I wasn’t sure if Kait would see this if I just commented on her project post so I wanted to post a little note here for her.
The New School’s Memory group (a group of grad students mostly in psychology and sociology) has weekly seminars and I heard one of their presenters (Kimberly Spring) speak about her research last spring and I thought you might want to get in touch w/ her. Her work is primarily focused on photography but I remember her briefly mentioning blogs as well. Here is the info I have… The seminars meet during our class on Wednesday but you could probably email her… here is the email for the group (who would probably give you her email): nssrmemoryconference@gmail.com
Here’s the info on her seminar lecture:
October 7: -Kimberly Spring (Sociology, New School for Social Research) will present a paper titled “Re-Presenting Victim and Perpetrator: The Role of Photographs in U.S. Service Members’ Testimony Against War” Abstract:
Since Mathew Brady first documented the life and death of soldiers in the U.S. Civil War, photographs have become central to the collective memory of war. However, whereas the visual recording of war has traditionally been the purview of journalists, today the images of war are increasingly presented through the lenses of those most directly involved – military service members – to the extent that the photographs taken by soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison have arguably had a greater influence on the collective memory of the Iraq War than any other image. This paper examines how some U.S. veterans of the Iraq War have integrated this practice of taking pictures into a critique of the military. The analysis considers how the veterans attempt to fix the meaning of photographs through the problematization of their use in the military; how the photographs serve as a mechanism for remembering; and the ways in which the images, as analogons of reality, bring the past into the present. Utilizing Roland Barthes’ concept of a photograph’s “third meaning,” I examine how the presentation of the photographs reveals the disguised meaning in these types of images, which lies in the human capacity to find triumph in the suffering and subordination of others, in order to affect social transformation.
Post updated 9/28 2:30pm
Peter and I have blocked off time next week to consult with each of you about your digital archive projects. We both have Wednesday 9/30 free, so there are 10 half-hour slots available for you to consult with both of us together. I’m also available Thursday 10/1, and Peter is available Friday 10/2, so on those days you can consult with us separately. Peter and I will confer on Monday about the separate appointments to make sure everyone has the benefit of our particular areas of expertise, and we’ll let you know if we have additional advice.
If absolutely none of these times fit with your schedule, do e-mail us for a separate appointment. I really love facilitating people’s individual research projects, so I’m looking forward to this!
Please “sign up” for one of the following time slots by commenting on this post; we’ll do it first come, first served. I’ll update this page with the reserved time slots as they come in.
9-9:30 — John 9:30-10 — Stacey 10-10:30 — Amita 10:30-11 11-11:30 — Kait 11:30-12 — Tracie 1-1:30 — Ann 1:30-2 — Samantha 2-2:30 — Meredith 2:30-3 — Brigid
9-9:30 9:30-10 10-10:30 10:30-11 11-11:30 11:30-12 12:30-1 — Nicole M. 1-1:30 — EJ 1:30-2 2-2:30 — Nicole D. 2:30-3 3-3:30 3:30-4 4-4:30 4:30-5 5-5:30 5:30-6
9-9:30 9:30-10 10-10:30 10:30-11 11-11:30 — Paula 11:30-12 3-3:30 — Julianna 3:30-4 4-4:30 4:30-5 — Ashley 5-5:30 5:30-6
See you next week!
For my final project, I am planning to research the recent history of the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay — from its use as a detention center for Haitian refugees in the 1990s to a military prison for ‘enemy combatants’ of the War in Afghanistan beginning in 2002. I am particularly interested in the media and visual representations of the detention center and detainees, and the ways that torture and terror have become synonymous with these images. I also hope to explore the testimonies from detainees themselves, some of whom have gone on to share their experience with the media after their release.
For my research topic I want to look at the documentation surrounding New York peace efforts in reaction to 9/11 within the first month following the attacks (possibly just up until the first troops arriving in Afghanistan of October 7th). I spoke with Amanda about narrowing the topic further to the events in Union Square but I think it might also be interesting to look at online activity; and I too am struggling with how narrow or in what way I really want to approach this online archive. I am trying to work in an event, or a short time period, where I can explore the collective memory of a failed antiwar efforts in this case; specifically I’d like to look at how the initial peace efforts were documented and reported when they were forming and then possibly work in some original work of interviewing members of the communities that organized rallies, protests and gatherings for an oral history component to see how they remember putting events together…
I’m really intrigued by an article I just read: Protest, Cyberactivism and New Social Movements: The Reemergence of the Peace Movement Post 9/11
Help me if you have any suggestions or ideas!!!
