Kategorie: Uncategorized

2019_08_Körber How to Read a Mon­u­ment as Nar­ra­tive in Class_2-lit.pdf

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Andreas Kör­ber (Ham­burg)
How to Read a Mon­u­ment as a Nar­ra­tive in Class – a Sug­ges­tion [unfin­ished draft]

I.
The fol­low­ing sug­ges­tions for address­ing mon­u­ments in his­to­ry edu­ca­tion are based on a con­cep­tion of mon­u­ments as pro­to- or abbre­vi­ate nar­ra­tives ¹ by a present actor about a cer­tain past and its rel­e­vance. Even though in many dis­cus­sions about the removal of mon­u­ments, peo­ple deplore the removal of their “past”, ² what is at stake, is not the past itself, but a spe­cif­ic and often priv­i­leged com­mu­ni­ca­tion of a cer­tain inter­pre­ta­tion of some past con­text, per­son­age or event.
As such, they also address some­one (most­ly a spe­cif­ic group) – some­times explic­it­ly, some­times implic­it­ly only. These “addressees” need, how­ev­er, not be iden­ti­cal with those real­ly explor­ing the mon­u­ment. But these (the actu­al “audi­ence”) will also feel addressed, and since they might (will) be diverse, in quite dif­fer­ent ways. This com­mu­nica­tive shift is far from being an excep­tion – it might even be the rule in times of change and of increased diver­si­ty of our soci­eties. Con­sid­er, e.g., a mon­u­ment hail­ing some hero of an impe­r­i­al war address­ing its audi­ence with a ref­er­ence to “our empire” vis­it­ed by an immi­grant British cit­i­zen. This applies not only to mon­u­ments depict­ing a group’s (e.g. nation’s) “own pride and pain” but also to crit­i­cal memo­ri­als address­ing a group’s actions in the past which are con­sid­ered as prob­lem­at­ic (to say the least) in ret­ro­spect. Con­sid­er, e.g., Germany’s memo­ri­als at for­mer places of con­cen­tra­tion camps. In most cas­es, they are called “Gedenkstät­ten” – “sites of remem­brance”. As such, already, they (have to) express their nar­ra­tive log­ic in diverse from, giv­en that the soci­ety they address is not only soci­o­log­i­cal­ly and cul­tur­al­ly diverse but also with respect to the past they refer to. For sur­vivors and depen­dants (of both sur­vivors and fatal vic­tims), they are (main­ly) a place of com­mem­o­ra­tion their own loss and also vic­tim­hood. In many cas­es these places tell a sto­ry of “we have this place for remem­ber­ing what they (the Ger­mans) have done to us”. But even with­in this group, there are many who are and still con­sid­er them­selves Ger­mans. For them, the nar­ra­tive is quite dif­fer­ent. And of course there is a dif­fer­ence between mourn­ing a loss and remem­ber­ing a sur­vival or even own resis­tance. An inscrip­tion on the 1965 mon­u­ment at Neuengamme Con­cen­tra­tion Camp Memo­r­i­al in Ham­burg, e.g., read­ing “Euer Lei­den, Euer Kampf und Euer Tod sollen nicht vergebens sein” (“Your Suf­fer­ing, Your Fight and Your Death Shall Not be in Vain”) does promi­nent­ly address a group of pris­on­ers who active­ly resist­ed. But what is more, most of these places respec­tive­ly mon­u­ments there are also known as “Mah­n­male”, i.e. “mon­u­ment” in the lit­er­al sense of “admon­ish­ing” some­one. Who can or should be admon­ished there? Refer­ring to the Nazi Crimes, they can (and have to) do it in two dif­fer­ent ways: Towards sur­viv­ing vic­tims and their depen­dants they may be read as “Nev­er let that be done unto you again” – but address­ing the Ger­man soci­ety as such they refer to “Remem­ber” (pub­licly, that is) “what you have done” (both to “oth­ers” and to “some of your own”, that is) – “and make sure that this nev­er hap­pens again”. Ger­mans among the vic­tims of NS-crimes (Jew­ish Ger­mans, Com­mu­nists, Social Democ­rats Jehova’s Wit­ness­es, and many oth­ers), then, will specif­i­cal­ly have to select (not choose) how they are addressed.

