Search Results (93)

Zora Neale Hurston describes herself as “a crow in a pigeon’s nest” in her autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road. For Hurston, the metaphor illustrates her singular perspective as an atypical presence in what she considered a stereotypical environment—or, put differently, the difference her presence made in a dominant space. Katherine McKittrick describes metaphors as “observational scaffolding.” Observational scaffolding functions as both a signal and a map, highlighting sites of struggle and liberation along the continuum of life’s experiences. Therefore, this article engages with discourses on decolonization and Black feminist epistemologies, acknowledges the differences between Hurston’s and today’s anthropology, and challenges other disciplines and fields to reconsider how values such as democracy and justice might influence engagement with Black knowledge production, specifically from Black women. Full article

The aim of this article is to provide a new theoretical and methodological framework for analyzing the ethical, relational, and normative dimensions of transgenerational memory work, taking a comparative close reading of two Norwegian second-generation Holocaust family memoirs, Irene Levin’s Vi snakket ikke om Holocaust (2020) and Bjørn Westlie’s Fars krig (2008), as its case in point. Both narratives are simultaneously biographies, autobiographies, and historiographies, and they mediate between family memory and national memory. The authors position themselves as second-generation descendants, addressing and being addressed by their parents, and as Holocaust researchers, addressing and being addressed by a public audience. Departing from the theoretical perspective of relational life writing and Judith Butler’s concepts “scene of address” and “frameworks of recognition”, this comparative literary analysis of rhetorical situations, genres, and modes of narrating discusses the author-narrators’ engagement with their parents’ silence and writings and reveals how personal histories intersect with collective reckoning. By attending to the relational and performative aspects of storytelling, this article highlights how postgeneration literature enacts ethical reflection, recognition, and accountability. Full article

This article introduces my mother and maternal grandmother into the American story. I bring together sources like the census and family bible, documented history, and my memory to demonstrate that genealogy and family history expand the archive on black women and the black family. I also reflect on the way history and memory are dichotomized and argue that autobiography/memoir holds a key to freeing black women’s history from the violence of the archive. Full article

The release of ChatGPT and similar applications in 2022 prompted wide-ranging discussions concerning the impact of AI technologies on writing, creativity, and authorship. This article explores the question of artificial writing, taking into consideration both critical theories and creative experiments. In the first section, I review current scholarly discussions about authorship in the age of generative AI. In the second and third sections, I turn to experiments in literary co-creation that combine the affordances of technology with the human art of prompting and editing or curating. My argument has three prongs: (1) experiments that frame artificial writing as literature (memoir, poetry, autobiography, fiction) are accompanied by enlarged paratexts, which merit more attention than they have hitherto received; (2) paratexts provide salient clues on the process of co-creation, the reconfiguration of authorship, and the production of value; and (3) in the folds of paratextual explanations, one can detect the profile of the author as clever prompter, navigating a new terrain by relying at times on the certainties of conventional authorship. My analyses show that while AI-generated literature is a novel phenomenon worthy of closer scrutiny, the novelty tends to be cloaked in a familiar garb. Full article

(1) Background: Among the most important authors of spiritual autobiography, Dag Hammarskjöld and Thomas Merton must surely mentioned. The first one, a Swedish Evangelical, and the second one, an American Cistercian monk, provide valuable and interdisciplinary works. Among the topics found, their political theology is also present. Noticing its relevance, we will try there to take into account the way the aforementioned topic is reflected in their work. (2) Results: Aspects such as communism, racism, diplomacy, or love will constitute some of the topics that we will bring into attention in this research in an attempt to present the particularities, common points, and differences of the approaches of the two relevant authors, one from the Protestant space and the other from the Catholic one, both with an ecumenical vocation and openness to dialogue. (3) Methods: As for our methods, we will use the historical inquiry, the analysis of documents, and the deductive and the qualitative method. (4) Conclusions: The work will therefore investigate the aspects of political theology found in their research and will emphasize their vision, the common points, the use of Christian theology in the understanding of political and social realities, but also the differences that may occur between their approaches. At the same time, the role played by the context where they lived, worked, and wrote will be taken into attention in order to provide a more complex perspective on the relationship between their life and work. Full article

