consciousness play a significant role in these processes, because ��� as the author argues ��� they transform historically based 'symbolic analogies' into 'illusory correlations' between national identity and the behavior of its members. To support his theoretical investigation, the author presents results of his draft experiment and two case studies: (a) a social construction of images of neighbors based on Polish narrations about the Past; and (b) various processes of stereotyping based on the Remembrance of the Holocaust. All these considerations lead him to state that the Politics of Memory should be recognized as an influential source of commonly shared stereotypes on other cultures and nations.

The Body and the Parent-Daughter Bond : Negotiating Haitian Filial Relationships in Edwidge Danticat���s Breath, Eyes, Memory and The Dew Breaker

The Body and the Parent-Daughter Bond: Negotiating Filial Relationships in Edwidge Danticat���s Breath, Eyes, Memory and The Dew Breaker est une ��tude sur les diff��rentes fa��ons dont le corps d��s��quilibr��, tortur�� et traumatis�� influence la relation parent-fille. Cette th��se examine l���impact du pouvoir et de la violence sur le corps aussi bien des parents que celui des filles et les diff��rentes mani��res dont ces corps deviennent d��s��quilibr��s. Cette th��se porte sur la construction et la n��gociation de chacune des conditions de parents et de filles sous l���angle du corps sexu�� traumatis��. Le premier chapitre traite la litt��rature pr��c��demment ��crite sur le corps en premier lieu, et sur les liens de filiation dans les deux ��uvres en second lieu. J'ai introduit ma contribution au domaine et les diff��rents aspects de la relation parent-fille qui ne sont pas pris en consid��ration et que ma th��se essaye de d��montrer. Ce chapitre contextualise ces deux ��uvres pendant l�����re de la dictature des deux Duvaliers, p��re et fils, en exposant et discutant l���impacte n��faste de cette dictature sur les familles. Ce chapitre conceptualise et d��finit le corps, qui est une construction culturelle et un site d'interaction entre le pouvoir et la violence, par rapport aux relations filiales. Dans le deuxi��me chapitre, l'accent est mis sur la relation de Martine et Sophie par rapport �� la pratique rituelle du test de la virginit��. Dans ce chapitre, j���ai soulev�� des questions sur le pouvoir de Martine de discipliner et contr��ler l���attitude et le corps de Sophie et la mani��re avec laquelle la fille peut r��agir au contr��le et �� la subjugation de sa m��re. J���ai examin�� le conflit interg��n��rationnel qui est intensifi�� par le d��sordre corporel. J���ai essay�� de d��montrer comment Sophie souhaite rejeter et se s��parer du corps de sa m��re et son incapacit�� �� le faire. Dans le troisi��me chapitre, j���ai ��tudi�� la relation de M. Bienaim�� avec sa fille Ka qui est perturb��e �� la fois par le corps de son p��re et l���identit�� ant��rieure de ce dernier en tant qu���ancien Tonton Macoute. La question soulev��e dans ce chapitre concerne le corps du p��re comme un agent de violence politique et comme une source d���inspiration artistique pour sa fille. L'identification de Ka avec et plus tard sa s��paration du corps de son p��re est au c��ur de mon ��tude, car c���est ce corps l�� qui modifie cette relation filiale particuli��re, qui r��sulte en un traumatisme transg��n��rationnel. Mots-cl��s: corps, relation parent-fille, pouvoir, violence, Edwidge Danticat

Autobiographical memory and amnesia: using conceptual knowledge to ground the self

A case of retrograde amnesia, PJM, elucidated the relationship between self, episodic memory and autobiographical knowledge. Results from a variety of measures including the I Am Memory Task (IAM Task), where memories are cued by self-generated self concepts, demonstrate that PJM has a coherent, continuous sense of self, despite having lost episodic memories for an 18-month period. Her use of conceptual autobiographical knowledge, in episodic tasks and to support aspects of identity, shows how autobiographical knowledge can support the self when episodic memories are inaccessible. These results are discussed with relation to current neuropsychological models of self and memory.

Gender and identity classi���cation for a naive and evolving system

<p>[EN]This paper does not propose a new technique for face representationorclassi���cation. Insteadtheworkdescribed here investigates the evolution of an automatic system which, based on a currently common framework, and starting from an empty memory, modi���es its classi���ers according to experience. In the experiments we reproduce up to a certain extent the process of successive meetings. The results achieved, even when the number of different individuals is still reduced compared to off-line classi���ers, are promising.</p>

Nation, Narration and Islam: Memory and Governmentality in Germany

This article analyses narrations of German memories in relation to the incorporation of Islam into Germany. Memory narratives are not approached from the angle of identity, but as part of the continuous business of rationalizing politics inside and beyond the state. The citational use of narratives authorizes interventions in the process of government by constituting its objects, determining the means and aims of government and defining its authority. Narratives are a governmental practice, i.e. they connect politics narrowly defined with individual conduct, since narratives allow determination of a social context and what constitutes adequate behaviour within it. In this way, they help to orient practices of freedom. Acts such as the cultivating of an ethics of interreligious competition, involvement in specific forms of dialogue, or activism against Islamophobia and anti-Semitism derive meaning in part through such narratives, while simultaneously contributing new meaning.

The Berlin Republic. Evolution of Germany's politics of memory and German patriotism. OSW Point of View, August 2009

Important changes have occurred in recent years in the attitude of a majority of the German elite towards the history of the 20th century and the political identity built on collective memory. Until recently, the sense of guilt for the crimes of the Third Reich and the obligation to remember were prevalent. While these two elements of Germany's memory of World War II are still important, currently the focus increasingly shifts to the German resistance against Nazism and the fate of the Germans who suffered in the war. Positive references to Germany's post-war history also occupy more and more space in the German memory. In 2009, i.e. the year of the 60th anniversary of the Federal Republic of Germany and the 20th anniversary of the fall of Communism, the efforts of German public institutions concentrate on promoting a new canon of history built around the successful democratisation and Germany's post-war economic success. The purpose behind these measures is to build a common historical memory that could be shared by the eastern and western parts of Germany and appeal to Germany's immigrants, who account for a growing proportion of the society.

'Putting up your Dukes': Statues, social memory and Duke Paoa Kahanamoku

Public statues that commemorate the lives and achievements of athletes are pervasive and influential forms of social memory in Western societies. Despite this important nexus between cultural practice and history making, there is a relative void of critical studies of statuary dedicated to athletes. This article will attempt to contribute to a broader understanding in this area by considering a bronze statue of Duke Paoa Kahanamoku, the Hawaiian Olympian, swimmer and surfer, at Waik��k��, Hawaii. This prominent monument demonstrates the processes of remembering and forgetting that are integral to acts of social memory. In this case, Kahanamoku's identity as a surfer is foregrounded over his legacy as a swimmer. The distillation and use of Kahanamoku's memory in this representation is enmeshed in deeper cultural forces about Hawaii's identity. Competing meanings of the statue's symbolism indicate its role as a 'hollow icon', and illustrate the way that apparently static objects representing the sporting past are in fact objects of the present.

Jogos dos povos indigenas : trajet��rias e interlocu����es = Indigenous peoples games : trajectory and interlocutions

Universidade Estadual de Campinas . Faculdade de Educa����o F��sica