The genocide of the Armenians will be discussed at the Congress of
Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada in a member
organized session on June 2, 2005. The Congress this year meets in
London, Ontario. Members of the community could participate through a
day pass. See below the details of the 3-part session. The section on
the Armenian case is set at 12:30 noon.
CONGRESS 2005
University of Western Ontario
Session sponsored by the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association, the
Society for Socialist Studies and the Canadian Women’s Studies Association
Thursday, June 2, 2005
Part 1: 9:00-10:30am in SH 3350, Break 10:30-10:45am, Part 2:
10:45am-12:15pm in SH 2355, Break 12:15-12:30pm, Part 3: 12:30-2:00pm
in SH 2355
See
Translated Memory and Language of Genocide: (Gendered) Responses to
Traumatic Histories and Silence (with CWSA and CSAA)
Session Coordinators: Dr. Sima Aprahamian and Dr. Karin Doerr
Email Addresses: [email protected] and
[email protected]
Institutional Affiliations: Simone de Beauvoir Institute &
Sociology-Anthropology, Concordia University and Simone de Beauvoir
Institute & Modern Languages, Concordia University
Mailing Addresses: Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Concordia University,
1455 de Maisonneuve W., Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8 and Dept. of Classics,
Modern Lang. & Ling., Simone de Beauvoir Institute, and Montreal
Institute of Genocide Research, Concordia University, H-663 1455 de
Maisonneuve Blvd. West Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8
Phones: (514) 848-2424 x2142 or x2370
Description: This session seeks to explore connections between
genocide, the translating of experience, and the recording of
memories. It also aims to deal with the language, silences, and
denials of such history. We wish to illuminate diverse expressions by
analyzing and theorizing survivors’ responses as well as those of
perpetrator nations. We seek to answer questions of how the
persistence of racism, political agendas, and denial perpetuate
traumatization or solicit the need to rearticulate responses to the
past. We particularly welcome papers that include a gender dimension.
Part I: Literary Responses
9:00-10:30am in SH 3350
`Le voci del silenzio’: Voices of Silence in Elsa Morante’s La storia
Gabrielle Elissa Popoff ([email protected]), Columbia University
Abstract: Elsa Morantes 1974 novel “La storia” plays story against
history, presenting a non-hegemonic view of Italian fascism and World
War II. In a key passage, a female protagonist witnesses mass
deportations of Roman Jews. During her subsequent wanderings through
the deserted ghetto, her epileptic hallucinations repopulate it in a
maternal, fantastical way. Morantes willingness to mingle history with
fiction and employ an unreliable narrator to reveal in nonstandard
language untold truths about historys construction and the past is
characteristic of 1970s Italian historical representations, in
contrast to Holocaust survivors more immediate postwar works which
stress their veracity and literary artlessness. [Note: The Italian
word “storia” means both “history” and “story.”]
Personal and Political: Ruth Kluger’s and Judy Chicago’s Feminist
Revisionings of the Holocaust Memories of Feminism and Nationalism in
Ilse Langner’s Mythological Dramas Lynn Kutch ([email protected]),
Lehigh University
Abstract: From 1932-1970 German playwright Ilse Langner developed a
mythological sub-genre featuring mythological heroines that become
emblematic of (West) Germany at highly politicized turning points in
German history. The complexities and contradictions of Langner’s
heroines allow her to portray her country as strong and confident, but
also as the feminized, abused victim driven to violence. This paper
shows that the because of the more powerful messages of victimization
or generalized critique of a war mentality that emerge from Langner’s
works, her topical, potentially hard-hitting critiques dissolve into
subtle nationalism.
Remembering Differently: Transgenerational Haunting in Anne-Marie
Macdonld’s The Way the Crow Flies Susanne Luhmann
([email protected]), Laurentian University
Abstract: This paper examines transgenerational haunting in a Canadian
novel, The Way of the Crow. As a form of historical knowledge
transgenerational is an unconscious remembering. The book both tells
a story about and is animated by the force of transgenerational
haunting. The main protagonist becomes a witness to her father’s sins
and seeks to repair his crimes. By way of telling a different national
history the novel accounts for traumatic national and personal events
(slavery, the holocaust, the cultural genocide of Native people,
childhood sexual abuse), which many would rather forget.
Part II: The Holocaust and Remembering
10:45am-12:15pm in SH 2355
Words of Death and the Death of Words: Memories and Meanings of Jude
Karin Doerr ([email protected]), Concordia University
Abstract: Jude figures prominently in the Lexicon of the Third Reich
Language and illustrates linguistically the Nazis systemic
discrimination and the judeocide. In the postwar era, Jude and its
connotations were silenced. This paper will address how concerns of
post-Auschwitz generations of Germans and Jews converge. I shall
include personal experiences with Jude, my research of the Nazi era
language, and the work of artist and child of German Jewish survivors,
Ruth Liberman. She deals dramatically with German words and memory of
the past. I have also interwoven definitions of Jude from German
dictionaries. Some editions reveal ambivalence with this term.
