Cultural History Commons^™

Reading 9/11 Through The Holocaust In Philip Roth’S The Plot Against America And Art Spiegelman’S In The Shadow Of No Towers, Stella Setka

Re-visioning Terrorism

This essay argues that Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America and Art Spiegelman’s In the Shadow of New Towers open up new spaces for reading the trauma of 9/11 not simply as the tragic story of a single day in 2001, but as a traumatic event that shares referents with other catastrophes in history, most notably the Holocaust. Further, the author demonstrates that these works are more concerned with the politicization of 9/11 than they are with the terrorist attacks themselves.

Female (Em)Bodied Justice: Terrorism, Self-Sacrifice, And The Joint Primacy Of Gender And Nationality, Renee Lee Gardner

Re-visioning Terrorism

In The Terror Dream, Susan Faludi asserts that instead of processing the events of 9/11 – what they might reveal about our culture, how we might thoughtfully grieve them and respond to those who perpetrated them – Americans reverted to a 1950s style domesticity, with the media representing men as heroic rescuers and women as victims of terrorists, in need of rescuing. This is ironic in that the majority of that day’s casualties were men, and the attacks themselves were perpetrated within our commercial and governmental centers. Yet much of the literary fiction that has emerged from 9/11 can …

From Hydra To Al-Qaeda: Depictions Of Terrorism In Comic Books, Cord Scott

Re-visioning Terrorism

Comic books have often reflected the world at the time of publication. Terrorism became a prominent aspect of several comic storylines after 9/11, but the concept of terrorist groups in comic books is far more common than one might think. This paper looks at how terrorist groups have been used in US comic books, how events in comics have later come true, and how depictions of terrorists have changed in both positive and negative aspects.

No More Tall Buildings: American Superhero Comics And The Shadow Of 9/11, Mauricio Castro

Re-visioning Terrorism

No abstract provided.

The Grizzly, September 8, 2011, Liz Kilmer, Nick Pane, Ron Stranix, Lisa Jobe, Lauren Tedesco, Pearl Steinberg, Jane Helmick, Sabrina Mcgettigan, Dave Muoio, Sarah Bollert, James Noebels, Anna Larouche, Hilary Gibbs, Jacquelyn Heikel, Sara Sherr

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

President Fong Praises Liberal Arts • New Patterson Field Changes Game for UC Sports • Class of 2015 Arrives Early for Freshman Orientation • Students Faced with Room Damage Charges Urged to Take Better Care • Frosh Advice from Upperclassmen • Collegeville Welcomes "Unique" Movie Tavern • New Professor Plans to Boost Music Tech Program • Students and Administration Return, React to Renovations in Wismer • Internship Profile: Fox 29 • Opinions: An Open Letter to Freshman Women; Students Should Consider Pros of Off-Campus Living • Football Drops Season Opener to Albright, 24-17 • Women's Soccer has Sight set on …

Holy Writ: Thinking Beyond Enabling Legislation To Modern Relevance, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

Why trust a bunch of dead guys? I know it sounds trite, but it's very important when we begin approaching how we talk about Civil War sites (or any historic site). Oftentimes, the folks who voted the site into existence and decided its primary reason for being are dead and gone. The world has changed radically since they were here. The pieces of legislation they created (at the federal level they're typically called "enabling legislation," at lower levels they have varied other names) were distinct products of their times. The themes and significances they outline are likewise products of their …

“Above All Greek, Above All Roman Fame”: Classical Rhetoric In America During The Colonial And Early National Periods, James M. Farrell

Communication

The broad and profound influence of classical rhetoric in early America can be observed in both the academic study of that ancient discipline, and in the practical approaches to persuasion adopted by orators and writers in the colonial period, and during the early republic. Classical theoretical treatises on rhetoric enjoyed wide authority both in college curricula and in popular treatments of the art. Classical orators were imitated as models of republican virtue and oratorical style. Indeed, virtually every dimension of the political life of early Ameria bears the imprint of a classical conception of public discourse. This essay marks the …

Memory In Paintings Of Quattrocentro Renaissance Florence: Religious Paintings And Secular Portraits, Ashley Matcheck

Psi Sigma Siren

Collective memory studies as a field has always been the interdisciplinary study of how and why memories have been created. The difference between collective or cultural memory studies and that of a strictly historical study is often discussed and debated as people question whether memory or history is more valuable regarding past events. Jan Assmann explains that “in the context of cultural memory, the distinction between myth and history vanishes. Not the past as such, as it is investigated and reconstructed by archaeologists and historians, counts for the cultural memory, but only the past as it is remembered.” Assmann has …

College Football, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

Staged events are seldom convincing and often offensive. About two weeks ago the President of THE Ohio State University, Gordon Gee decided to stage a public apology for his comments several weeks earlier in which he used the Little Sisters of the Poor as a punch line for criticism of scheduling by lesser football teams than his group of tainted national champions.

