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- Convenors:
-
Mirko Uhlig
(Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz)
Torsten Kathke (JGU Mainz)
Juliane Tomann (Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena)
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- Formats:
- Panel
- Stream:
- Heritage
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 22 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Helsinki
Short Abstract:
Practices of counter-curation highlight individuals' desire to actively restructure interpretations of the past and thus open up spaces for the negotiation of cultural norms. Examining them enables a deeper understanding of processes of historical meaning-making so far not thoroughly addressed.
Long Abstract:
This panel focuses on forms, functions, and connections between varied practices of performing the past which challenge established and institutionalized modes of remembrance. Such practices of counter-curation highlight individuals' desire to actively restructure interpretations of the past and thus open up spaces for the negotiation of cultural norms. Reenactments of past battles (e.g. of the American Civil War or the Napoleonic Wars) are a good case in point as "playing war" confronts widely accepted democratic norms regarding peaceful behavior. While counter-curators may share commonalities, they often disagree in terms of what constitutes appropriate activities and the goals they hope to achieve. Their practices are part of a wider trend of practical commemoration, also seen in the selection and recreation of objects to represent an imagined past, the private curation of exhibitions against the grain of museological strictures, or the production of recordings and other media that stress facets of the past sidelined by larger discourses. The performative recourse to an imagined past may invoke nostalgia and a conservative longing for "the good old days," producing what Zygmunt Bauman has called "retrotopias". Alternatively, the cultural act of counter-curation can be interpreted as the expression of a current need to alleviate perceived deficiencies of the contemporary political, social, or physical environment. We invite contributors to examine this tension using various approaches to enable a deeper understanding of processes of historical meaning-making that have so far not been thoroughly addressed in applicable academic discourses.
Watch the panel introduction: https://tinyurl.com/SIEFintroduction
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 22 June, 2021, -Robbert-Jan Adriaansen (Erasmus University Rotterdam)
Paper short abstract:
This paper analyzes the 'dark academia' internet aesthetic, which Romanticizes life at early twentieth century college campuses, as a form of counter-curation. Its mood-oriented aesthetics de-historicize the past, which serves the renegotiation of values, community building, and recasts nostalgia.
Paper long abstract:
Dark Academia is an ‘internet aesthetic’, an aesthetic style used in posts on platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and Tumblr that resonates the atmosphere of life in boarding schools, prep schools and (Ivy League) colleges from the last decades of the nineteenth century up until the 1940s. It expresses a fascination with (neo-)gothic architecture; with tweed, lace, wool, and leather; with literature and art, and Romantic longing. Having been a main trend on social media platforms throughout the coronavirus pandemic, dark academia captures and facilitates cultural engagement in times of social isolation and closed college campuses.
This paper studies the dark academia aesthetic as a form of counter-curation: the deliberate de-historization and eclectic aestheticization of the past counters curatorial norms, and the common ‘detached’ understanding of an objectified past. Using the concept Stimmung (attunement) I will argue that the aim of this internet aesthetic is to annul historical distance by capturing a mood and atmosphere associated with early twentieth-century campuses through the means of curated social media representations. This de-historicization allows for the renegotiation of values, like inscribing queerness - associated with secret queer romantics at gender-divided schools - into its representational language, without having to reassert historical gender binaries. Stimmung also generates a spiritual communality that we might call aesthetic belonging, which has a clear social function in times of social distancing, even while the aesthetic idealizes solitude. Finally, I will challenge the idea that nostalgia necessarily serves escapism into an idealized (objectified) past.
Lijing Peng (Trinity College Dublin)
Paper short abstract:
This paper focuses on the revitalization of origin tales collected in Early Modern West Hunan society as regards Hmong identity. Case studies on on-going edition, exhibition and arguments over them are presented to demonstrate counter-curational practices of restructuring historical narratives.
Paper long abstract:
My research looks into the revitalisation of Hmong origin myths in West Hunan minority ethnic autonomous prefecture in China. Basing on two-year fieldwork and archival studies, recent editions, exhibitions and academic arguments of these folktale materials – mostly carried out by local scholars and local cultural institutions – are studied and discussed in this paper. I propose that the on-going active perception and interpretation of them comprise and emphasize counter-curational practices of restructuring historical narratives.
In particular, two case studies will be presented in this paper. One study focuses on how origin stories of the Heavenly Kings in West Hunan are edited in recent local and national publications, and how these narratives are put into exhibitions in local ethnography museum. I argue that these efforts are combined to challenge mainstream political propaganda by widening the ground of historical narratives. The second case study looks into the negotiations on interpreting these folktale materials by local and nation-wide scholars on cyberspace. Cross sword over the issue of Hmong identity reveals rationalization approaches adopted by different institutions and individuals out of various political and social concerns. Overall, revitalization of origin stories of the Heavenly Kings demonstrates the fluidity of minority ethnic identity, which combines the construction of linear history (military/political expansion and Sinicization) and the construction of mythic history (conveying principles and moral grounds). My case studies aim to demonstrate how counter-curational practices carried out by individuals and local cultural institutions seek to restructure historical narratives and to negotiate interpretations of minority ethnic cultures.
Mirko Uhlig (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz) Torsten Kathke (JGU Mainz)
Paper short abstract:
The first reenactment of a US Civil War battle in Germany took place in 1985 on the Baumholder military training ground. We use interviews and archival sources to document the event. We argue it was foundational in bringing the counter-curational practice of reenactment to Germany.
Paper long abstract:
The reenactment of past events by laypersons constitutes a major counter-curational practice within public history. The first reenactment of a US Civil War battle in Germany took place in 1985 in Rhineland-Palatinate. As it was not open to the public, accessible archival materials have been limited, and research into reenactments in Germany has so far not addressed this event.
The Baumholder reenactment, we argue, is foundational to the development of reenactment culture and therefore its thriving as a counter-curational practice in Germany, as it was connected with the founding of an influential organization dedicated to the promotion of Civil War reenactments in the Federal Republic. While the reenactment itself drew protagonists from all walks of life, its immediate contemporary contextualization was as part of a resurgent national socialism, organized in so-called “Wehrsportgruppen” that engaged in acting out potential future wars and committed terrorist acts.
This paper is based on our original archival research and two long-form interviews conducted with protagonists of the Baumholder reenactment. It draws from heretofore unavailable primary sources as well as articles published in niche magazines and short notices in local newspapers. We analyze these interviews in connection with the Cold War context, the specificities of German memorial practices, and with a type of post-war masculinity prevalent in West German society in the 1980s.
This undergirds our conclusion that reenacting the American Civil War provided an outlet to Germans intent on experiencing a nostalgic military homosociality otherwise disparaged in German public discourse.