Journal articles on the topic 'War Crimes (WWII)'

So-called partisans. Monika Stec in an interview with Krystyna Badurka Referring to the story of her father’s death in 1945, Krystyna Badurka-Rytel discusses the times before and after World War II. Before WWII, her father, Felix Badurka, was a soldier of the Home Army, while after the war he served as the chairman of the National Council and built "the new system". For decades, the Badurka family has been trying to find out who is responsible for his murder.The story of tracking perpetrators is presented against a broader background: the attitude of the population and the Church towards the underground army during and after WWII; the socio-political changes (specifically in rural areas) after World War II, as well as the modern times, in particular the attitude to the past. Krystyna Badurka-Rytel objects to the current Polish political history, because, as she believes, it glorifies the war crimes committed by the so-called “conspiracy” by honouring the participants with books and monuments.

- Among its present problems of transitional justice, Germany faces a specific unresolved issue: the rehabilitation of the so called « war traitors » (Kriegsverräter). After the paradigm change in the German historiography concerning the supposed relative independence of Wehrmacht vis-ŕ-vis of the Nazi Party, two discussed exhibitions on Wehrmacht's crimes during WWII have strengthened the request of rehabilitating the last « war traitors ». The article explains the juridical background of the judgements issued by German war courts, and the wearing story of the sluggish rehabilitation of deserters, defeatists and civil « war traitors » (concluded in 2002 only). Politicians and jurists are now divided about the still pending issue of rehabilitating the military « war traitors », or, more precisely, the last survivors among them.

At the close of World War II (WWII), Winston Churchill suggested summarily executing the remaining Nazi leadership. Franklin Delano Roosevelt disagreed, insisting on prosecuting them in an international military tribunal. This is considered the “birth” of International Criminal Law (ICL), following a consensus that “[t]he Nazi atrocities gave rise to the idea that some crimes are so grave as to concern the international community as a whole.” A few earlier instances of penal action against violators of the laws of war are acknowledged, but they are dismissed as unrelated to current ICL, because (presumably) these cases are sporadic domestic legal actions that lack a common doctrine.

The memory of WWII always played an important role in Belarus, which was characterized as a “Partisan Republic” during the Soviet time. Soviet historiography and memorial narrative emphasized the heroics of the resistance to fascism and allowed only a description of the crimes of the Nazis. New ways of looking at war events appeared during the perestroika and after the independence of the country. But after Alexander Lukashenko came to power as president in 1994, a neo-Soviet version of the past was adopted and spread. The Great Patriotic War (GPW) has become an increasingly publicized event in the official memorial narrative as the culminating moment in Belarusian history. Since the mid-2000s, this narrative tends to be nationalized in order to testify that the Belarusian people’s suffering and resistance behavior were among the highest ones during WWII. Political and academic dissenting voices to the Belarusian authoritarian regime try to downplay this official narrative by pointing out that the Belarusians were also victims of the Stalinist repression, and their attitude towards the Nazi occupation was more than ambivalent. Behind the memorial discourses, two competitive versions of Belarusian national identity can be distinguished. According to the official version, Belarusian identity is based on the East-Slavic identity that incorporates the Soviet history in its contemporary development. According to the opposition, it is based on a national memory that discards the Soviet past as a positive one.

The Tokyo and the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunals were two major international military tribunals organized immediately after World War II. Interpretation at the Nuremberg Trial has been described in a number of papers and books and is considered the origin of simultaneous interpretation. However, with regards to the Tokyo Trial, only the inadequate quality of interpretation has been mentioned in history books and political science publications, and this on very few occasions. This paper begins by offering an overview of the interpretation at the Tokyo Trial through interviews and the records of the proceedings and then analyzes a particular instance of interpretation, namely the cross-examination of Hideki Tojo, who was tried for his significant role in WWII as Minister of War and Prime Minister, and who was finally sentenced to death by the court. The Tokyo Trial was the first instance of an IBM Public Address System (simultaneous interpreting equipment) being installed with an interpreter’s booth in Japan. However, we must recall that it was actually consecutive interpretation that was provided through the use of the IBM system and the booth. Therefore the Tokyo Trial is the origin of the use of simultaneous interpretation equipment, but not the origin of simultaneous interpretation skills in Japan. The records of the proceedings show that twenty-seven Japanese served as interpreters. They were selected on the basis of their good command of English but were definitely laymen in terms of interpretational skills. In order to supervise the Japanese interpreters, four monitors were appointed by the Allied Powers. The monitors, who were second generation Japanese residents in the US, worked for ATIS (Allied Power’s Translation and Interpretation Section) during WWII and were then considered to have a good knowledge of the Japanese language, culture and history. Furthermore, the Language Arbitration System was established to address intractable translation issues related to Japanese culture and pre-war systems. The quality of the interpretation, as far as Tojo’s cross-examination is concerned, can be considered fairly good, if we consider that interpreters and monitors worked together as one unit in the interpretation service. The analysis of the interpretation based on the monitors’ interventions in Tojo’s cross-examination indicates that the monitors were concerned with the accuracy of the English interpretation in court and with the understandability of the Japanese interpretation for the accused and worked to ensure a fair trial.

