America's Germany: Present at the Creation

Thomas Alan Schwartz. America's Germany: John J. McCloy and the Federal Republic of Germany . Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1991. xiii + 404 pp. Notes, illustrations, selected bibliography, index. $29.95.     

树殇

南国二月百花艳,高原春风黄沙漫,清明时节世人拜山祭祖后,我又回到久违的故乡,灰蒙蒙的苍穹中,看见唯有你傲然屹立,虬枝在劲风中不屈地抗争着。我又一次被你通体透出的伟岸美所震慑。你是岁月雕塑出的一尊力与美的造型,是永恒而伟大的生命雕像!刚毅、挺拔,即便被风雨烈焰剥蚀仍凸显枝繁叶茂的生命。你不仅仅是物种意义上的一棵树,而是昂首挺胸笑傲一切苦难与不测的不朽意象!这时刻,所谓的力量、意志、隐忍、坚毅、顽强等字眼都显得庸浅而不达意。你像台柱,立于空间;像钉子,钉在村头;你远离云彩、玫瑰和掌声,将孤独和寂寞雕塑在永恒的土地上…     

当代艺术品在市场上的崛起

2007年的艺术品拍卖市场上,有一个现象以轰动的新闻效应引人注目,这便是一些华人艺术家的当代艺术作品异军突起,拍出了天价,甚至把赵孟頫、鲜于枢、沈周、唐寅、董其昌、陈洪绶、王铎、石涛、吴昌硕、黄宾虹、齐白石、张大千、潘天寿等中国书画史上里程碑式人物的作品拍卖市场上的价位也远远地抛在了后面。     

Growing up within a Community in Conflict: The Rockford Files

A law suit for racial discrimination brought against the School District of Rockford, IL, over the last decade and more has meant that recent high school graduates have been educated for almost the whole of their school careers within an environment of conflict. The paper outlines the conflict as the context in which the young people have grown up, demonstrating the ways that adults purport to fight for their children, yet transform the issues into their own priorities. It analyses the ‘sensitivity’ and ‘resilience’ of recent high school graduates to such an upbringing. It also explains how the schools are sites where the community conflict is reworked in new ways and perpetuated among the young people. While perhaps an extreme case, Rockford illustrates a continuing, but underplayed, wider social malaise in the USA.     

Growing up in a Carolingian monastery: Magister Hildemar and his oblates

The monastic Rules of the early middle ages make it quite clear that the monasteries of this period were populated by a mixed community of adults and children. The Carolingian commentaries, and especially the so-called Hildemar commentary on the Rule of St Benedict, provide detailed information on the education and upbringing of the children who lived in the monasteries. We learn from Hildemar that they were subjected to constant supervision and diligent care. For this reason they were set apart from the adult monks. However, in spite of their separation, they were still full members of the community, who participated in all the activities of monastic life. Apparently Hildemar preferred to recruit new members for his community when they were very young. This was the result of a new development in monastic life: in the Carolingian period a growing number of monks were admitted to the priesthood. Hildemar considered the children who were raised in the monasteries to be eminently suitable for ordination. They were trained to be the future intellectual and moral elite of the community.     

Nation‐building in contemporary Germany: the strange conversion of Hitler's ‘word made of stone’

This article examines the contending redefinitions of national identity in contemporary Germany's memorial culture, focusing particularly on the ensemble of monuments and parade fields known as the former Nazi Party rally grounds in Nuremberg. In a detailed case study, I analyse the recent conversion of one of the physical remnants of National Socialism – Albert Speer's transformer station – into a fast‐food restaurant and interpret this conversion as a novel contribution to the discourse on German nationhood. I argue that the provocative commercial reutilisation of the former Nazi monument gives expression to a renewed self‐confidence that Germany has gained from displaying a willingness to face up to its past as perpetrator nation. While the intervention thus deviates from the self‐indicting spirit that had been characteristic for Germany's memorial culture after World War II, an ironic note is conspicuous in this act of commemorative politics that indicates a way of dealing with the fascist legacy that is, surprisingly in some respects, superior to more conventional memory strategies.     

Growing up in a tourist destination: negotiating space,identity and belonging

There is little research on children’s experiences of growing up in a popular tourist destination, where place and space are contested with visitors, migrants and temporary residents. Existing literature on young people’s experiences of their socio-spatial surroundings has focused predominantly on the rural/urban dichotomy, often neglecting to explore how identity and belonging are negotiated in complex community contexts such as tourist destinations. This paper reports on recent research that suggests that young people’s experiences of growing up in such an environment are nuanced and diverse, with their rich narratives disrupting socially constructed distinctions between the rural and the urban, merging experiences from both worlds.     

Growing up in the shadow of the Second World War: European perspectives

In this Special Issue, the authors explore the various ways in which the Second World War shaped children's experiences in the post-war period. They map the multifaceted interest or non-interest of states all over Europe for children in the years after the war, filter out groups of children who recall that the consequences of the Second World War significantly influenced their childhood, and investigate the childhood policies directed towards them, as well as their childhood experiences and the memories they foster about their childhood. In addition, they have included case studies from Western, Central and Eastern Europe with the aim of sparking a debate as to whether it was only a similar lifecycle that war children in early post-war Europe shared, or if they also had some life experiences in common.