Using cultural trauma: Gandhi's assassination,partition and secular nationalism in post‐independence India

Nationalism theorists have noted the link between traumatic events and national identity, and cultural trauma theory presents a framework for understanding how these events become trauma narratives. I argue for greater consideration of how these narratives are strategically linked to ideological frames of national identity. A case study of post‐Independence India considering the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi and the Partition of India and Pakistan demonstrates how two very different events were promoted as cultural traumas by various carrier groups in order to promote a secular vision of the Indian nation. Adapting Armstrong and Crage (2006), I suggest that the success of these trauma narratives depend on several criteria: the ease of narrating the event, how it is linked to underlying cultural meanings/frames and how the event interacts with historical contingencies.     

A palaeopathological investigation of the third intercondylar tubercle of Parsons

The third intercondylar tubercle of Parsons (TITP) is a bony protuberance which is sometimes present on the tibial plateau. It corresponds to the insertion of the anterior fibres of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). Reasons why TITP is present in some knees and not others are at present unclear. TITP is studied in knee joints from 68 adult individuals from a medieval cemetery. Associations are investigated with age, sex, knee osteoarthritis, clinical and subclinical DISH, and skeletal signs of trauma, with the aim of evaluating existing ideas on the causation of TITP. Only trauma showed an association with the presence of TITP. The results offer support for the aetiology of trauma to the ACL in the formation of TITP. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Warfare in Prehistoric and Early Historic Eastern North America

Recent criticisms of the use of historically and ethnographically recorded conflicts as models for warfare in prehistoric times force archaeologists to reexamine assumptions about the frequency, severity, and effects of intergroup fighting. In eastern North America, skeletons of victims and palisaded settlements—the only information consistently available on intergroup hostilities—indicate that the prevalence of conflicts varied greatly over time and space. Occasionally the attacks, typically ambushes of small numbers of people, cumulatively resulted in numerous casualties.Variation in palisade strength is consistent with the organizational structure and warrior mobilization potential of late prehistoric societies in different parts of the Eastern Woodlands.     

Evidence of interpersonal violence at the Chalcolithic village of Shiqmim (Israel)

Three circumscribed depressed fractures were found on the skull of an adolescent boy recovered from a primary intramural burial at the Chalcolithic site of Shiqmim, northern Negev, Israel dated to (∼4500–3200 BCE). The fractures were located on the left side and back of the skull. They are circular in outline and have sharp margins containing numerous small bone fragments. These indicate that the skull was fractured when the bone was still fresh and were the probable cause of death. The location of the fractured areas is typical of blows inflicted by a right‐handed individual in face‐to‐face conflict. The size and shape of the fractures, suggests that they were inflicted by a blunt instrument, possibly a mace head. The absence of any signs of healing or infection indicates that all fractures occurred within a short space of time and resulted in death. Neither biological characteristics nor burial pattern show any unique features that distinguish this individual from others recovered at this site. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Radiographic clues to fractures of distal humerus in archaeological remains

Today, distal humeral fractures occur most frequently in children and adolescents, and are usually the result of a fall onto extended arms, or less often on flexed elbows. Trauma to the distal humerus at the physis and epiphyses often produces non‐displaced or mildly displaced fractures that are difficult to recognize radiographically. To help identify these types of injuries, clinicians have developed two measurement techniques that are applied to the X‐rays of the injured bones. In a preliminary attempt to assess the usefulness of these measurement techniques for recognizing trauma in archaeological skeletal remains, 25 humeri from two Ontario ossuary samples were submitted to radiography. Clinical data on distal humeral fractures, their incidence, and mechanisms of injury were also used to interpret the lifestyles and cultural activities of the aboriginal individuals under study. While only one healed fracture was suspected after gross observation, a total of four fractures were ultimately identified using the two measurements, the humerotangential‐angle (HTA) and the anterior hunieral line (AHL). Our results provide indirect, but telling, evidence of accidental childhood injuries to distal humerus in an archaeological population. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Two decapitations from Roman Towcester

Two young adult males from a Roman cemetery at Towcester show unambiguous evidence of decapitation In one, the skull had been placed over the lower legs, and in the other, the skull was in its correct anatomical position. The significance of this variation and the reasons for decapitation are discussed. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Bearing Witness: Hope for the Unseen