The article is dedicated to the overview of the scope and application of international prosecution on war crimes. Although theterm “war crimes” is not a new concept in international law, different approaches exist in defining the precise limits of it. War crimesare always considered as one of the primary challenges and pecularities minimizing the whole efficiency of international law. Nevertheless,not all known prosecutions on war crimes ended with success. In traditional international law war crimes are always related tomilitary or armed conflicts what may be international or non-international conflict. History of international humanitarian law demonstratesthat almost all of the military conflicts were associated with war crimes. However, international law was not able to buil upstrong judicial mechanisms for the prosecution of war crimes for a long time. Modern type of international prosecution over war crimescan be linked to military tribunals established after World War I. At the same time, we should not forget that most of war crimes committedbefore and during WWI still remain unpunished. These problems demand new conceptual approach to the understanding of warcrimes as well as methodology of international prosecution. We know that first military tribunals were of quasi-international character.Although modern international law contains fully international military tribunals, still there are a lot of cases of failure to punish warcrimes. We need to understand that being a type of international crimes against peace and humanity, war crimes can be committed outsidethe active period of war. Thus, there is a need to re-define again the scope and subject matter of war crimes. On the other hand,prosecution of war crimes should be studied apart from other international law violations, human rights in particular.

From February 4 to 11, 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States, Soviet Union Premier Joseph Stalin, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met near Yalta in Crimea to discuss how post–World War II (WWII) Europe should be organized. Within 2 decades of this conference, all 3 men had died. President Roosevelt died 2 months after the Yalta Conference due to a hemorrhagic stroke. Premier Stalin died 8 years later, also due to a hemorrhagic stroke. Finally, Prime Minister Churchill died 20 years after the conference because of complications due to stroke. At the time of Yalta, these 3 men were the leaders of the most powerful countries in the world. The subsequent deterioration of their health and eventual death had varying degrees of historical significance. Churchill's illness forced him to resign as British prime minister, and the events that unfolded immediately after his resignation included Britain's mismanagement of the Egyptian Suez Crisis and also a period of mistrust with the United States. Furthermore, Roosevelt was still president and Stalin was still premier at their times of passing, so their deaths carried huge political ramifications not only for their respective countries but also for international relations. The early death of Roosevelt, in particular, may have exacerbated post-WWII miscommunication between America and the Soviet Union—miscommunication that may have helped precipitate the Cold War.

Abstract This study focuses on forced migration and interstate violence during international crises, as a major security concern with salient implications for international relations stability. The empirical data consists of 229 crises designated as Forced Migration Crises (FMC), identified within the 374 crises of the International Crisis Behavior (ICB) project. The study outlines a framework for analyzing FMC compared with Non-Forced Migration Crises (NFMC), presents an index of Forced Migration Magnitude (FMM), and probes three hypotheses. It points to transformations in forced migration since WWII, compares crises with and without forced migration, and explores patterns of FMM and violence. Results lead to rejection of hypothesis 1 on similarities between FMC and NFMC, supporting hypothesis 2 on considerable diversity between them. Findings on extended scope, strategic locale, enduring forced migration problems and increased violence support hypothesis 3, challenging the placement of forced migration merely as a social or humanitarian domestic concern. Instead, results show a salient increase in FMM, coupled with more severe interstate violence and war, dangerously destabilizing regions worldwide. These patterns require the integration of forced migration within crisis frameworks, as a new research agenda, to understand the nature of forced migration in the 21st century and its impact.

This article discusses the post–Cold War repatriation to the Black Sea of people deported to Central Asia after World War II, Crimean Tatars and Pontic Greeks. It reflects on their novel ethnic and religious identifications, not available to them before their exile. Religious labeling is now used by officials as a criterion for allocating people to places, and by people as expressions of loyalty and belonging. Politically, such labeling is used for negotiating appropriate sites for resettlement schemes for the two groups in the region. The Crimean Tatar strategy is to argue in favor of “indigenous group” status, while the Pontic Greeks opt for dual commitment between repatriation to their “kin state” (Greece) and their pre-WWII places of residence in the Crimea. The comparison of the dilemmas faced by the two communities upon repatriation elucidates the role of the Black Sea region in the pragmatics of “returning home” and people's sentiments of belonging.

The author discusses the findings of his long-time research aimed at revealing the work of the State Literature Foundation for Revival of Libraries Destroyed During the Great Patriotic War. He points to the difficulty he faced searching the national archives; reports on the meetings and talks with former GOSFOND (the national archive) officers. As a result of his research, the author compiled information on the life and work of D. B. Marchukov, full of mysteries. The article is based on the lecture delivered at the Second World Professional Forum “Crimea-2016”.

The Diary of Ivan Maisky, a diplomat, Soviet Envoy (later Ambassador) to the United Kingdom from 1932 to 1943 is one of the valuable sources on the interwar history of international relations and WWII. Maisky never saw his diaries returned to him after they had been confiscated at the time of his arrest in 1953. It was declassified by the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation and published in 2006-2009 with the commentaries of Russian scholars. The analysis of the Diary which contains unique details about Soviet-British relations casts new light on the roles of Great Britain and the USSR in the pre-war international crises and allows for a re-evaluation of the two powers’ efforts aimed at preventing or delaying the war. When the Diary is juxtaposed with the declassified British archive materials, the degree to which the British officials trusted the Soviet Envoy/Ambassador as well as the level of his awareness of the undercurrents of British politics become clearer. The authors argue that the Versailles System had failed by the mid-1920s and was replaced by the Locarno System based on the guarantees of Germany’s western borders. In the mid-1930s the Locarno System was in disarray despite British efforts to save it through concessions and the appeasement policy. The «Diplomat’s Diary» shows a struggle within the British elite between the supporters and the opponents of the appeasement policy linked with the search for a new configuration of the European system of security.

