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Description
Approaches to Holocaust representation often take their cues from both academic and public discourse. General opinion demands serious engagement that depicts the full range of the brutality and inhumanity of the genocide and the victimization of targeted groups perpetrated by the National Socialists. Such a treatment is considered necessary to adequately represent the Holocaust for generations to come. The analysis of four texts will show that humor is not only appropriate but is also an important addition to Holocaust discourse. This study argues that humor plays an important role as a stylistic tool for discussing the Holocaust as well as for its remembrance and representation. Jurek Becker's novel Jakob der Lügner and Ruth Klüger's autobiography Weiter Leben: Eine Jugend are witness-texts by Jewish authors. Humor in these two works helps the authors engage and work their experiences. Klüger's autobiography also utilizes humor to critically engage in the discussion of Holocaust representation. This study also analyzes two non-witness Jewish texts: the stage play Mein Kampf by George Tabori and the feature film Mein Führer, die wirklich wahrste Wahrheit über Adolf Hitler by Dani Levy. These two works utilize overt humor to challenge established Holocaust representations. Drawing on ideas from Mikhail M. Bakhtin, Julia Kristeva, Giorgio Agamben, the core argument of this study demonstrates humor performs two main functions in the Holocaust literature and film chosen for this investigation. First, it restores a potential loss of dignity and helps victims endure the incomprehensible. Second, it challenges the prevailing truth and the established order.
ContributorsMeirich, Hanni (Author) / Gilfillan, Daniel (Thesis advisor) / Ghanem, Carla (Committee member) / Holian, Anna (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Ethno-nationalist politicians and criminals in Mostar espoused a discourse of ethno-exclusionist sociocultural relations as a superstructure for the public in order to establish ethnocratic kleptocracies where they concealed their criminal colonization of residential and commercial property through manipulating the pre-Bosnian War discourse on property relations. This is not to argue that some or most of these politicians and criminals did not believe in their virulent nationalist rhetoric, but instead that the effects of the discourse created well-used pathways to personal, not community, wealth. Elites used the Yugoslav economic crisis and perceived past grievance to enflame growing tensions between ethnicities and social classes. I use Mostar as an object of analysis to examine the creation of Bosnian Croat and Bosniak ethnocratic regimes in this divided city. However, I focus more on the Bosnian Croat regime in the city because it envisioned Mostar as its capital, making the city the site of its political competition among factions. Even though ethno-nationalist politicians and criminals still hold a level of power in Mostar, the IC did succeed in instituting a high level of property restitution, which does not necessarily imply return, because the IC was able to impose rule of law when it acted in an organized manner. Also, the ethnocratic regimes were weakened due to regional economic and political factors that undercut the regimes' hold over the population.
ContributorsPignotti, Arthur (Author) / Batalden, Stephen K. (Thesis advisor) / Von Hagen, Mark (Committee member) / Holian, Anna (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
In the time of Nazi Germany the systematic targeting of Jews for persecution and extermination was rampant. Although this was a dark time for the Jewish people in Europe, they did not simply stand idly by and let this happen to them. The Jewish people found a way to make a mockery of the situation that they wee in, as well as a way to poke fun at the people who persecuted them. The Jews used dark humor to mock the situations that they found themselves in. The interesting point here, though, is that they did not use all the aspects of dark humor that exist. The Jews used situational humor, critical humor, and gallows humor-humor about death-according to the incongruity theory of humor, to make a mockery of the plight that they were in. They did not use all of the different aspects of dark humor, but only the parts that would merge with their need to mock their situation, in order to be able to deal with the reality of what was happening in their lives. For the analysis in this thesis, I researched various collections of Jewish humor in Nazi Germany. I analyzed the jokes in relation to the different humor theories, and gave my conclusion on why these jokes were effective. Based on the evidence, I have come to several conclusions. The Jews that made these jokes only used the aspects of dark humor that would fit in with the atmosphere that they were trying to create. They would not use sexual jokes of any kind because of this. They used jokes that could be used as a shield, to comfort not only themselves but also their compatriots given their situation. The use of humor was a coping measure and a sign of defiance, that helped some of the victims of the Holocaust survive the attempted extermination of the Jews. Given the opportunity, I would widen my focus on this topic to include collective memory, as well, however the scope of such a project would be more fitting for a doctoral paper.
ContributorsWolfe, David (Author) / Alexander, Robert (Committee member) / Gilfillan, Daniel (Committee member) / Ghanem, Carla (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
The first official history of the Great Patriotic War appeared in the Soviet Union in 1960-1965. It evolved into a six-volume set that elicited both praise and criticism from the reading public. This dissertation examines the creation of the historiographical narrative of the Great Patriotic War in the decade following de-Stalinization in 1956. The debates historians, Party and state representatives engaged in, including the responses they received from reviewers and readers, shed new light on the relationship between the government, those who wrote state-sponsored narratives, and the reading public.
The narrative examined here shows the importance and value placed on the war effort, and explores how aspects of the Stalinist period were retained during the Thaw. By focusing on previously unexplored archival material, which documents debates and editorial decisions, an examination of how officials sought to control the state’s explanation of events, motivations and consequences of the war can be examined in-depth. To date, the periodization, terminology and areas of concentration that define the course of the Great Patriotic War are fixated on topics that Stalin’s war narrative favored, assigning significance to events according to Stalinist preferences rather than objective analysis. My study of the war’s historiography shows how contentious its memory became at every level, making it difficult to clearly discern who represented and opposed the party line throughout Soviet society.