"Gold Coast Slave Ship Bound For Cotton Fields...": Altamont And The American Civil War, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

A couple weeks ago, I put up a post about a flag flying at Manassas during the Sesquicentennial commemoration. It elicited a nice response from a friend of mine, Robby, who hails from the great state of North Carolina. Robby loves to play devil's advocate, so I'm always happy to wade further into a friendly conversation:

...When a historian is unable to understand the southern affinity for the men who fought the war, almost to a person you see the slavery straw man emerge. This action is akin to politicians playing the race card, an easy way out of a …

'My Happiness Overturned': Mourning, Memory And A Woman's Writing, Rachel Greenblatt

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

In the late seventeenth century, Beila Perlhefter mourned her seven children in the introduction she wrote to a Yiddish ethical work written (at her urging, she tells her readers) by her husband, Ber. While the autobiographical information provided in the introduction is sparse indeed, it shares certain generic characteristics with other self-writing by early modern Jews from Prague, including Yom-Tov Lipmann Heller's "Megillat eivah." At the same time, each voice is a different voice, all the more so the rare instance of a woman's voice, and this short piece defies easy categorization.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• Sefer …

Personal Life In The Context Of Personal Death, Avri Bar-Levav

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

In his ethical will, R. Naphtali Ha-Kohen Katz (1650? - 1719), a central rabbinic figure in his time, gives specific instructions for death rituals that he wants, and also addresses his family in warm words, while mentioning meaningful events of his past. The presentation will analyze this personal voice of the beginning of the 18th century.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• The Ethical Will of R. Naphtali Ha-Kohen Katz

Introduction To Megillat Sefer By Rabbi Jacob Emden, Jacob J. Schecter

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Among Jacob Emden’s many works is Megillat Sefer, one of the most unusual, open, revealing, and unself-conscious egodocuments in Jewish and even general history. Written between 1752 and 1766, this work existed only in manuscript form for one hundred and thirty years, first in Emden’s hand and then in the hand of someone who copied the original. Emden’s handwritten version is no longer extant and only the copy exists. The work was first published in Warsaw, 1896 by David Kahane. In 1979 it was printed again in Jerusalem by Abraham Bick-Shauli who claimed that he was correcting mistakes in the …

Generational Conflict In Converso Families, 1492-1550, Sara Nalle

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The egodocuments presented to the seminar are Inquisitorial confessions of second-generation "nuevos convertidos" who in one way or another were caught between their parents' desire to maintain contact with Judaism and their own alleged desire to assimilate as Spanish Catholics.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• Trial of Francisco Martínez, apothocary, resident of Deza (1533)
• Trial of Gaspar de San Clemente (1541)

Autobiographical Accounts For A Non-Jewish Friend: Joseph Attias' Letters To L.A. Muratori, Francesca Bregoli

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The Livornese Jewish scholar Joseph Attias (1672-1739) is known for his contributions to eighteenth-century Tuscan culture as a book collector and mediator. Attias sent two autobiographical letters to a beloved correspondent, renowned Modenese historian Ludovico Antonio Muratori, in 1724 and 1733. This presentation will analyze the documents as self-conscious life narratives and examples of early Enlightenment self-fashioning that shed light on the strategies employed by a Jewish member of the Republic of Letters to present his formative years, his training, and his achievements to one of the most esteemed representatives of eighteenth-century Italian culture.

This presentation is for the following …

The Travel Diaries Of Hayim Joseph David Azulai, Yaacob Dweck

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

This presentation examines the travel diaries of Hayim Joseph David Azualai, an emissary of the Jews of the Palestine in the third quarter of the eighteenth century. In particular it addresses the question of the place of reading and books in his diaries and compare Azulai's experience of books and reading to two of his contemporaries Hayim Isaac Karigal and Israel Landau.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• Hayim Joseph David Azulai's Ma'agal Tov (The Good Journey, 1770s)

Descend To The Abyss: Jacob Frank's Going To Poland, Pawel Maciejko

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

This presentation examines several autobiographical fragments of the most important Frankist document, The Words of the Lord. It focuses on the motif of recurrent divine calls to 'go to Poland' and, ultimately, the justification of Frank's conversion to Christianity.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• The Collection of the Words of the Lord spoken in Bruenn

Mining An Unusual Ego Text (Or Two), Gershon D. Hundert

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The texts presented here are excerpted from a 329-page-manuscript Divrei Binah in cursive Hebrew entitled Divre binah. The book was completed in 1800 but never published. It is devoted mostly to the Sabbatian and Frankist phenomena; the genre to which the text belongs is open to discussion. Its author is Dov Ber Brezer or Birkenthal of Bolechów (1723-1805) in western Galicia.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• Divrei Bina (Understanding Words) by Dov Ber Brezer (Birkenthal) of Bolechów

Revealing, Concealing: Ways Of Recounting The Self In Early Modern Times, Natalie Zemon Davis

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Keynote address by Natalie Zemon Davis, University of Toronto, “Revealing, Concealing: Ways of Recounting the Self in Early Modern Times” is preceded by opening remarks by Robert Abzug and Miriam Bodian)

Emw 2011: Egodocuments: Revelation Of The Self In The Early Modern Period, Emw 2011

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The Early Modern Workshop in 2011, “Egodocuments: Revelation of the Self in the Early Modern Period,” seeks to examine how individuals in the early modern period wrote and thought about themselves. The workshop participants explore texts ranging from the obvious autobiographical texts to less obvious, such as ethical wills, Inquisition-prompted accounts of self, family diaries of births and deaths, travelogues, and others. Questions raised deal with issues of self-representation, reading, relationship with the divine, gender differences in self-representation, and motivations to write autobiographical accounts.