The article focuses on the Yekaterinburg city (Urals, Russia) population on the eve of the First World War. We argue that 1897 Census data, which remains the main source for estimating the late Imperial Russias urban population, are not relevant for the early 20th century Yekaterinburg. The results of population surveys of 1917-1922 largely affected by the socio-political crisis do not reflect the actual development of the city before entering the First World War. So the numbers of 50-70 thousands traditionally used to estimate Yekaterinburgs population on the eve of the WWI is a historiographic clich which should be corrected. Our research bases on critical analyses of the newly discovered and transcribed sources Perepis domovladeltcev (municipal survey of the house owners) run in October 1913 at the request of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the aggregated data of the Adresnyi stol (residence registration office) of Yekaterinburg collected in November 1912, as well as local statistics and newspapers. Using source analysis, demographic reconstruction, and a historical-comparative method we reconstructed the population of Yekaterinburg in 1912-1913. Our analysis shows that the citys population exceeded 100 thousand already in 1912, which means that Yekaterinburg was a dynamically developing due to rapid urbanization and became one of the few Russia big (over 100000) cities on the eve of the WWI. While our results help better understanding of the pre-revolutionary Urals urbanization, it also raises the need to re-evaluate the price of the Revolution 1917 the city paid, for its population dropped drastically during the following crises and reached 100 thousand again only in 1926.

The review elucidates the contents of the monography by R. Pyroh with special attention paid to the relations between Ukraine and the Central Powers in 1918. It is noted that these relations are a multifaceted phenomenon of political, economic, and military ties caused by complicated vicissitudes of the final stage of World War I. It is observed that the signature of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk accelerated the independence of the Ukrainian People’s Republic and accorded it the status of an entity of international law. The author shares his insight that in historiography military presence is most commonly term as ‘occupation.’ The comprehensive study of relations of Ukraine with the Central Powers enables singling out specific features of their development that is impossible to embody in legal norms, such as those defined by the 1907 Hague Convention. The territory occupied by German and Austrian troops had its central government and administrations; bilateral diplomatic relations were established, trade and economic agreements were concluded, etc. The author stresses that the book is the first recorded survey of the operation of the German occupation zone, which covered various governorates and Crimea. The author also sets out its military and administrative structure, role of military and field justice, and clarification of the number of German armed forces in Ukraine. Furthermore, the book offers a nuanced view of the operation of the German occupation zone and identifies the main promoters of Hitler’s Ostpolitik in Ukraine. The problem of their ambiguity and volatility in respect of Ukraine leaves many zeitgeisty aspects. The German and Austrian occupation was a by-product of World War I, which, however, fell out of its historical context. The modern historiographical image of the German and Austrian occupation as a holistic phenomenon is in need of some adjustment. According to the review’s author, the launch of this monography gives grounds to hope that the 1918 Austrian and Hungarian occupation of Ukraine will be dealt with in further study. This book is intended for scholars, professors as well as those interested in the historical past of Ukraine. Key words: monography, WWI, occupation, UPP, Central Powers, German and Austrian occupation, occupation zone.

This paper seeks to develop new avenues for a study of the Ukrainian foreign-language press in Europe during the Ukrainian Revolution (1917―1921s). Specifically, it aims to explore the so-called «cartographic» argument in the editorial policies and content of these periodicals issued in West European languages in the West European countries. More specifically, we seek to study map propaganda on the basis of the content of the Ukrainian press published in the West European languages in Europe during the Paris Peace Conference (1919―1920s). The latter aimed at justifying the territorial integrity of Ukraine in terms of the Ukrainian terrains in the Eastern Europe and its representation in the European maps. It originated in the early 1900s, specifically, in Austria, and more specifically ― in the Ukrainian German-language reviews («Ruthenische Revue» and «Ukrainische Rundschau»). In our view, the Ukrainian post-WWI map propaganda was inspired by the Count M. Tyshkevych (Tyszkiewicz) and S. Sheloukhine, specifically, their groundbreaking work «Documents historiques sur l’Ukraine et ses relations avec la Pologne, la Russie et la Suede (1569―1764) publies avec notices explicatives et cartes par le C-te Michel Tyszkiewicz…» (Lausanne, 1919). We argue a specific correlation between map representation of respective stateless people and a justification of its nationstate aspirations in the European public sphere. Specifically, it has been argued that the cartographic propaganda was an element of strategic communication of the «territorialization of national identity» of Ukrainians in the internationally recognized borders of the UNR (according to the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty of Feb. 1918). The findings of this research prove an existence of continuum of map propaganda in the transnational media discourse transcending temporal and spatial boundaries. The follow-up studies on the research subject are to explore a persistence of the media patterns of map representation of the Ukrainian ethnic terrains in the media discourse, specifically, in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian «hybrid war» (since 2014). More specifically, a promising and relevant avenue is to study «map propaganda» over the question of belonging of the Crimea and its map representation in Ukrainian, Russian or in the Western public realms. Keywords: map propaganda, historical maps, ethnic terrains, Ukraine, Ukrainian, press.

Abstract Following the October Revolution, tens of thousands of White Russians sought refuge in China and became inevitably involved in the escalating Sino-Japanese War (1931–1945). The Japanese deployed measures of coercion, material incentives, and ideological indoctrination to recruit White Russians for Japan’s military and political maneuvers in the China theater of WWII. With the conclusion of the war, the Chinese Nationalist government launched a legal campaign against all collaborators with Japan and labeled them hanjian, “traitors to the Han Chinese,” regardless of the race and nationality of the defendants. Based on archival materials in Chinese, English, Japanese, and Russian, this article examines the context and process of the incrimination of White Russians in China’s postwar trials of traitors. With no consular support and little diplomatic significance, the White Russians became the ideal foreigners for the Chinese government to exercise its newly recovered judicial sovereignty and to claim its legitimacy in administering justice related to war crimes. Dozens of White Russians were convicted of the crime of hanjian and sentenced to prison terms of varied lengths.