Metaphor­i­cal­ly, mon­u­ments don’t cease to “speak” if address­ing a dif­fer­ent audi­ence from what was intend­ed or sup­posed. Since all per­cep­tion and analy­sis (“de-construction”1) of a nar­ra­tive also requires and implies re-con­struc­tive men­tal process­es, the result­ing nar­ra­tives in diverse pub­li­ca will dif­fer, par­tial­ly by becom­ing more com­plex. Con­sid­er the 1925 war mon­u­ment in front of Hamburg-Altona’s Johan­nis Church: It depicts three medieval war­riors with bare chest and lean­ing on a long sword.2 The inscrip­tion reads: “Den Gefal­l­enen zum dankbaren Gedächt­nis, den Leben­den zur Mah­nung, den kom­menden Geschlechtern zur Nacheifer­ung” (“to the fall­en in grate­ful mem­o­ry, to the liv­ing as a reminder, to the com­ing gen­er­a­tions for emu­la­tion”). Even though there sure­ly are some youths on the right-wing of the polit­i­cal spec­trum to whom this may appeal, both most of them will have to engage in twofold inter­pre­ta­tion: “Eth­nic” will have to dif­fer­en­ti­ate between their own posi­tion and per­spec­tive and that of the youth in the Weimar Repub­lic, in order to rec­og­nize the mes­sage and to make their own sense of it, Ger­mans with what is often termed as “migra­to­ry back­ground” will have even more aspects to combine.

All these con­sid­er­a­tions also hold true for the “speaker’s posi­tion” in a memo­r­i­al or monument’s nar­ra­tive: Let’s take the exam­ple of Ger­man Con­cen­tra­tion Camp memo­ri­als again: Who is it, admon­ish­ing the vic­tims not to be vic­tim­ized again, and (more promi­nent­ly) the Ger­mans not to become per­pe­tra­tors again? In fact, one can even detect anoth­er lay­er in such mon­u­ments. The fact that (belat­ed­ly enough) the Ger­man soci­ety today des­ig­nates and sup­ports these “Gedenkstät­ten” (or even hosts them insti­tu­tion­al­ly) can also be con­sid­ered a mes­sage to both the sur­vivors, their depen­dants and to the world at large: “See and that we address this past” – pos­si­bly also with a call for sup­port: “By wit­ness­ing this com­mit­ment of ours to remem­ber­ing this past – help us to resist and even fight ten­den­cies to aban­don it and to return to a socio-cen­tric way or com­mem­o­ra­tion” again. ³ But is it “the Ger­man Soci­ety” speak­ing here – or some spe­cif­ic group (e.g. the gov­ern­ment, a polit­i­cal fac­tion, …) speak­ing “for” the Ger­man peo­ple or in lieu of? Just like the tar­get­ed audi­ence of a mon­u­ment sel­dom­ly is just the one real­ly vis­it­ing it (and try­ing to make sense of it), the posi­tion of “author­ship” needs to be differentiated.
Giv­en all this, the con­ven­tion­al ques­tions of (1) who erect­ed a mon­u­ment (2) to (remem­ber­ing) whom, (3) for what pur­pose, (4) with whose mon­ey, and to what effect (e.g. of appraisal, cri­tique), are still nec­es­sary, but need to be complemented.
As a result, a monument’s “mes­sage” or “mean­ing” is nei­ther fixed nor arbi­trary, but rather a spec­trum of nar­ra­tive rela­tions between a range of perceived-“authors” or ”speak­ers” and a sim­i­lar range of tar­get­ed and fac­tu­al addressees.
