National memory is a special form of memory in general and of collective memory in particular. Ev... more National memory is a special form of memory in general and of collective memory in particular. Even in an age of globalization, modern states devote massive resources to promulgating official accounts of their past that support national identities, including illusions of destiny, which can be a starting point for conflict. This chapter asks, “What is national memory?” and “Where can we find it?” It may seem natural to pose these questions in this order, but it is argued in this chapter that their sequence should be reversed. Different starting points and methods in studying national memory have been employed with different implicit or explicit ideas of what constitutes national memory. The study of history textbooks yields one picture, surveys of historical knowledge provide another, and the study of commemoration yields a third.
This article examines the production of new history textbooks that appeared after the breakup of ... more This article examines the production of new history textbooks that appeared after the breakup of the Soviet Union. It is argued that the radical revisions in official history in this context are shaped by the Bakhtinian process of “hidden dialogicality,” whereby new, post-Soviet narratives respond to earlier Soviet narratives in various ways. It is argued that different forms of hidden dialogicality are employed to revise official accounts of the Russian Civil War and World War II. In the former case, new texts respond to their Soviet precursors through processes of “re-emplotment,” whereas in the case of World War II, the plot is left largely unchanged, but the main characters are changed. Although many political, cultural, and economic forces play a role in the revision of any official history, it is argued that the importance of hidden dialogicality between narrative forms needs to be taken into account as well.
> .'I \J :"r : I i V '•r1', ,I ' \ • i • ' ' 1 > i\ » i ... more > .'I \J :"r : I i V '•r1', ,I ' \ • i • ' ' 1 > i\ » i RMATION P F MIND • I /• At; H •( ^ i" / • IES V. WERTSCH ... Vygotsky and the Social Formation of Mind ... Vygotsky and the Social Formation of Mind James V. Wertsch Harvard University Press Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, ...
This chapter discusses how narrative tools serve to select and neglect information in national me... more This chapter discusses how narrative tools serve to select and neglect information in national memory. This view contrasts with standard assumptions about how the process is primarily a matter of top-down coercion by state authorities. Instead, it is argued that all parties in a national community, including state authorities, do their thinking and speaking with the help of narrative tools, giving an essential role to bottom-up cultural and psychological forces. The section “Resources for Selectivity in National Memory” examines selecting events and actors in accordance with what Zerubavel terms “mnemonic focusing.” In the USSR this often involved “blank spots” where events were airbrushed from official memory. Official Soviet accounts of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact are used to illustrate that even suppressing concrete details in a specific memory may do little to change the underlying narrative template of a national community. “Privileged event narratives” (PENs) represent a combination of a specific narrative and narrative template that yields a powerful lens through which events are remembered. For Russians, World War II is a PEN that is used to interpret many events, whereas for the Chinese the Century of Humiliation is a PEN. Finally, evidence from a survey study of “Selective Memory and National Narcissism” in connection with World War II is presented. This study involved 11 nations and reveals surprising findings about how Russian national memory contrasts with that of virtually every other nation. This may reflect the power of Hollywood and American culture of memory more generally.
This article reviews the problem of disciplinary isolation in the human sciences, especially as i... more This article reviews the problem of disciplinary isolation in the human sciences, especially as it relates to psychology, and outlines how this problem can be addressed with the help of ideas of two figures—L. S. Vygotsky and M. M. Bakhtin. Vygotsky's claims about the social origins of individual mental functioning and his analyses of how cultural tools mediate social and individual functioning provide a means for relating individual mental functioning to cultural, historical, and institutional settings. Bakhtin's ideas about dialogicality, multivoicedness, and related phenomena complement and extend Vygotsky's claims and provide further theoretical means for integrating various disciplines’ contributions to the human sciences through the study of communication. After reviewing the contributions of Vygotsky and Bakhtin, an illustration concerned with multivoicedness in historical representation is provided.