Historically, the Europe’s concept in Russian state discourse has been constantly transforming, due to current events. Nowadays, the concept’s understanding can’t be described without WWII topic – obviously a crucial point in the modern Russian ideology. To explore the image of Europe in this discourse, the speeches of the Russian presidents given on the 9th of May from 2000 to 2019 were content analyzed. The transformations of Europe in the Russian state discourse about WWII as were as Europe’s roles in the WWII were defined. Up to 2009 the differentiation between the post-Soviet countries and “far abroad” Europe was constantly used. After the Russo-Georgian war, and mostly after the annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas, the construction of a bipolar world started. Russian isolation can be observed in 2010-2019. Europe’s roles have been changing. In early Putin’s speeches (2000-2003) this topic seems not to be significant. Before 2008 Europe was described as both active and passive in the war. Afterwards “passiveness” prevailed. Thus, in the Russian state discourse, after 2008 the WWII was used to show the opposition between active/strong Russia and passive/weak Europe, which provide threats to peace on the planet.

In recent years a number of dramas focussing on Indigenous Australians and Australian history have appeared on the ABC, one of Australia's two public television channels. These dramas have different foci but all represent some aspects of Australian Indigenous history and how it interacts with 'mainstream' representations of Australian history. The four programs I will look at are Cleverman (Goalpost Pictures, 2016-ongoing), Glitch (Matchbox Films, 2015-ongoing), The Secret River (Ruby Entertainment, 2015) and Redfern Now (Blackfella Films, 2012), each of which engages with the past in a unique way.Clearly, different creators, working with different plots and in different genres will have different ways of representing the past. Redfern Now and Cleverman are both produced by Indigenous creators whereas the creators of The Secret River and Glitch are white Australians. Redfern Now and The Secret River are in a realist mode, whereas Glitch and Cleverman are speculative fiction. My argument proceeds on two axes: first, speculative genres allow for more creative ways of representing the past. They give more freedom for the creators to present affective representations of the historical past. Speculative genres also allow for more interesting intellectual examinations of what we consider to be history and its uncertainties. My second axis argues, because it is hard to avoid when looking at this group of texts, that Indigenous creators represent the past in different ways than non-Indigenous creators. Indigenous creators present a more elliptical vision. Non-Indigenous creators tend to address historical stories in more overt ways. It is apparent that even when dealing with the same histories and the same facts, the understanding of the past held by different groups is presented differently because it has different affective meanings.These television programs were all made in the 2010s but the roots of their interpretations go much further back, not only to the history they represent but also to the arguments about history that have raged in Australian intellectual and popular culture. Throughout most of the twentieth century, indigenous history was not discussed in Australia, until this was disturbed by WEH Stanner's reference in the Boyer lectures of 1968 to "our great Australian silence" (Clark 73). There was, through the 1970s and 80s, increased discussion of Indigenous history, and then in the 1990s there was a period of social and cultural argument known locally as the 'History Wars'. This long-running public disagreement took place in both academic and public arenas, and involved historians, other academics, politicians, journalists and social commentators on each side. One side argued that the arrival of white people in Australia led to frontier wars, massacre, attempted genocide and the ongoing oppression of Indigenous people (Reynolds). The other posited that when white people arrived they killed a few Aborigines but mostly Aboriginal people were killed by disease or failure to 'defend' their culture (Windschuttle). The first viewpoint was revisionist from the 1960s onwards and the second represented an attempt at counter-revision – to move the understanding of history back to what it was prior to the revision. The argument took place not only among historians, but was taken up by politicians with Paul Keating, prime minister 1993-1996, holding the first view and John Howard, prime minister 1996-2007, aggressively pursuing the second. The revisionist viewpoint was championed by historians such as Henry Reynolds and Lyndall Ryan and academics and Aboriginal activists such as Tony Birch and Aileen Moreton Robinson; whereas the counter-revisionists had Keith Windschuttle and Geoffrey Blainey. By and large the revisionist viewpoint has become dominant and the historical work of the counter-revisionists is highly disputed and not accepted.This argument was prominent in Australian cultural discourse throughout the 1990s and has never entirely disappeared. The TV shows I am examining were not made in the 1990s, nor were they made in the 2000s - it took nearly twenty years for responses to the argument to make the jump from politicians' speeches and opinion pieces to television drama. John Ellis argues that the role of television in popular discourse is "working through," meaning contentious issues are first raised in news reports, then they move to current affairs, then talk shows and documentaries, then sketch comedy, then drama (Ellis). Australian Indigenous history was extensively discussed in the news, current affairs and talk shows in the 1990s, documentaries appeared somewhat later, notably First Australians in 2008, but sketch comedy and drama did not happen until in 2014, when Black Comedy's programme first aired, offering sketches engaging often and fiercely with indigenous history.The existence of this public discourse in the political and academic realms was reflected in film before television. Felicity Collins argues that the "Blak Wave" of Indigenous film came to exist in the context of, and as a response to, the history wars (Collins 232). This wave of film making by Indigenous film makers included the works of Rachel Perkins, Warwick Thornton and Ivan Sen – whose films chronicled the lives of Indigenous Australians. There was also what Collins calls "back-tracking films" such as Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002) and The Tracker (2010) made by white creators that presented arguments from the history wars for general audiences. Collins argues that both the "blak wave" and the "back track" created an alternative cultural