The author argues that the collective memory of the war, as propagated by the state, became so all-encompassing that it was often the preferred version, infiltrating individual memories and displacing or blending with personal recollections and factual documentation. Because the war touched the entire population of the Soviet Union, its story became the foundational myth of the USSR, replacing the October Revolution, and was used as a legitimizing tool by Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev. Most recently, it has experienced a revival in the post-Soviet period by Vladimir Putin as a way to unify Russia and build popular support for his administration. Viewing how the public interacted with representatives of the state over the creation of the official history of the war suggests that like no other event, war compels any state, even a totalitarian state, to reexamine its foundations, historical memory, foreign and domestic policies and views on censorship.
The narrative examined here shows the importance and value placed on the war effort, and explores how aspects of the Stalinist period were retained during the Thaw. By focusing on previously unexplored archival material, which documents debates and editorial decisions, an examination of how officials sought to control the state’s explanation of events, motivations and consequences of the war can be examined in-depth. To date, the periodization, terminology and areas of concentration that define the course of the Great Patriotic War are fixated on topics that Stalin’s war narrative favored, assigning significance to events according to Stalinist preferences rather than objective analysis. My study of the war’s historiography shows how contentious its memory became at every level, making it difficult to clearly discern who represented and opposed the party line throughout Soviet society.
The author argues that the collective memory of the war, as propagated by the state, became so all-encompassing that it was often the preferred version, infiltrating individual memories and displacing or blending with personal recollections and factual documentation. Because the war touched the entire population of the Soviet Union, its story became the foundational myth of the USSR, replacing the October Revolution, and was used as a legitimizing tool by Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev. Most recently, it has experienced a revival in the post-Soviet period by Vladimir Putin as a way to unify Russia and build popular support for his administration. Viewing how the public interacted with representatives of the state over the creation of the official history of the war suggests that like no other event, war compels any state, even a totalitarian state, to reexamine its foundations, historical memory, foreign and domestic policies and views on censorship.
ContributorsMann, Yan (Author) / Von Hagen, Mark (Thesis advisor) / Manchester, Laurie (Thesis advisor) / Holian, Anna (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
In the United States, nearly every state has a state history museum, where the natural and cultural history of the state is researched and put on display through tangible objects and intangible stories. Despite the unique nature of its history, the state of Hawaii is one of the few states that does not have a proper state history museum. The closest thing the state has to a state history museum is the Bishop Museum, which focuses mostly on Native Hawaiian culture and history from ancient times up until the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893. This thesis explores why there is no state museum to cover the modern history of the Hawaiian Islands, and lays out a general proposal for what a future Hawaii State History Museum could look like. In researching this project, inspiration was taken from the state history museums of Colorado and Texas, the History Colorado Center and the Bullock Texas State History Museum, respectively. The proposal covers the physical location and design of a potential museum building and how it would be laid out inside. It then provides a list of exhibit ideas while addressing questions of narrative perspective, with the overarching narrative of the museum being “Hawaii History for Hawaii locals.” Lastly, it discusses the importance of the connection between the community and the museum in order to be successful. With current Hawaii legislators showing an interest in actually establishing a state museum for modern Hawaii history, this thesis can serve as a framework from which the real museum can be built off of.
ContributorsVoss, Michael (Author) / Boyce-Jacino, Katherine (Thesis director) / Holian, Anna (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies, Sch (Contributor) / The Sidney Poitier New American Film School (Contributor)
Created2023-05
Description
This dissertation discusses children and childhood in Soviet Kazakhstan from 1928 to 1953. By exploring images of, and for, children, and by focusing on children’s fates during and after the famine of 1930-33, I argue that the regime’s success in making children socialist subjects and creating the new Soviet person was questionable throughout the 1930s. The reach of Soviet ideological and cultural policies was limited in a decade defined by all kinds of shortcomings in the periphery which was accompanied by massive violence and destruction. World War 2 mobilized Central Asians and integrated the masses into the Soviet social and political body. The war transformed state-society relations and the meaning of being Soviet fundamentally changed. In this way, larger segments of society embraced the framework for Soviet citizenship and Soviet patriotism largely thanks to the war experience. This approach invites us to reconsider the nature of Sovietization in Central Asia by questioning the central role of ideology and cultural revolution in the formation of Soviet identities. My dissertation brings together images of childhood, everyday experiences of children and memory of childhood. On the one hand, the focus on children provides me an opportunity to discuss Sovietization in Central Asia. On the other hand, this dissertation contributes to our understanding of Soviet childhood: it is the first comprehensive study of Soviet children in the periphery in English. It shows how images and discourses, which were produced in the Soviet center, were translated into the local context and emphasizes the multiplicity of children’s experiences across the Soviet Union. Local conditions defined the meaning of childhood in Kazakhstan as much as central visions. Studying children in a non-Russian republic allows me to discuss questions of ideology, cultural revolution and the nationalities question. A main goal of the dissertation is to shift the focus of Sovietization from the cultural and intellectual elite to ordinary people. Secondly, by studying the impact of the famine and the Great Patriotic War, I try to understand the dynamics of the Soviet regime and the changing conceptions of culture and identity in Soviet Kazakhstan.
ContributorsKasikci, Mehmet Volkan (Author) / Manchester, Laurie (Thesis advisor) / Kefeli, Agnes N (Committee member) / Edgar, Adrienne L (Committee member) / Holian, Anna (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020