Fur­ther­more, their inter­re­la­tion is of utmost inter­est and may strong­ly dif­fer: Does (and if so: in what way) the mon­u­ments mes­sage imply the author and the addressee(s) to belong to the same group? It it “intran­si­tive” in that it at least seem­ing­ly express­es the fact of “remem­ber­ing” (“We both know that we have knowl­edge about this past and we express that it is of impor­tance to us”), while in fact it serves either as a tran­si­tive reminder (“I know that you know, but you must not for­get”) or even as a first-time intro­duc­tion of the addressee into the sub­ject at hand (which will be the mode in most cas­es of vis­it­ing mon­u­ments with stu­dents). So where “remem­ber­ing” and even “com­mem­o­ra­tion” is sug­gest­ed and meant, “telling” is the fac­tu­al mode.
Fur­ther­more, com­mem­o­ra­tive modes are man­i­fold. Mon­u­ments can not only call for neu­tral “remem­ber­ing”, but also for rever­ing or con­demn­ing, for feel­ings (pride and pain) – and they can appeal for action, e.g. for fol­low­ing an exam­ple. In cul­tur­al­ly diverse soci­eties, the spe­cif­ic lin­guis­tic and artis­tic modes of express­ing may not be clear to all stu­dents, pos­si­bly lead­ing to mis­un­der­stand­ings, but pos­si­bly also to iden­ti­fy­ing alter­na­tive read­ings which are worth considering.

II.
Anoth­er aspect is cru­cial: In (post-)modern, diverse and het­ero­ge­neous soci­eties (at least), it will not suf­fice that each indi­vid­ual is able to think about the past and its rep­re­sen­ta­tions in the pub­lic sphere, to con­sid­er the mes­sages and to relate to them indi­vid­u­al­ly. The com­mon task of orga­niz­ing a peace­ful and demo­c­ra­t­ic life togeth­er with­in soci­ety as well as in respect to for­eign rela­tions requires that the indi­vid­ual mem­bers of soci­ety do not only sport their own his­tor­i­cal con­scious­ness – pos­si­bly dif­fer­ent from that of their neigh­bours, they will have to be able to relate to these oth­er per­cep­tions, con­cep­tu­al­i­sa­tions, inter­pre­ta­tions and eval­u­a­tions of past and his­to­ry and to the appeals they hold for them. In plur­al soci­eties it is not enough to just know his­to­ry your­self and to be able to think his­tor­i­cal­ly – its is para­mount to have at least some insight into the his­tor­i­cal think­ing of oth­ers and to be able to com­mu­ni­cate about it. This also refers to mon­u­ments. What is need­ed is not only knowl­edge and insight about some pos­si­ble dif­fer­ent inter­pre­ta­tions (as e.g. exem­pli­fied by clas­si­cal or rep­re­sen­ta­tive ones tak­en from lit­er­a­ture), but also an insight into the actu­al (ongo­ing, pos­si­bly still unsure, blurred, unfin­ished) inter­pre­ta­tions of oth­ers in one’s one rel­e­vant con­texts. Learn­ing about his­to­ry in inclu­sive soci­eties, there­fore, be they diverse with regard to cul­tur­al, social or oth­er dif­fer­en­ti­a­tions, requires a dimen­sion of mutu­al­i­ty, of learn­ing not only about his­to­ry and the past, but also about the oth­er mem­bers of soci­ety and their rela­tions to it, the mean­ings it holds for them, their ques­tions, their hypothe­ses, etc. ⁴

III.
On the back­drop of all these con­sid­er­a­tions, the fol­low­ing guide­line there­fore does not ven­ture to help stu­dents to per­ceive the “true” “mean­ing” of a mon­u­ment, but rather to fos­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tion about what is per­ceived as its “mes­sage” and mean­ing by pos­si­bly dif­fer­ent peo­ple. Some of these per­cep­tions will be affirmed by being shared among sev­er­al and pos­si­bly quite dif­fer­ent users, while oth­ers might be dif­fer­ent. This, how­ev­er, does not nec­es­sar­i­ly ren­der them wrong or non­sen­si­cal (which, they might be, how­ev­er). Com­par­ing dif­fer­ent answers might both sharp­en the individual’s per­cep­tion and broad­en it to per­ceive rel­e­vance and mean­ings of memo­ri­als to peo­ple with dif­fer­ent back­ground, inter­est, cul­ture, inter­est, and so on. These forms of rel­e­vance might (often will) dif­fer from that intend­ed by those who erect­ed the mon­u­ment. What does that mean? Is a mon­u­ment dys­func­tion­al if peo­ple feel addressed by it in a way dif­fer­ing from that orig­i­nal­ly intend­ed? Or does it keep rel­e­vance but change significance?