Beginning with an identification of the ethical and political ambivalence surrounding hope, this essay considers whether an analysis of the activity of bearing witness to truth could offer a theoretical framework for thinking about hope differently. Specifically it argues that hope can be taken as a discipline, or practice, one which is both required for, and enacted in, the act of bearing witness. Through a consideration of the process of bearing witness in Truth and Reconciliation Commissions responding to national and intergenerational trauma, the essay explores the way in which bearing witness is a fundamentally hopeful action in so far as it ceaselessly seeks to speak to the truth of an event while acknowledging the inability to ever fully capture that event in words.     

Wilful Design: The Sampler in Nineteenth-Century Britain

This article recovers the cultural significance of the sampler in nineteenth-century Britain. I argue that this mainstay of female education models a circular shape of development in which the young girl painfully revises earlier experience; the subject is conceived of as perpetually reworking herself without obvious linear progression. Though this article is situated against canonical works of Victorian fiction, it focuses primarily on actual samplers to argue that these pieces of childhood embroidery should be recognized as a form of life-writing. After establishing the conventions of the sampler, I turn to an apparently anomalous example that exemplifies the temporal and affective patterns ingrained by the pedagogical exercise of sampler sewing. My central artefact is an autobiographical sampler from the needle of a 17-year-old Sussex girl named Elizabeth Parker. Currently housed in the Victoria and Albert Museum, this textile from 1830 recounts Parker’s childhood experiences in service, and the horrors of physical abuse and sexual assault that led her to contemplate suicide, all compressed into 46 lines of cross-stitch. I argue that the sampler as a pedagogical tool resists the Bildungsroman’s model of the self as formed through temporal progression towards self-contained adult agency. Instead, the sampler materially and thematically enforces the recursive temporal dynamics of conversion.     

TRAUMA,HISTORY, MEMORY,IDENTITY: WHAT REMAINS?

Despite the considerable amount of work already devoted to the topic, the nexus of trauma, history, memory, and identity is still of widespread interest, and much remains to be investigated on both empirical and theoretical levels. The ongoing challenge is to approach the topic without opposing history and memory in a binary fashion but instead by inquiring into more complex and challenging relations between them, including the role of trauma and its effects. This account attempts to set out a research agenda that is multifaceted but with components that are conceptually interrelated and that call for further research and thought. In a necessarily selective manner that does not downplay the value and importance of archival research, it treats both the role of traumatic memory and memory (or memory work) that counteracts post‐traumatic effects and supplements, at times serving as a corrective to, written sources. It argues for the relevance to history of a critical but nondismissive approach to the study of trauma, memory, and identity‐formation, discussing significant new work as well as indicating the continued pertinence of somewhat older work in the field. One of the under‐investigated issues it addresses is the role of the so‐called transgenerational transmission of trauma to descendants and intimates of both survivors and perpetrators. It concludes by making explicit an issue that is fundamental to the problem of identity and identity‐formation and concerning which a great deal remains to be done: the issue of critical animal studies and its historical and ethical significance. Addressing this issue would require extending one's purview beyond humans and attending to the importance of the relations between humans and other animals.     

Cranial trauma and treatment: a case study from the medieval cemetery of St. Mary Spital,London

Excavation of the cemetery of the medieval priory of St. Mary‐without‐Bishopsgate, Spitalfields, London from 1998–2001, recovered the remains of over 10,000 individuals. Following initial assessment, skeleton 19893 was found to have suffered three cranial injuries caused by a sharp edged implement. The remains were those of a middle aged adult male of around 172.4 cm in stature, truncated at the hips by a later feature. The remaining elements were well preserved. The cranial injuries were well healed, suggestive of some degree of post‐traumatic care. Evidence of possible surgery was also found. Soft tissue complications would undoubtedly have followed the assault. Battle related trauma was considered, together with evidence of treatment. Whilst the demographic profile of the individual fitted a plausible one for a professional fighter of the medieval period, no firm evidence of occupation could be provided. The case study indicates both the ability of medieval people to survive major trauma and the wealth of information full analysis of the Spitalfields assemblage will provide the osteological community. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.