sphere where past injustices are acknowledged. She says: "the films of the Blak Wave… cut across the history wars by turning an Indigenous gaze on the colonial past and its afterlife in the present" (Collins 232). This group of films sees Indigenous gazes relate the past and present whereas the white gaze represents specific history. In this article I examine a similar group of representations in television programs.History is not an innocent discourse. In western culture 'history' describes a certain way of looking at the past that was codified in the 19th century (Lloyd 375). It is however not the only way to look at the past, theorist Mark Day has described it as a type of relation with the past and argues that other understandings of the past such as popular memory and mythology are also available (Day). The codification of history in the 19th century involved an increased reliance on documentary evidence, a claim to objectivity, a focus on causation and, often though not always, a focus on national, political history. This sort of history became the academic understanding of history – which claims to be, if not objective, at least capable of disinterest; which bases its arguments on facts and which can establish its facts through reference to documentary records (Froeyman 219). Aileen Moreton-Robinson would call this "white patriarchal knowledge" that seeks to place the indigenous within its own type of knowledge production ("The White Man's Burden" 414). The western version of history tends to focus on causation and to present the past as a coherent narrative leading to the current point in time. This is not an undisputed conception of history in the western academy but it is common and often dominant.Post-colonialist analyses of history argue that western writing about non-western subjects is biased and forces non-westerners into categories used to oppress them (Anderson 44). These categories exist ahistorically and deny non-westerners the ability to act because if history cannot be perceived then it is difficult to see the future. That is to say, because non-western subjects in the past are not seen as historical actors, as people whose actions effected the future, then, in the present, they are unable to access to powerful arguments from history. Historians' usual methodology casts Indigenous people as the 'subjects' of history which is about them, not by them or for them (Tuhiwai Smith 7, 30-32, 144-5). Aboriginal people are characterised as prehistoric, ancient, timeless and dying (Birch 150). This way of thinking about Indigenous Australia removes all agency from Aboriginal actors and restoring agency has been a goal of Aboriginal activists and historians. Aileen Moreton Robinson discusses how Aboriginal resistance is embodied through "oral history (and) social memory," engaging with how Aboriginal actors represent themselves and are represented in relation to the past and historical settings is an important act ("Introduction" 127).Redfern Now and Cleverman were produced through the ABC's Indigenous Department and made by Indigenous filmmakers, whereas Glitch and The Secret River are from the ABC drama department and were made by white Australians. The different programs also have different generic backgrounds. Redfern Now and The Secret River are different forms of realist texts; social realism and historical realism. Cleverman and Glitch, however, are speculative fiction texts that can be argued to be in the mode of magical realism, they "denaturalise the real and naturalise the marvellous" they are also closely tied ideas of retelling colonial stories and "resignify(ing) colonial territories and pasts" (Siskind 834-5).Redfern Now was produced by Blackfella Films for the ABC. It was, with much fanfare, released as the first drama made for television, by Aboriginal people and about Aboriginal people (Blundell). The central concerns of the program are issues in the present, its plots and settings are entirely contemporary. In this way it circumvents the idea and standard representation of Indigenous Australians as ancient and timeless. It places the characters in the program very much in the present.However, one episode "Stand Up" does obliquely engage with historical concerns. In this episode a young boy, Joel Shields, gets a scholarship to an expensive private school. When he attends his first school assembly he does not sing the national anthem with the other students. This leads to a dispute with the school that forms the episode's plot. As punishment for not singing Joel is set an assignment to research the anthem, which he does and he finds the song off-putting – with the words 'boundless plains to share' particularly disconcerting. His father supports him saying "it's not our song" and compares Joel singing it to a "whitefella doing a corrobboree". The national anthem stands metaphorically for the white hegemony in Australia.The school itself is also a metaphor for hegemony. The camerawork lingers on the architecture which is intended to imply historical strength and imperviousness to challenge or change. The school stands for all the force of history white Australia can bring to bear, but in Australia, all architecture of this type is a lie, or at least an exaggeration – the school cannot be more than 200 years old and is probably much more recent.Many of the things the program says about history are conveyed in half sentences or single glances. Arguably this is because of its aesthetic mode – social realism – that prides itself on its mimicry of everyday life and in everyday life people are unlikely to set out arguments in organised dot-point form. At one point the English teacher quotes Orwell, "those who control the past control the future", which seems overt but it is stated off-screen as Joel walks into the room. This seeming aside is a statement about history and directly recalls central arguments of the history wars, which make strong political arguments about the effects of the past, and perceptions of the past, on the present and future. Despite its subtlety, this story takes place within the context of the history wars: it is about who controls the past. The subtlety of the discussion of history allows the film makers the freedom to comment on the content and effects of history and the history wars without appearing didactic. They discuss the how history has effected the present history without having to make explicit historical causes.The other recent television drama in the realist tradition is The Secret River. This was an adaptation of a novel by Kate Grenville. It deals with Aboriginal history from the perspective of white people, in this way it differs from Redfern Now which discusses the issues from the perspective of Aboriginal people. The plot concerns a man transported to Australia as a convict in the early 19th century. The man is later freed