These ques­tions do not replace but com­ple­ment oth­er approach­es to analysing mon­u­ments. It might be sen­si­ble, though, to not apply them after more direct approach­es, but to use them as a start, result­ing in more spe­cif­ic (and pos­si­bly also more) of ques­tions to explore.
The ques­tions can be used in dif­fer­ent ways. It will be rather tedious to just answer them one by one – espe­cial­ly includ­ing all bul­let points. The lat­ter are rather meant as sug­ges­tions for for­mu­lat­ing an answer to the main ques­tions above them.
To work indi­vid­u­al­ly is pos­si­ble, but because of the con­cept explained above, it might be more fruit­ful to apply a “Think-Pair-Share” ‑sys­tem and first work inde­pen­dent­ly, then com­pare sug­ges­tions in small groups in a way which does not only look for com­mon solu­tions, but also explores and eval­u­ates dif­fer­ences, and then share both insights and remain­ing or new­ly arisen ques­tions with the whole group.

Task:
I. Respond to the ques­tions 1–6, using the bul­let points below as direc­tions and sug­ges­tions. Try e.g. to com­plete the giv­en sen­tences, but for­mu­late your own answer to the main ques­tions. If you are unsure or have addi­tion­al ideas, for­mu­late your ques­tions (instead)!
II. Com­pare your nots with your partner(s). Don’t stan­dard­ize them! Instead: For­mu­late (a) a new ver­sion of those aspects which were sim­i­lar and (b) on your dif­fer­ences! In what way did/do you dif­fer? Make a sug­ges­tion why that might be! Keep your orig­i­nal notes! They will be valu­able in fur­ther discussions!
III. Report on your find­ings from II to your class! Com­pare with insights and ques­tions of oth­er groups!

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1. Com­mu­nica­tive Explicitness:
   In how far does the mon­u­ment (seem to) …
   • … present or sug­gest a spe­cif­ic per­son or group in a speak­er posi­tion? (e.g. “We, <…> erect­ed this monument”?)
   • … address a spe­cif­ic person/group or sug­gests to be direct­ed towards a spe­cif­ic group? (“You, <…>…” / “to <…>”) ⁵
   • … address a third-par­ty as some kind of wit­ness as to the fact of remem­ber­ing? ⁶
   • … refer to some third par­ty as involved in the past which is nar­rat­ed? (e.g. “what they have done to us”)
2. Nar­ra­tive Explicitness:
   In how far does the mon­u­ment (seem to) …
   • … pre­sup­pose that the recipient/addressee has suf­fi­cient knowl­edge about the con­text referred to?
   • … explic­it­ly con­struct a spe­cif­ic con­text (explic­it­ly tell a story),
   • … rely on a cer­tain amount of com­mon knowl­edge of speak­er and addressee? ⁷
   • …intro­duce actors, con­texts and events?
   • ?
3. Transitive/Intransitive com­mu­ni­ca­tion:
   In how far does the mon­u­ment (seem to) …
   • … embrace the recipient/addressee as a mem­ber of the same group (“we”) as the (pur­port­ed) speaker?
   • … address the recipient/addressee as a mem­ber of a dif­fer­ent group (“you”) as the (pur­port­ed) speaker?
4. . “Mono-” or “Het­erogloss” communication:
   In how far does the mon­u­ment (seem to) …
   • … embrace the recipient/addressee as undoubt­ed­ly hav­ing the same perspective/sharing the eval­u­a­tion (“monogloss”)? e.g. by being implic­it about it,
   • … address the recipient/addressee as not nec­es­sar­i­ly shar­ing the same per­spec­tive and eval­u­a­tion (“het­erogloss”)? e.g. by being explic­it in state­ment, eval­u­a­tion, etc.