Previously, I completed an internship at the Archives of Irish America (AIA) here at NYU. My project for that internship was to produce a finding aid on the Frank Durkan collection (first accession). Frank Durkan was an Irish American attorney, partner in O’Dwyer and Bernstien of Manhattan, who was very active in Irish American affairs such as the Northern Ireland Peace process. He also represented several prominent defendants in related cases. The materials include correspondence and records of organizations in which Durkan participated and led as well as legal records pertaining to court cases. A significant amount of newspapers and other publications chronicling key events in the Peace Process are also included.
For this course, I would like to create an online exhibition of the Durkan collection as well as related materials from other AIA collections and link to other collections of notable involved parties. I will be meeting with the AIA archivist this week to confirm the scope of the project and if this will be a suitable project for this course.
I am designing my website around a collection of letters housed at the Stamford Historical Society in Stamford, Connecticut which I hope to use as the foundation for a masters thesis. The letters, written to and from a senator’s wife who lived in Stamford from the 1850s until her death in the early 1890s, shed light on an era long since gone while at the same time breathing renewed life into their author, Mary Ann Dickinson Smith. Though the letters reveal but one woman’s story, they offer the contemporary reader a chance to reexamine notions of femininity, domesticity and the often inaccurate assumptions of women’s restricted roles and responsibilities in Victorian America. Using Mary Ann Dickinson Smith as a case study, my website will address the notion of the Victorian woman through the letters she so meticulously saved.
Within the past year, the Stamford Historical Society has acquired a significant number of additional letters (well over 100) to be accessioned with the existing collection. Though eager to leave the letters with the historical society, the donor, Mary’s great granddaughter, is concerned that her relative’s correspondence will sit, without any sort of web presence, unknown to researchers and consequently unused. Combining images of the letters themselves with additional archival research (images of Stamford, of activities Mary participated in, and the places she visited, for example) I hope not only to recreate Mary’s life and the environment in which she lived, but to bring attention to the collection itself.
I did a major research project last year about the free black community of Philadelphia between approximately 1790 and 1830 and I would like for this project to complement that one, though I haven’t exactly decided how. One idea I’m thinking about is to focus on a range of events and individuals in order to capture the range of the issues and concerns facing this community during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The other direction I’m thinking about is to focus in detail on one central person within this community and, through this narrower biographical approach, portray both the person and their historical context as well.
There are 2.5 million people that live in the borough of Queens and by some estimations there are over 5 million people buried underneath it. There are some really interesting and historical cemeteries all over Queens, but I think that I want to focus this project on the neighborhood of Middle Village which is host to two large, old and (in)famous cemeteries: St. John’s the Catholic one and All Faiths the Lutheran one. I hope to research their part in the rural cemetery movement on the mid 1800s as well as their functions in the 20th century as the final resting place for a wide range of known New York citizens.
For my research topic I want to look into and chronicle the history of the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club. They are a primarily African American club in New Orleans, and one of the Mardi Gras krewes (so finding primary sources in New York might get a bit interesting). Zulu has a really interesting history which relates to the racism and segregation of New Orleans, even after the Civil Rights movement. I would like to create a website which features photos, music and literature (both scholarly and pop culture). I want to trace their trajectory, kind of, from a band of “tramps” to one of the most favored parades. And I think I want to talk about their throws, and how the Zulu beads and coconut have become highly prized and possibly mention the coconut they gave to Obama, but that might be going too far…
For this project I’ve decided to return to a topic I’ve worked on a little bit before and continues to interest me. I plan to look at Soldier Blogs: the arguments for and against them and how they’ve affected the historical record. As I do more research I’m sure what I find will take me in different directions so I’m looking forward to seeing where that goes. Soldier Blogs will I think be the major focus of my final project, but I would also like to provide a historical context of soldier correspondence over the years: how technology has changed the form of correspondence and the letters’ value as a historical resource. I’m also hoping with this project that I’ll be able to find some great primary resources.
