TO CATCH THE ECHO: RETHINKING ACTS OF WITNESSING TO THE SHOAH

In light of recent revelations about global ignorance and disbelief regarding the Holocaust, first‐hand testimonies acquire fresh significance. Two disparate books frame this discussion of how writings by survivors serve to deepen our understanding of the Shoah. Otto Dov Kulka's memoir, Landscapes of the Metropolis of Death, is a carefully crafted account by a professional historian who survived as a child in Auschwitz. Thomas Trezise's work, Witnessing Witnessing, is an analytical inquiry into the literary and epistemic issues that frame different genres of testimony ranging from video to poetry. Kulka's slender account is situated in the context of other works by survivors, including Saul Friedländer's When Memory Comes, Charlotte Delbo's Auschwitz and After, and a more recent work by Joseph Polak, After the Holocaust the Bells Still Ring. The emphasis in this discussion is upon the challenges that survivors face in articulating horror, especially to readers in the twenty‐first century. Trezise's more voluminous work is based upon the literary and philosophical theories of Adorno, Levinas, and Freud, among others. The question raised in this essay focuses upon which of these narrative strategies might work better to convey the complex meanings of the Shoah after the generation of survivors has departed from the historical scene. In the end, the halting words of those who went through the death camps is all we have to counter the ignorance and disbelief spreading around the world. Kulka's book, combining memories, dreams, and art works, fosters an imaginative encounter with inconceivable historical realities. Trezise's theoretical engagement with indexicality and with the phatic function of language helps us to understand the impact of testimonies within the scholarly literature. It does not, however, point a clear path toward conveying the importance of the Holocaust to the public at large. For this purpose, we need books such as Kulka's that enable the generation after the Holocaust to listen to silences embedded in survivor narratives. These silences must be carried forward in time, along with the ethical mandate not to forget the atrocities of the Shoah. If we can embrace this mission, we may be able to diminish the reign of hate running amuck today.     

去尼泊尔看古庙

<正>尼泊尔首府加德满都在形成城市之初,和其他旧城一样,对人口迅速膨胀没有准备,也未想到将来会有汽车。现在市区狭窄的街道充塞着无序的人流,机动车夹杂其     

HISTORY TO THE MAX

Steven G. Smith advocates a maximal approach to history by both historians and theorists of history, maintaining that a commitment to fullness or totality should always serve as an ideal. In my review, I try to explain what the author means by this ideal, and consider how practical such an ideal can be. He further maintains that history is mostly about shared action, and is itself an instance of shared action. I have certain reservations about this notion, though I think Smith's book deserves credit for calling attention to it.     

西行险事

当远方的风景成为无法抵挡的诱惑时,我们已经身不由己。一路奔走,激情与险情并行,沿途所遇虽无可夸耀之事,但人和车共同经受的考验丰富了旅途内容,罗列出来对同样痴迷于此的影友们也算个出行参考吧。     

从“开荒” “打井” “挖渠”说起——摄影之路

读者们,影友们大家新年好!"摄影课堂"栏目今年改版为"摄影漫谈",德治不才,也不好为人师,只是过去设立的"摄影课堂"栏目,一直由我主持讲座而已,新年伊始恰逢改版,索性将"摄影课堂"改为"摄影漫谈",希望广大影友和摄影理论专家积极参与进来,发表漫谈摄影文章,打破一言堂,形成百花齐放畅所欲言各抒己见的互动局面。在2010年的第1期,我先来从"开荒"打井"挖渠"说起——摄影之路,算是抛砖引玉吧!     

大海赞歌

<正>大海神秘莫测,可拍题材十分丰富。相信许多朋友部曾经把蓝天、碧海、金沙收入镜头,也肯定有更多的摄影人拍过海上的日出与日落。但你可曾经想过拍摄日出之前与日落之后弱光下的大海?可能不少人以为在微弱的光线下,海面上不像灯火辉煌的城市街道,是很少有灯光的,那黑漆漆的海面有什么可拍摄的?如     

跟着色彩的节奏行走:日本冲绳的视觉盛宴

旅行过程中,色彩是很重要的一个元素,无论是自然风光,还是人文景观,甚至是美食或纪念品,只要有了好的色彩,哪怕天气不好,哪怕没有神奇旅行故事,也会体会到一种快乐而张扬的心情。     

一路探戈到南极

几只傻乎乎的企鹅居然朝我走过来,但根据《南极条约》我只能选择退让,保持着“礼貌”的拜访距离。于是,你退我进,你进我退,外来者和“本地绅士”跳起南极探戈,虽然彼．此之间距离不够亲密,但对于来自南北半球最遥远距离的宾主双方来说,这已经是最“热情”的探戈了。     

乐山 峨眉山 大足石刻 到“天府之国”看大佛

每个人看大佛,都会有不同的感受。在画家眼里,它是石雕的画;在诗人眼里,它是凝固的诗;在艺术家眼里,它是一座艺术殿堂;在哲人眼里,它是思考生命意义的书……     

飞向青藏高原

In capricious climates,from multiple angles in the skyt and in difficult conditions beyond our imaginations,this man spent 18 years filming western China from the heavens.The result is over 100,000 aerial photos,which have become the backbone of a valuable photo library.The filming of inhospitable alpine zones in particular have filled a gap in the history of aerial photography in China and even the world at large.His name is Tian Jieyan,the renowned aerial photographer of western China.     

一双鞋子 一种理念

把单词“Outside”和”Bozeman”相结合，你就得到了“Oboz”。蒙塔纳州博兹曼市既是棕熊、北美灰狼以及大角鹿的家园，亦是徒步、越野跑、攀爬和钓鱼的胜地。而Oboz正代表了一种思维理念：忠于户外，并努力站在环保最前沿。     

TYING MEMORY TO THE GROUND

In the 1980s Pierre Nora, one of France's most prominent historians, developed the concept of lieux de mémoire (places of memory). Studies of such places where, in Nora's words, “memory crystallizes and is being diffused,” were conducted and published in France and in other European countries in the ensuing decades. Marc Andre Matten's collection of essays, Places of Memory in Modern China: History, Politics, and Identity, is the first methodological attempt to use Nora's theoretical guidelines in the context of greater China (mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan). The book explores sites that are connected with three of China's founding leaders, and with some of its constitutive moments as a nation. Using a variety of research methods, the articles in this book concentrate on the years of the People's Republic, taking the reader from the early revolutionary phase of its short and turbulent history, through the disaster and the chaos of the 1960s and the early 1970s, to the current postsocialist era. The articles in the book examine the local: an archeological site, a memorial hall, a mausoleum, a museum, a park, and a public garden, in order to understand how each one of these locales reflects broader vicissitudes of memory and changes of identity in China.