Between National Socialism and expert internationalism: Karl Strölin and transnationalism in urban planning, 1938–45

This essay examines the transnational activities of National Socialist experts, focusing on the endeavours of the burgomaster of Stuttgart, Karl Strölin. In 1938, Strölin became president of the International Federation for Housing and Town Planning (IFHTP), one of the most distinguished international expert institutions for European and North American urban planning. The article discusses his belief that promoting an international convention on the protection of urban populations would contribute to German diplomacy in the initial period of the Second World War. Then it investigates the IFHTP president’s efforts to transform his institution into an outlet for National Socialist ideas against the background of the German advance through Europe. A final section deals with Strölin’s attempts to transform the IFHTP into a forum for evaluating urban reconstruction policies in the last year of the war. This biographical study shows how it was possible to juggle the logics and expectations of seemingly contradictory spatial and political realms during and after World War II. National socialist politics and ideology exacerbated the tensions between local, national and international affiliations, but at the same time never fully permeated the mechanisms of expert internationalism. By revealing how Strölin navigated between local ambitions, the demands of domestic foreign policy and the ethics of expert internationalism in three markedly different projects, this essay contributes to a growing body of scholarship on the cross-border activities of National Socialist professionals in (occupied) Europe.     

Heritage destruction and cultural rights: insights from Bagan in Myanmar

Recently, the UN Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights has stated that the intentional destruction of cultural heritage is a violation of cultural rights. The Rapporteur examines a timely issue but bases her statement on narrow understandings ‘heritage’ as irreplaceable and ‘destruction’ as ideologically motivated and aggressive. This reinforces hegemonic ideas about heritage and what constitutes its destruction. In this article, I discuss the case of Bagan in Myanmar to illustrate the limitations of the Rapporteur’s statement. In Bagan, whether and how ‘heritage’ should be protected has been the topic of controversy. By implication what is – or is not – considered intentional destruction is contested. Ambiguity about the meaning of cultural rights, the dissonant nature of heritage, the subjectivity of destruction, and complex multi-layered motivations behind ‘destructive’ practices make overarching statement about the destruction of cultural heritage and cultural rights violations too bold and call for more nuance and contextualised research.     

从知识、技术到智识传统:“非遗”主题展览的话语分析

非物质文化遗产(非遗)作为博物馆展览的主题已成为常态。经过多年的发展,"非遗"主题展览已经形成了相对模式化的叙事类型和同质化的发展特征。这一现状反映了多重话语博弈下的行业惯习,同时也体现了非遗作为一种文化遗产行政话语所应有的限度。"非遗"主题展览应与强调多元、互动与阐释性的新博物馆学发展趋势相呼应,关注非遗变化与改造的实践性,摆脱"非遗"话语与行业惯习接驳的逻辑自洽,反思性的回归博物馆多线和声的智识传统,从而使非遗与展览的关联拥有更多的可能性。     

“非遗”传承人权利保障机制地方法制评述:兼论“非遗法”的反思与完善

《中华人民共和国非物质文化遗产法》("非遗法")颁布实施以后,我国已就非物质文化遗产(非遗)传承人权利保障相关问题进行地方法制实践。这些地方立法不仅保留了"非遗法"相关规定之精华,同时亦在此基础上进行了创新。这些地方法制的做法不仅具有正当性,还具有诸多亮点和启示。为缓解非遗领域不同位阶法律适用冲突以及平衡、协调非遗传承人权利与义务之间关系,"非遗法"应就非遗传承人权利保障机制等问题进行规定,以最终实现非遗法律体系形式功能与实质功能的统一。     

The awkward years: defining and managing famines, 1944–1947

Abstract

Famines in the years immediately after World War II occurred during a period of global flux, as international famine response evolved from its ambitious, early twentieth century goals toward more modest, technocratic objectives during the second half of the century. For economists, social scientists and politicians immersed in the world of emergency food aid, these were uncertain, awkward years for famine relief. Herbert Hoover’s idealistic large-scale projects of famine relief that had dominated the first three decades of the century had been proven to be expensive and of limited efficacy, but Cold War loyalties had not yet taken over as the primary logic behind large-scale humanitarian assistance projects. Ultimately, when faced with famine conditions between 1944 and 1947, states and experts balanced a call to action against pragmatism that recognized famines were also politically expedient events that could weaken rural resistance to governance and simplify wartime and postwar administration. Ultimately, both science and humanitarian concerns learned to orient themselves toward economic expediency in these awkward years.     

