Departmental Papers (ASC)
Title
Finding aids to the past: bearing personal witness to traumatic public events
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of this Version
September 2002
Abstract
The past compels us for what it tells us about the present. It is no wonder, then, that nearly everyone with a voice claims territoriality for it - wide-ranging collectives like nation-states; large-scale interested groups bonded by ethnicity, class and race; professional communities driven by expertise, like historians, filmmakers or journalists. Each strives to colonize connections to the past as a way of lending credence, cohesion or even a simple perspective to life in the present.
Download
Date Posted: 11 March 2008
This document has been peer reviewed.
Comments
Postprint version. Published in Media, Culture, and Society, Volume 24, Issue 5, September 2002, pages 697-714.