Love and intimate relations between German men and Norwegian women were a widespread phenomenon during WWII. Like in many other European countries, these women were stigmatized and humiliated both by the authorities and by the civilian population. In this article, I discuss four postmemory literary works that address this issue: Edvard Hoem’s novel Mors og fars historie (The Story of My Mother and Father, 2005), Lene Ask’s graphic novel Hitler, Jesus og farfar (Hitler, Jesus, and Grandfather, 2006), Randi Crott and Lillian Crott Berthung’s autobiography Ikke si det til noen! (Don’t tell anyone!, 2013), and Atle Næss’s novel Blindgjengere (Duds, 2019). I explore how the narratives create a living connection between then and now and how they deal with unresolved questions and knowledge gaps. Furthermore, I discuss common themes such as the fate and identity of war children, national responsibilities versus individual choice, and norms connected to gender and sexuality. I argue that these postmemory interpretations of wartime love affairs not only aim to retell the past but to investigate the normative frameworks within which these relationships took place. My contention is that the postmemory gaze pays primary attention to the power of cultural constructions—of nationality, identity, and gender—as well as their context-related historical changes. Full article

This is a personal review of Steven Weinberg’s scientific autobiography “A Life in Physics”. A reflection on both, personal aspects and scientific milestones of Professor Weinberg’s role-model life is conducted to honour his lasting accomplishments as a great physicist, academic teacher, and public activist in progressing high-energy particle theory and theoretical cosmology, and in raising public support for fundamental physics. Full article

This article critically examines the star persona of Lola Flores, an iconic Spanish flamenco artist, within the historical and political context of Francoist Spain (1939–1975). It argues that Flores’s carefully constructed star image not only persisted into post-Franco Spain but also served as a covert vehicle for the continued propagation of National-Falangist Catholic ideology. The article primarily focuses on two major productions: the book Lola en carne viva. Memorias de Lola Flores (1990) and the television series El coraje de vivir (1994). Both portray a linear and cohesive version of her life from childhood to her later years, carefully curated to defend and rehabilitate her image. While many view Flores as a self-made artist, the article argues that her star persona was a deliberate construct—shaped by Suevia Films, a major Francoist-era film studio, and media narratives that aligned her with traditional gender roles, Catholic values, and Spanish nationalism. Despite emerging in post-Franco Spain, Flores’s narrative does not mark a rupture from the ideological frameworks of the past. Instead, it repackages Francoist values—particularly those surrounding patriarchal gender norms, suffering, and the glorification of sacrifice—to ensure her continued relevance. Suevia Films (1951) played a significant role in shaping her star persona as a symbol of Spanish folklore, aligning her with Francoist ideals of nation, Catholic morality, and submissive femininity. Her image was used to promote Spain internationally as a welcoming and culturally rich destination. Her persona fit within Franco’s broader strategy of using flamenco and folklore to attract foreign tourism while maintaining tight ideological control over entertainment. Flores’s life is framed as a rags-to-riches story, which reinforces Social Spencerist ideology (a social Darwinist perspective) that hard work and endurance lead to success, rather than acknowledging systemic oppression under Francoism. Her personal struggles—poverty, romantic disappointments, accusations of collaboration with the Franco regime, and tax evasion—are framed as necessary trials that strengthen her character. This aligns with the Catholic ideal of redemptive suffering, reinforcing her status as the mater dolorosa (Sorrowful Mother) figure. This article highlights the contradictions in Flores’s gender performance—while she embodied passion and sensuality in flamenco, her offstage identity conformed to the submissive, self-sacrificing woman idealized by the Francoist Sección Femenina (SF). Even in her personal life, Flores’s narrative aligns with Francoist values—her father’s bar, La Fe de Pedro Flores, symbolizes the fusion of religion, nationalism, and traditional masculinity. Tico Medina plays a key role by framing Lola en carne viva as an “authentic” and unfiltered account. His portrayal is highly constructed, acting as her “defense lawyer” to counter criticisms. Flores’s autobiography is monologic—it suppresses alternative perspectives, ensuring that her version of events remains dominant and unquestioned. Rather than acknowledging structural oppression, the narrative glorifies suffering as a path to resilience, aligning with both Catholic doctrine and Francoist propaganda. The article ultimately deconstructs Lola Flores’s autobiographical myth, demonstrating that her public persona—both onstage and offstage—was a strategic construction that perpetuated Francoist ideals well beyond the dictatorship. While her image has been celebrated as a symbol of Spanish cultural identity, it also functioned as a tool for maintaining patriarchal and nationalist ideologies under the guise of entertainment. Full article