and, with his family, attempts to move to the Hawksbury river region. The land they try to settle is, of course, already in use by Aboriginal people. The show sets up the definitional conflict between the idea of settler and invader and suggests the difference between the two is a matter of perspective. Of the shows I am examining, it is the most direct in its representation of historical massacre and brutality. It represents what Felicity Collins described as a back-tracking text recapitulating the colonial past in the light of recovered knowledge. However, from an Indigenous perspective it is another settler tale implying Aboriginal people were wiped out at the time of colonisation (Godwin).The Secret River is told entirely from the perspective of the invaders. Even as it portrays their actions as wrong, it also suggests they were unavoidable or inevitable. Therefore it does what many western histories of Indigenous people do – it classifies and categorises. It sets limits on interpretation. It is also limited by its genre, as a straightforward historical drama and an adaptation, it can only tell its story in a certain way. The television series, like the book before it, prides itself on its 'accurate' rendition of an historical story. However, because it comes from such a very narrow perspective it falls into the trap of categorising histories that might have usefully been allowed to develop further.The program is based on a novel that attracted controversy of its own. It became part of ongoing historiographical debate about the relationship between fiction and history. The book's author Kate Grenville claimed to have written a kind of affectively accurate history that actual history can never convey because the emotions of the past are hidden from the present. The book was critiqued by historians including Inge Clendinnen, who argued that many of the claims made about its historical accuracy were largely overblown (Clendinnen). The book is not the same as the TV program, but the same limitations identified by Clendinnen are present in the television text. However, I would not agree with Clendinnen that formal history is any better. I argue that the limitation of both these mimetic genres can be escaped in speculative fiction.In Glitch, Yurana, a small town in rural Victoria becomes, for no apparent reason, the site of seven people rising from the dead. Each person is from a different historical period. None are Indigenous. They are not zombies but simply people who used to be dead. One of the first characters to appear in the series is an Aboriginal teenager, Beau, we see from his point of view the characters crawling from their graves. He becomes friendly with one of the risen characters, Patrick Fitzgerald, who had been the town's first mayor. At first Fitzgerald's story seems to be one of working class man made good in colonial Australia - a standard story of Australian myth and historiography. However, it emerges that Fitzgerald was in love with an Aboriginal woman called Kalinda and Beau is his descendant. Fitzgerald, once he becomes aware of how he has been remembered by history, decides to revise the history of the town – he wants to reclaim his property from his white descendants and give it to his Indigenous descendants. Over the course of the six episodes Fitzgerald moves from being represented as a violent, racist boor who had inexplicably become the town's mayor, to being a romantic whose racism was mostly a matter of vocabulary. Beau is important to the plot and he is a sympathetic character but he is not central and he is a child. Indigenous people in the past have no voice in this story – when flashbacks are shown they are silent, and in the present their voices are present but not privileged or central to the plot.The program demonstrates a profoundly metaphorical relationship with the past – the past has literally come to life bringing with it surprising buried histories. The program represents some dominant themes in Australian historiography – other formerly dead characters include a convict-turned-bush-ranger, a soldier who was at Gallipoli, two Italian migrants and a girl who died as a result of sexual violence – but it does not engage directly with Indigenous history. Indigenous people's stories are told only in relation to the stories of white people. The text's magical realism allows a less prescriptive relationship with the past than in The Secret River but it is still restricted in its point of view and allows only limited agency to Aboriginal actors.The text's magical realism allows for a thought-provoking representation of relationships with the past. The town of Yurana is represented as a place deeply committed to the representation and glorification of its past. Its main street contains statues of its white founders and war memorials, one of its main social institutions is the RSL, its library preserves relics of the past and its publican is a war history buff. All these indicate that the past is central to the town's identity. The risen dead however dispute and revise almost every aspect of this past. Even the history that is unmentioned in the town's apparent official discourse, such as the WWII internment camp and the history of crimes, is disputed by the different stories of the past that the risen dead have to tell. This indicates the uncertainty of the past, even when it seems literally set in stone it can still be revised. Nonetheless the history of Indigenous people is only revised in ways that re-engage with white history.Cleverman is a magical realist text profoundly based in allegory. The story concerns the emergence into a near future society of a group of people known as the "Hairies." It is never made clear where they came from or why but it seems they appeared recently and are unable to return. They are an allegory for refugees. Hairypeople are part of many Indigenous Australian stories, the show's creator, Ryan Griffen, stated that "there are different hairy stories throughout Australia and they differ in each country. You have some who are a tall, some are short, some are aggressive, some are friendly. We got to sort of pick which ones will fit for us and create the Hairies for our show" (Bizzaca).The Hairies are forced to live in an area called the Zone, which, prior to the arrival of the Hairy people, was a place where Aboriginal people lived. This place might be seen as a metaphor for Redfern but it is also an allegory for Australia's history of displacing Aboriginal people and moving and restricting them to missions and reserves. The Zone is becoming increasingly securitised and is also operating as a metaphor for Australia's immigration detention centres. The prison the Hairy characters, Djukura and Bunduu, are confined to is yet another metaphor, this time for both the over-representation of Aboriginal people in prison and the securitisation