Quelques limites dans l'identification de paralleles entre Vygotsky et la psychanalyse. Point... more Quelques limites dans l'identification de paralleles entre Vygotsky et la psychanalyse. Points de divergence. Accent mis sur les conceptions de Vygotsky sur la cognition
concepts W Gal’perin W Rationality W Vygotsky In the mid 1970s I observed several sessions of an ... more concepts W Gal’perin W Rationality W Vygotsky In the mid 1970s I observed several sessions of an English language class for young children in Moscow. This class was taught by Elena Negnevitskaya, a psycholinguist who spoke excellent English and was interested in a wide range of psychological and linguistic theories. The sessions were attended by about a dozen children, who sat around a table in the middle of a midsized room on the first floor of an apartment building in the center of the city. A parent or grandparent usually accompanied each child to the class and sat around the edge of the room in a sort of spectators’ circle. There was a great deal of the warm and intense interaction between teacher and children characteristic of Russian schools in general, with a focus on group and individual recitation in particular. One of the instructional techniques that proved most memorable to me, and one that provided a great deal of enjoyment and laughter among the children, was used by Negnevitskaya whenever a student made a mistake in English. Her response would be to produce a direct translation in Russian of what the child had said. For example, Negnevitskaya would respond to an utterance in English such as ‘They was there’ by saying the Russian equivalent (Oni byl tam), at which point the children would burst out laughing at how silly this sounded in their native language. Negnevitskaya explained to me that this was a procedure that grew out of Piotr Gal’perin’s theory of mental development, and the article by Arievitch and Stetsenko provides insight into why. In their review of Gal’perin’s ideas about systemic-theoretical concept formation they go through several areas of instruction where the technique
British Journal of Development Psychology, Mar 1, 2005
ABSTRACT Making human beings human: Bioecological perspectives on human development: Edited by U.... more ABSTRACT Making human beings human: Bioecological perspectives on human development: Edited by U. Bronfenbrenner Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. 2004. Pp. 336. Paperback, $34.95. ISBN 0761927123. Hardback, $74.95. ISBN 0761927115
National memory is a special form of memory in general and of collective memory in particular. Ev... more National memory is a special form of memory in general and of collective memory in particular. Even in an age of globalization, modern states devote massive resources to promulgating official accounts of their past that support national identities, including illusions of destiny, which can be a starting point for conflict. This chapter asks, “What is national memory?” and “Where can we find it?” It may seem natural to pose these questions in this order, but it is argued in this chapter that their sequence should be reversed. Different starting points and methods in studying national memory have been employed with different implicit or explicit ideas of what constitutes national memory. The study of history textbooks yields one picture, surveys of historical knowledge provide another, and the study of commemoration yields a third.
This article examines the production of new history textbooks that appeared after the breakup of ... more This article examines the production of new history textbooks that appeared after the breakup of the Soviet Union. It is argued that the radical revisions in official history in this context are shaped by the Bakhtinian process of “hidden dialogicality,” whereby new, post-Soviet narratives respond to earlier Soviet narratives in various ways. It is argued that different forms of hidden dialogicality are employed to revise official accounts of the Russian Civil War and World War II. In the former case, new texts respond to their Soviet precursors through processes of “re-emplotment,” whereas in the case of World War II, the plot is left largely unchanged, but the main characters are changed. Although many political, cultural, and economic forces play a role in the revision of any official history, it is argued that the importance of hidden dialogicality between narrative forms needs to be taken into account as well.
> .'I \J :"r : I i V '•r1', ,I ' \ • i • ' ' 1 > i\ » i ... more > .'I \J :"r : I i V '•r1', ,I ' \ • i • ' ' 1 > i\ » i RMATION P F MIND • I /• At; H •( ^ i" / • IES V. WERTSCH ... Vygotsky and the Social Formation of Mind ... Vygotsky and the Social Formation of Mind James V. Wertsch Harvard University Press Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, ...