This article examines the narrative of migration that circulates among Oshwal Jains today. It does so by closely analyzing a varied corpus of memory-writing, including autobiographies, family histories, community histories, memoirs, and social media discussing the settlement of Oshwal Jains from British India in East Africa between 1890 and 1950, and their subsequent onward migration from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. This article first presents a brief historical overview of South Asians in East Africa, and pieces together a picture of how and where Oshwal and non-Oshwal Jains featured within this colonial history. Operationalizing concepts from the field of memory studies, it then discusses which stories and memories are shared, and shows how they combine to form and sustain a community-affirming rags-to-riches narrative. Although the materials in the corpus can certainly help fill in some of the under-researched aspects of South Asian cultural history in East Africa, the narrative(s) of migration they present, with their telling tropes and silences, are indicative of dynamics and developments within the contemporary Oshwal Jain community. Therefore, by way of conclusion, the article interrogates the timing and intergenerational dynamics of the recent surge in memory sharing and memory writing by Oshwals settled around the globe. Full article

The study of decision making is currently significant in various areas of knowledge, particularly in an interdisciplinary approach involving psychologists, economists, sociologists, cognitive scientists, and political scientists. This article explores the decision-making process in a new field: the mystical lived experience; i.e., approaches the perception of something present as unknown, the perception of mystery, within the decision-making process. It emphasizes that every perception requires a response, more or less conscious, and the mystical lived experience is no exception. The goal is to enhance our understanding and interpretation of the dynamics of mystical experience using a phenomenological analysis of the decision-making process as a hermeneutic key. The philosophical and anthropological background of this article draws from Karl Rahner’s transcendental experience, while the phenomenological and psychological perspective is informed by Louis Roy’s experiences of transcendence and Juan Martin Velasco’s studies on mysticism. The article first establishes the theoretical foundations of this new approach and then applies a decision-making analysis to the significant decisions made by St. Ignatius of Loyola, as detailed in his autobiography. Full article

The Autobiography of Saint Marguerite-Marie Alacoque recounts her many visions, ecstasies, and sufferings as she became God’s messenger, initiating the highly successful modern form of devotion to the Sacred Heart. Reading the Autobiography today is difficult, however. She constantly practices forms of obedience, self-control, and self-abuse that are offensive to today’s sensibilities. Her image of Jesus is as her “Master’ and “Sovereign” who desires and demands suffering on the part of those who love him. Her theology of the necessity of repairing God’s wounded honor by suffering is likewise outdated. Finally, the reliance of her message on visions does not inspire trust in an era that generally views visions as symptoms of pathology. This essay proposes that it is possible to discover authentic inspiration in the Autobiography by reading it with the help of several mediating theories. First, Hubert Hermans’ Dialogical Self Theory offers insight into traditional, modern, and postmodern styles of self-construction, thus situating Alacoque’s stories and practices within her time (at the cusp between traditional and modern styles) while offering a glimpse of how she can be understood within our time (at the cusp between modern and postmodern styles). Second, a historically contextualized eucharistic theology of embodied self-giving helps to see past the problematic elements of her theology. Finally, an ecotheological theory of visions suggests a way to understand her visions that may unveil their significance for our own time of crisis. Full article