Commemoration in Germany: Rediscovering history

In Germany a common narrative of the First World War could never be established. In the post-1918 period, explanations of Germany's defeat were highly contested between the political factions of the Weimar Republic. The subsequent Nazi tyranny, the Second World War and the Holocaust came – and continue – to overshadow any other event in German history. During the Cold War, the First World War was largely a forgotten conflict. In recent years, the federal government has remained hesitant about embracing the centenary, but countless exhibitions, seminars, books and other media productions have brought this aspect of history back to public attention from late 2013, and with it has come a renewed public debate on war guilt.

在德国是不会有共同的一战叙事的。1918年以后,对德国战败的解释成为魏玛共和国不同的政治派别的战场。接下来的纳粹独裁、二战以及大屠杀,则让德国历史上的任何其他事件黯然失色。在冷战期间,一战差不多被遗忘了。近些年联邦政府一直对庆祝百年的事犹犹豫豫。不过2013年底以来,无数的展览、研讨会、图书以及其他媒体产品使得这段历史成为公众关注的对象,关于战争的罪孽问题又起纷争。     

Commemoration in the United States: ‘The reason for fighting I never got straight’

The United States entered the First World War late, in April 1917, and so its centenary commemoration of the war will begin well after those of its former associated powers and enemies. Even in 2017, however, US commemoration will likely be muted by the past and present ramifications of the debate and confusion over the meanings and significance of the First World War to the United States that have raged since the end of the war itself.

美国参战是在1917年4月,是一战的后期了。因此它的一战纪念活动会晚于从前的那些友国和帝国。即便在2017年,过去和现在关于一战意义的争吵（战争结束以来就没停过）也会消弱纪念活动的音量。     

‘Dead dads’: memory narratives of war-related fatherlessness in Germany

After the Second World War, there were estimated to be around 20 million half-orphans in Europe. In Germany alone, 5.3 million soldiers killed in action left behind approximately 1.2 million widows, nearly 2.5 million half-orphans and about 100,000 complete orphans. This article examines how men and women from various social strata in western and eastern Germany remember their fathers who died in the war and in what way he has been stored in the family's collective memory. The analysis focuses on 30 life-history interviews with men and women from eastern and western Germany with various social and religious backgrounds, all of whom were born between 1935 and 1945 and had little or no memory of their fathers. The following questions are relevant: what memories did children have of their fathers, and what images of them were related by mothers and relatives? What individual, political, social and memory-cultural factors characterise a child's memory of her or his father? The article also analyses trans-generational transmissions and conflicts of how the father's past is remembered.     

‘And now imagine her or him as a slave,a pitiful slave with no rights’: child forced labourers in the culture of remembrance of the USSR and post-Soviet Ukraine

This article examines the various components of the image of Soviet children, who were deported to Nazi Germany during the Second World War to perform forced labour, within the culture of remembrance of the USSR and post-Soviet Ukraine. In her analysis, the author emphasises that throughout the Soviet period the topic of forced labour had mostly instrumental significance and was used for a variety of propaganda tasks: during the war, to mobilise the population to struggle against the enemy; in its aftermath, to underscore and contrast the essence and policies of the post-war Western ‘democracies’ and the USSR; and, from the late 1960s, to accuse capitalist countries, above all the Federal Republic of Germany, of preparing for undertakings such as a new war or an arms race. With the collapse of the USSR, the Ostarbeiters' ‘territory of memory’ enlarged dramatically. In the new climate of democratic transformation, there were socio-legal initiatives which aimed to regulate the status of forced labourers, and the first steps were taken towards institutionalising Ostarbeiter associations. This, in turn, facilitated the process of analysing the construction and presentation of the image of the child Ostarbeiter on the level of state-legal regulation, institutional support, public interest and scholarly research that is taking place in contemporary Ukraine.