5. Com­mu­nica­tive Intent:
   What is the rela­tion of authors’/addressee(s)/third-party’s role in the (proto-)narrated sto­ry?, e.g.
   • Gener­ic
     1. “<…> want(s) <…> to <know/remember/acknowledge/accept/judge> as <…>”
   • Spe­cif­ic:
     • “’We’ <…> want ‘you’ <…> (and oth­ers) to know what ‘we’ <…> have achieved!” (as e.g. in “Stranger, tell the Spartans …”)
     • “’We’ <…>want ‘us’ <…> to not for­get what ‘we’ <…> have achieved!” (as e.g. in Mon­u­ments to Unification)
     • “’We’ <…> want ‘us’ <…> to not for­get what ‘we’ <…> have caused!” (as e.g. in Ger­man Con­cen­tra­tion Camp Memorials)
     • “’We’ <…> want ‘you’ <…> to know that ‘we’ <…> sub­mit our­selves to not forgetting/remembering!”
     • “’We’ <…> want ‘us’ <…> to not for­get what ‘they’ <…> have done to ‘us’ <…>!”
     • “’’We’ <…> want ‘you’ <…> to know that ‘we’ <…> acknowl­edge what ‘you’ <…> have done to ‘us’ <…>!”
   • In how far does one (or sev­er­al) of the fol­low­ing forms describe the com­mu­nica­tive inten­tion of the monument? 
     • to inform, e.g. if it intro­duces and details the past inci­dents, con­texts etc.;
     • to con­firm, e.g. if it almost tac­it­ly – with­out giv­ing details – refers to a past con­text which both author and addressee share knowl­edge about; intend­ing to secure acknowl­edge­ment of factuality;
     • to com­mem­o­rate, e.g. if it almost tac­it­ly – with­out giv­ing details – refers to a past con­text which both author and addressee share knowl­edge about, intend­ing to express a cer­tain evaluation;
     • to mourn, e.g. if it refers to a past con­text which both author and addressee share knowl­edge about, intend­ing to express a feel­ing of loss of someone/something valued);
     • to remind, e.g. if it refers to a past con­text which both author and addressee should share knowl­edge about, intend­ing to 
       • pre­vent forgetting;
       • secure a cer­tain eval­u­a­tion which is sup­posed to have been shared before?
       • appeal, e.g. if it asks (invites?/requests?/summons?) the recipient/addressee to feel/identify/act in a cer­tain way, e.g. by 
         • refer­ring to (a) person(s) as respon­si­ble for some­thing, admon­ish­ing the addressee to eval­u­ate this/these per­sons in a cer­tain way, but not to fol­low her/his exam­ple, either
         • hero­iz­ing: pre­sent­ing (a) person(s) as respon­si­ble for a spe­cial achieve­ment and there­fore to be revered;
         • giv­ing thanks: pre­sent­ing (a) person(s) as respon­si­ble for a spe­cial achieve­ment and express­ing gratitude;
         • con­demn­ing: pre­sent­ing (a) person(s) as respon­si­ble for a spe­cial achieve­ment and there­fore to be condemned;
         • to present exam­ples / role mod­els, e.g. if it by presents (a) person(s) as respon­si­ble for some­thing and address­es the recipient/addressee as pos­si­bly being in a sim­i­lar posi­tion and hav­ing sim­i­lar capac­i­ties, urg­ing her/him either 
           • to fol­low the exam­ple (e.g. of tak­ing action, of resisting);
           • to not fol­low the exam­ple (e.g. of going along …);
         • to express grat­i­tude, e.g. if it presents the addressee and/or his group as respon­si­ble for some­thing good, express­ing gratitude;
         • to accuse, e.g. if it presents the addressee and/or his group as respon­si­ble for some­thing bad, express­ing contempt;
   • oth­er (spec­i­fy) …
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     Ref­er­ences
     • “Gemüt­szu­s­tand eines total besiegten Volkes”. Höcke-Rede im Wort­laut. Nach dem Tran­skript von Kon­stan­tin Nowot­ny (2017). In Der Tagesspiegel, 1/19/2017. Avail­able online at https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/hoecke-rede-im-wortlaut-gemuetszustand-eines-total-besiegten-volkes/19273518-all.html, checked on 3/14/2019.