of immigration detention. These multiple allegorical movements place Australia's present refugee policies and historical treatment of Aboriginal people within the same lens. They also place the present, the past and the future within the same narrative space.Most of the cast is Aboriginal and much of the character interaction is between Aboriginal people and Hairies, with both groups played by Indigenous actors. The disadvantages suffered by Indigenous people are part of the story and clearly presented as affecting the behaviour of characters but within the story Aboriginal people are more advantaged than Hairies, as they have systems, relationships and structures that Hairy people lack. The fact that so much of the interaction in the story is between Indigenous people and Hairies is important: it can be seen to be an interaction between Aboriginal people and Aboriginal mythology or between Indigenous past and present. It demonstrates Aboriginal identities being created in relation to other Aboriginal identities and not in relation to white people, where in this narrative, Aboriginal people have an identity other than that allowed for in colonialist terms.Cleverman does not really engage with the history of white invasion. The character who speaks most about this part of Aboriginal history and whose stated understanding of himself is based on that identity is Waruu. But Waruu is also a villain whose self-identity is also presented as jealous and dishonest. However, despite only passing mentions of westernised history the show is deeply concerned with a relationship with the past. The program engages with Aboriginal traditions about the past that have nothing to do with white history. It presents a much longer view of history than that of white Australia. It engages with the Aboriginal tradition of the Cleverman - demonstrated in the character of Uncle Jimmy who passes a nulla nulla (knob-headed hardwood club), as a symbol of the past, to his nephew Koen and tells him he is the new Cleverman. Cleverman demonstrates a discussion of Australian history with the potential to ignore white people. It doesn't ignore them, it doesn't ignore the invasion but it presents the possibility that it could be ignored.There is a danger in this sort of representation of the past that Aboriginal people could be relegated to the type of ahistorical, metahistorical myths that comprise colonialist history's representation of Indigenous people (Birch). But Cleverman's magical realist, near future setting tends to undermine this. It grounds representation in history through text and metaphor and then expands the definition.The four programs have different relationships with the past but all of them engage with it. The programs are both restrained and freed by the genres they operate in. It is much easier to escape the bounds of formal history in the genre of magical realism and both Glitch and Cleverman do this but have significantly different ways of dealing with history. "Stand up" and The Secret River both operate within more formally realist structures. The Secret River gives us an emotional reading of the past and a very affective one. However, it cuts off avenues of interpretation by presenting a seemingly inevitable tragedy. Through use of metaphor and silence "Stand up" presents a much more productive relationship with the past – seeing it as an ongoing argument rather than a settled one. Glitch engages with the past as a topic that is not settled and that can therefore be changed whereas Cleverman expands our definition of past and understanding of the past through allegory.It is possible to draw further connections. Those stories created by Indigenous people do not engage with the specifics of traditional dominant Australian historiography. However, they work with the assumption that everyone already knows this historiography. They do not re-present the pain of the past, instead they deal with it in oblique terms with allegory. Whereas the programs made by non-Indigenous Australians are much more overt in their representation of the sins of the past, they overtly engage with the History Wars in specific historical arenas in which those wars were fought. The non-Indigenous shows align themselves with the revisionist view of history but they do so in a very different way than the Indigenous shows.ReferencesAnderson, Ian. "Introduction: The Aboriginal Critique of Colonial Knowing." Blacklines: Contemporary Critical Writing by Indigenous Australians. Ed. Michele Grossman. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2003.Birch, Tony. "'Nothing Has Changed': The Making and Unmaking of Koori Culture." Blacklines: Contemporary Critical Writing by Indigenous Australians. Ed. Michele Grossman. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2003.Bizzaca, Chris. "The World of Cleverman." Screen Australia 2016.Blundell, Graeme. "Redfern Now Delves into the Lives of Ordinary People." The Australian 26 Oct. 2013: News Review.Clark, Anna. History's Children: History Wars in the Classroom. Sydney: New South, 2008.Clendinnen, Inga. “The History Question: Who Owns the Past?” The Quarterly Essay. Melbourne: Black Inc., 2006.Collins, Felicity. "After Dispossession: Blackfella Films and the Politics of Radical Hope." The Routledge Companion to Cinema and Politics. Eds. Yannis Tzioumakis and Claire Molloy. New York: Routledge, 2016.Day, Mark. "Our Relations with the Past." Philosophia 36.4 (2008): 417-27.Ellis, John. Seeing Things: Television in the Age of Uncertainty. London: I.B. Tauris, 2000.Froeyman, Anton. "The Ideal of Objectivity and the Public Role of the Historian: Some Lessons from the Historikerstreit and the History Wars." Rethinking History 20.2 (2016): 217-34.Godwin, Carisssa Lee. "Shedding the 'Victim Narrative' for Tales of Magic, Myth and Superhero Pride." The Conversation 2016.Lloyd, Christopher. "Historiographic Schools." A Companion to the Philosophy of History and Historiography Ed. Tucker, Aviezer. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.Moreton-Robinson, Aileen. "Introduction: Resistance, Recovery and Revitalisation." Blacklines: Contemporary Critical Writing by Indigenous Australians. Ed. Michele Grossman. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2003.———. "The White Man's Burden." Australian Feminist Studies 26.70 (2011): 413-31.Reynolds, Henry. The Other Side of the Frontier: Aboriginal Resistance to the European Invasion of Australia. 2nd ed. Ringwood, Vic.: Penguin Books, 1995.Siskind, Mariano. "Magical Realism." The Cambridge History of Postcolonial Literature. Vol. 2. Ed. Ato Quayson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. 833-68.Tuhiwai Smith, Linda. Decolonizing Methodologies Research and Indigenous Peoples. 2nd ed. London: Zed Books, 2012.Windschuttle, Keith. The Fabrication of Aboriginal History. Paddington, NSW: Macleay Press, 2002.