This chapter discusses how narrative tools serve to select and neglect information in national me... more This chapter discusses how narrative tools serve to select and neglect information in national memory. This view contrasts with standard assumptions about how the process is primarily a matter of top-down coercion by state authorities. Instead, it is argued that all parties in a national community, including state authorities, do their thinking and speaking with the help of narrative tools, giving an essential role to bottom-up cultural and psychological forces. The section “Resources for Selectivity in National Memory” examines selecting events and actors in accordance with what Zerubavel terms “mnemonic focusing.” In the USSR this often involved “blank spots” where events were airbrushed from official memory. Official Soviet accounts of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact are used to illustrate that even suppressing concrete details in a specific memory may do little to change the underlying narrative template of a national community. “Privileged event narratives” (PENs) represent a combination of a specific narrative and narrative template that yields a powerful lens through which events are remembered. For Russians, World War II is a PEN that is used to interpret many events, whereas for the Chinese the Century of Humiliation is a PEN. Finally, evidence from a survey study of “Selective Memory and National Narcissism” in connection with World War II is presented. This study involved 11 nations and reveals surprising findings about how Russian national memory contrasts with that of virtually every other nation. This may reflect the power of Hollywood and American culture of memory more generally.
This article reviews the problem of disciplinary isolation in the human sciences, especially as i... more This article reviews the problem of disciplinary isolation in the human sciences, especially as it relates to psychology, and outlines how this problem can be addressed with the help of ideas of two figures—L. S. Vygotsky and M. M. Bakhtin. Vygotsky's claims about the social origins of individual mental functioning and his analyses of how cultural tools mediate social and individual functioning provide a means for relating individual mental functioning to cultural, historical, and institutional settings. Bakhtin's ideas about dialogicality, multivoicedness, and related phenomena complement and extend Vygotsky's claims and provide further theoretical means for integrating various disciplines’ contributions to the human sciences through the study of communication. After reviewing the contributions of Vygotsky and Bakhtin, an illustration concerned with multivoicedness in historical representation is provided.
Quelques limites dans l'identification de paralleles entre Vygotsky et la psychanalyse. Point... more Quelques limites dans l'identification de paralleles entre Vygotsky et la psychanalyse. Points de divergence. Accent mis sur les conceptions de Vygotsky sur la cognition
concepts W Gal’perin W Rationality W Vygotsky In the mid 1970s I observed several sessions of an ... more concepts W Gal’perin W Rationality W Vygotsky In the mid 1970s I observed several sessions of an English language class for young children in Moscow. This class was taught by Elena Negnevitskaya, a psycholinguist who spoke excellent English and was interested in a wide range of psychological and linguistic theories. The sessions were attended by about a dozen children, who sat around a table in the middle of a midsized room on the first floor of an apartment building in the center of the city. A parent or grandparent usually accompanied each child to the class and sat around the edge of the room in a sort of spectators’ circle. There was a great deal of the warm and intense interaction between teacher and children characteristic of Russian schools in general, with a focus on group and individual recitation in particular. One of the instructional techniques that proved most memorable to me, and one that provided a great deal of enjoyment and laughter among the children, was used by Negnevitskaya whenever a student made a mistake in English. Her response would be to produce a direct translation in Russian of what the child had said. For example, Negnevitskaya would respond to an utterance in English such as ‘They was there’ by saying the Russian equivalent (Oni byl tam), at which point the children would burst out laughing at how silly this sounded in their native language. Negnevitskaya explained to me that this was a procedure that grew out of Piotr Gal’perin’s theory of mental development, and the article by Arievitch and Stetsenko provides insight into why. In their review of Gal’perin’s ideas about systemic-theoretical concept formation they go through several areas of instruction where the technique
British Journal of Development Psychology, Mar 1, 2005
ABSTRACT Making human beings human: Bioecological perspectives on human development: Edited by U.... more ABSTRACT Making human beings human: Bioecological perspectives on human development: Edited by U. Bronfenbrenner Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. 2004. Pp. 336. Paperback, $34.95. ISBN 0761927123. Hardback, $74.95. ISBN 0761927115
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