     • Kör­ber, Andreas (2014): His­tor­i­cal Think­ing and His­tor­i­cal Com­pe­ten­cies as Didac­tic Core Con­cepts. In Helle Bjerg, Andreas Kör­ber, Clau­dia Lenz, Oliv­er von Wrochem (Eds.): Teach­ing his­tor­i­cal mem­o­ries in an inter­cul­tur­al per­spec­tive. Con­cepts and meth­ods : expe­ri­ences and results from the TeacMem project. 1st ed. Berlin: Metropol Ver­lag (Rei­he Neuengam­mer Kol­lo­qui­en, Bd. 4), pp. 69–96.
     • Kör­ber, Andreas (2015): His­tor­i­cal con­scious­ness, his­tor­i­cal com­pe­ten­cies – and beyond? Some con­cep­tu­al devel­op­ment with­in Ger­man his­to­ry didac­tics. Avail­able online at http://www.pedocs.de/volltexte/2015/10811/pdf/Koerber_2015_Development_German_History_Didactics.pdf.
     • Kör­ber, Andreas (2019; in print): Inklu­sive Geschicht­skul­tur — Bes­tim­mungs­fak­toren und Ansprüche. In Sebas­t­ian Barsch, Bet­ti­na Deg­n­er, Christoph Küh­berg­er, Mar­tin Lücke (Eds.): Hand­buch Diver­sität im Geschicht­sun­ter­richt. Zugänge ein­er inklu­siv­en Geschichts­di­dak­tik. Frank­furt am Main: Wochen­schau Ver­lag, pp. 250–258.
     • Kör­ber, Andreas (2019; unpubl.): Geschicht­sler­nen in der Migra­tions­ge­sellschaft. Sich in und durch Kon­tro­ver­sen zeitlich ori­en­tieren ler­nen. deut­lich über­ar­beit­eter Vor­trag; unpub­liziert. Geschicht­en in Bewe­gung“. Uni­ver­sität Pader­born. Pader­born, 6/14/2019.
     • Kör­ber, Andreas; Schreiber, Wal­traud; Schön­er, Alexan­der (Eds.) (2007): Kom­pe­ten­zen his­torischen Denkens. Ein Struk­tur­mod­ell als Beitrag zur Kom­pe­ten­zori­en­tierung in der Geschichts­di­dak­tik. Neuried: Ars Una Ver­lags-Gesellschaft (Kom­pe­ten­zen, 2).
     • Lévesque, Stéphane (2018): Remov­ing the “Past”. Debates Over Offi­cial Sites of Mem­o­ry. In Pub­lic His­to­ry Week­ly 2018 (29). DOI: 10.1515/phw-2018–12570.
     • Rüsen, Jörn; Fröh­lich, Klaus; Horstköt­ter, Hubert; Schmidt, Hans Gün­ther (1991): Unter­suchun­gen zum Geschichts­be­wußt­sein von Abi­turi­en­ten im Ruhrge­bi­et. Empirische Befunde ein­er quan­ti­ta­tiv­en Pilot­studie. In Bodo von Bor­ries (Ed.): Geschichts­be­wusst­sein empirisch. Pfaf­fen­weil­er: Cen­tau­rus (Geschichts­di­dak­tik : […], Stu­di­en, Mate­ri­alien, [N.F.], Bd. 7), pp. 221–344.
     • Zio­gas, Ioan­nis (2014): Sparse Spar­tan Verse. Fill­ing Gaps in the Ther­mopy­lae Epi­gram. In Ramus 43 (2), pp. 115–133. DOI: 10.1017/rmu.2014.10.