Off the Record: Voices of Working Poor Jewish Women in Shoah
Representations Marion Gerlind ([email protected]), University of
Minnesota
Abstract: The stigma of poverty and manual labor has been largely
overlooked in historical reconstructions of the Shoah (Holocaust). Few
scholars have scrutinized the connections between socioeconomic status
and gender vis–vis death and survival. My research focuses on
working-class and rural Jewish women growing up with this stigma. Lack
of financial resources and connections decreased their chances of
survival and their testimonies are missing in critical
analyses. Listening to voices of those who were able to
survive-against overwhelming odds-leads to a more comprehensive
assessment of the Shoah. Primarily based on oral history interviews,
I present a few snap shots from survivors’ biographies.
About Auschwitz: Recent Photographs
Judith Lermer Crawley ([email protected]), Photographer/Retired
from Vanier College
Abstract: This presentation/slide-talk will position my most recent
photography exhibit, in the context of my artwork, teaching and family
history. It incorporates text with black and white photographs taken
on a recent visit to the Holocaust’s most infamous extermination camp,
a place my parents, though not most of their families and friends,
narrowly avoided. It functions on artistic, emotional, as well as
informative levels. The text includes information researched after our
visit, panels at Auschwitz and journal extracts. I will share further
research about a photograph I encountered on the wall in one of the
Auschwitz 1 buildings.
Part III: The Armenian Genocide
12:30-2:00pm in SH 2355
Powerful Silences: Becoming a Survivor Through the Construction of
Story Arlene Voski Avakian ([email protected]), University of
Massachusetts
Abstract: Survivors’ accounts of traumatic events function on many
levels for both the teller and the hearer. The construction of these
stories and their telling may also provide a means of countering the
devastating psychological effects of the trauma. This paper will
explore one story about the Turkish genocide of Armenians in 1915 as
told to me by my grandmother, Elmas Tutuian. Tutuian’s story omits as
much as it tells. Examining this narrative from a psychological and a
textual perspective, I suggest that by choosing to be silent about
parts of her experience, Tutuian constructed herself as a survivor
rather than a victim.
La Memoire Des Survivants Comme Irrefutable Temoignage Historique du
Genocide des Armeniens
Verjine Svazlian ([email protected]), Museé-Institut du Génocide des
Arméniens de l’Acadmie Nationale des Sciences d’Arménie
Abstract:Les récits et les chants folkloriques (650 units), communiqus
par les témoins oculaires survivants ayant survécu par miracle au
Génocide des Arméniens organisé entre 1915 et 1922 par la Turquie
ottomane, et que nous avons recueillis, enregistré sur cassettes audio
et vido pendant 50 ans en Arménie, en Grèce, en France, aux Etats-Unis
d’Amérique, en Turquie et ailleurs, ont la valeur d’importants
documents historiques et juridiques .
L’étude scientifique de ces documents folkloriques donne une claire
notion de tout le cours du Génocide des Arméniens, du pillage de leurs
biens et de leurs droits humains fouls aux pieds, ainsi que de leurs
héroiques combats contre leurs persécuteurs.
Traumatic Pasts and Silent Presents: Testimony of the Genocide’s
Aftermath in French-Armenian Literature Between the Wars
Talar Chahinian ([email protected]), U.C.L.A.
Abstract: My paper proposes that French-Armenian literature of the
post-Armenian
Genocide period written by survivors can be read as a testimonial of
the trauma in its aftermath through the very repression of genocide
memory, in spite of the lack of an explicit genocide memory in the
texts. The trauma of the aftermath can be mediated indirectly, through
the use of indexical (figurative) representation. My paper is a
symbolic reading of symptoms of trauma in both the content and the
form of Hratch Zardaryan’s novel Mer Gyanke, [Our Life] (1934) and
Zareh Orbuni’s novella Pordze, [The Attempt] (1934).
Aftereffects of War and Colonialism
Facilitating War: Trauma, Memory and Gender
Doris Goedl ([email protected]), Institute for Social
Research, Salzburg, Austria
Abstract: This paper establishes interconnections between a
psychoanalytical approach to trauma, memory and gender, based on
theoretical and practical work as a psychologist (psychodynamic work
with a group of war-traumatized women in Croatia 1994 – 1997) and as a
social researcher in a research-project conducting interviews
(2002-2004) with men an women in Slovenia, Croatia and
Bosnia-Hercegovina concerning their memories on socialism, transition
and war.
I will highlight how processes of social transformation, political
transition and disintegration in former Yugoslavia can be interpreted
as collectively experienced historical Trauma as well as look at
individual memories and narratives from a gender perspective.
Teaching Gender and Genocide
Lynn M. Maurer ([email protected]) and Anthony Q. Cheeseboro, Southern
Illinois University, Edwardsville
Abstract: Our paper recounts the experiences of incorporating the
issues of gender and race into a university interdepartmental course
on war and peace. These issues are often overlooked in traditional
teaching and understanding of war, thus leading to denial or a
distorted “memory” of issues, such as genocide.
We found that students enter the classroom with preconceived ideas and
ideologies that inhibit memory and deny the multiple roles of women in
war and gender specific attacks involved in genocide. Here we bring
our experience and data forth to be compared with similar courses thus
aiding educators to overcome challenges to memory.