This article explores Islamic Teacher Education through an autoethnographic account of the author’s experience with the Graduate Certificate of Education (Islamic Pedagogy) at the University of South Australia. It addresses the lack of research on how Islamic Pedagogy is taught, contributing to the growing scholarship on faith-based teacher education. Autoethnography is a qualitative research method that combines autobiography and ethnography, emphasising personal experiences to explore cultural communities. It is especially useful in studying emerging concepts like Islamic Pedagogy and faithful praxis. This approach challenges Western positivism, promoting epistemic reflexivity, and offering critical insights into marginalised perspectives and educational practices. This paper employs autoethnography to present the author’s faithful praxis journey as a transformative pedagogical shift, shaped by their experiences with Western and Islamic epistemologies, aiming to empower Muslim voices in education and challenge marginalisation, with the Graduate Certificate fostering epistemic reflexivity and providing a platform to reconcile Islamic and Western knowledge in the classroom. This paper also clarifies the distinction between Islamic Pedagogy and Islamic integration through autoethnography by highlighting their complementary nature as opposed to the author’s initial assumptions around their interchangeability. Whilst this article contributes to the growing Islamic Teacher Education scholarship through an autoethnographic perspective, further research to assess broader program efficacy is still needed. Full article

This essay considers the abolitionist narrative, The Life of Olaudah Equiano, through the anthropological lens of ethnography. Equiano’s account, though not without controversy, contributes to the evolution of an African cultural consciousness that would span across multiple continents. In that sense, while this autobiography seems to follow the literary pattern of its contemporary slave narratives, it is also countercultural and qualifies as “anti-ethnography”. The review presented here focuses on two sections of Equiano’s work: (1) the Afrocentric account of Ibo culture and (2) the cultural commentary regarding enslavement in the Americas. For each section, Equiano’s deviation from the traditional slave narrative is highlighted and analyzed. Full article

The sport of boxing has existed since ancient times, with fights sometimes ending in death. In the modern world, with our greater medical knowledge, the risks of brain and other life-changing injuries have called into question whether boxing has a place in contemporary society. In fact, professional boxing has been banned in some European countries. There are also questions about whether it is appropriate to encourage spectators to watch two individuals attempting to punch each other into oblivion and about the effect this can have on those watching. The fact that, in recent years, we have seen the development of women’s boxing both in the Olympics and at the professional level raises further questions. The particular emphasis of this paper is to note the number of committed Christians involved in boxing from grassroots to the elite level and to consider whether involvement in such a violent sport can be reconciled with the teaching of Jesus Christ. The main source of data is published biographies and autobiographies of Christian boxers and some interviews. There is very little published material at an academic level on the topic that we are considering. The conclusion is that despite the sincerity of the Christian boxers involved in the sport, it is difficult to justify boxing as a sport in relation to Christian teaching. Full article

This paper studies the auto/biographies of high-caste middle-class Punjabi Khatri men, and those of cognate castes like Arora and Baniya, written in the first half of the twentieth century: men who were born in the second half of the nineteenth century or early twentieth century. While the discourse on caste under the colonial regime exploded, there was also an embarrassment about caste, or re-thinking its place in society among the upper-caste groups who invested in ideas of progress, improvement and scientism. It is argued that caste was referenced in the memoirs, life stories and self-reflexive writing when these men spoke of their familial backgrounds and admired the deep religiosity and devotionalism of their fathers even though some paternal practices were incongruent with the reformism of the sons. Caste is also in play when one traces the advantages of literacy, education, professional accomplishments, mobility, and reformist activities of men who came to have an important presence in public life. A number of these men had similar life trajectories, indicative of how some aspects of colonial educational and administrative structures could be utilized by them. Full article