Introduction: Brutal?The word “brutal” has associations with cruelty, inhumanity, and aggression. Within the field of architecture, however, the term “Brutalism” refers to a post-World War II Modernist style, deriving from the French phrase betón brut, which means raw concrete (Clement 18). Core traits of Brutalism include functionalist design, daring geometry, overbearing scale, and the blatant exposure of structural materials, chiefly concrete and steel (Meades 1).The emergence of Brutalism coincided with chronic housing shortages in European countries ravaged by World War II (Power 5) and government-sponsored slum clearance in the UK (Power 190; Baker). Brutalism’s promise to accommodate an astonishing number of civilians within a minimal area through high-rise configurations and elevated walkways was alluring to architects and city planners (High Rise Dreams). Concrete was the material of choice due to its affordability, durability, and versatility; it also allowed buildings to be erected quickly (Allen and Iano 622).The Brutalist style was used for cultural centres, such as the Perth Concert Hall in Western Australia, educational institutions such as the Yale School of Architecture, and government buildings such as the Secretariat Building in Chandigarh, India. However, as pioneering Brutalist architect Alison Smithson explained, the style achieved full expression by “thinking on a much bigger scale somehow than if you only got [sic] one house to do” (Smithson and Smithson, Conversation 40). Brutalism, therefore, lent itself to the design of large residential complexes. It was consequently used worldwide for public housing developments, that is, residences built by a government authority with the aim of providing affordable housing. Notable examples include the Western City Gate in Belgrade, Serbia, and Habitat 67 in Montreal, Canada.Brutalist architecture polarised opinion and continues to do so to this day. On the one hand, protected cultural heritage status has been awarded to some Brutalist buildings (Carter; Glancey) and the style remains extremely influential, for example in the recent award-winning work of architect Zaha Hadid (Niesewand). On the other hand, the public housing projects associated with Brutalism are widely perceived as failures (The Great British Housing Disaster). Many Brutalist objects currently at risk of demolition are social housing estates, such as the Smithsons’ Robin Hood Gardens in London, UK. Whether the blame for the demise of such housing developments lies with architects, inhabitants, or local government has been widely debated. In the UK and USA, local authorities had relocated families of predominantly lower socio-economic status into the newly completed developments, but were unable or unwilling to finance subsequent maintenance and security costs (Hanley 115; R. Carroll; The Pruitt-Igoe Myth). Consequently, the residents became fearful of criminal activity in staircases and corridors that lacked “defensible space” (Newman 9), which undermined a vision of “streets in the sky” (Moran 615).In spite of its later problems, Brutalism’s architects had intended to develop a style that expressed 1950s contemporary living in an authentic manner. To them, this meant exposing building materials in their “raw” state and creating an aesthetic for an age of science, machine mass production, and consumerism (Stadler 264; 267; Smithson and Smithson, But Today 44). Corporeal sensations did not feature in this “machine” aesthetic (Dalrymple). Exceptionally, acclaimed Brutalist architect Ernö Goldfinger discussed how “visual sensation,” “sound and touch with smell,” and “the physical touch of the walls of a narrow passage” contributed to “sensations of space” within architecture (Goldfinger 48). However, the effects of residing within Brutalist objects may not have quite conformed to predictions, since Goldfinger moved out of his Brutalist construction, Balfron Tower, after two months, to live in a terraced house (Hanley 112).An abstract perspective that favours theorisation over subjective experiences characterises discourse on Brutalist social housing developments to this day (Singh). There are limited data on the everyday lived experience of residents of Brutalist social housing estates, both then and now (for exceptions, see Hanley; The Pruitt-Igoe Myth; Cooper et al.).Yet, our bodily interaction with the objects around us shapes our lived experience. On a broader physical scale, this includes the structures within which we live and work. The importance of the interaction between architecture and embodied being is increasingly recognised. Today, architecture is described in corporeal terms—for example, as a “skin” that surrounds and protects its human inhabitants (Manan and Smith 37; Armstrong 77). Biological processes are also inspiring new architectural approaches, such as synthetic building materials with life-like biochemical properties (Armstrong 79), and structures that exhibit emergent behaviour in response to human presence, like a living system (Biloria 76).In this article, we employ an autoethnographic perspective to explore the corporeal effects of Brutalist buildings, thereby revealing a new dimension to the anthropological significance of these controversial structures. We trace how they shape the physicality of the bodies interacting within them. Our approach is one step towards considering the historically under-appreciated subjective, corporeal experience elicited in interaction with Brutalist objects.Method: An Autoethnographic ApproachAutoethnography is a form of self-narrative research that connects the researcher’s personal experience to wider cultural understandings (Ellis 31; Johnson). It can be analytical (Anderson 374) or emotionally evocative (Denzin 426).We investigated two Brutalist residential estates in London, UK:(i) The Barbican Estate: This was devised to redevelop London’s severely bombed post-WWII Cripplegate area, combining private residences for middle class professionals with an assortment of amenities including a concert hall, library, conservatory, and school. It was designed by architects Chamberlin, Powell, and Bon. Opened in 1982, the Estate polarised opinion on its aesthetic qualities but has enjoyed success with residents and visitors. The development now comprises extremely expensive housing (Brophy). It was Grade II-listed in 2001 (Glancey), indicating a status of architectural preservation that restricts alterations to significant buildings.(ii) Trellick Tower: This was built to replace dilapidated 19th-century housing in the North Kensington area. It was designed by Hungarian-born architect Ernő Goldfinger to be a social housing development and was completed in 1972. During the 1980s and 1990s, it became known as the “Tower of Terror” due to its high level of crime (Hanley 113). Nevertheless, Trellick Tower was granted Grade II listed status in 1998 (Carter), and subsequent improvements have increased its desirability as a residence (R. Carroll).We explored the grounds, communal spaces, and one dwelling within each structure, independently recording our corporeal impressions and sensations in detailed notes, which formed the basis of longhand journals written afterwards. Our analysis was developed through co-constructed autoethnographic reflection (emerald and Carpenter 748).For reasons of space, one full journal entry is presented for each Brutalist structure, with an excerpt from each remaining journal presented in the subsequent analysis. To identify quotations from our journals, we use the codes R- and N- to refer to RB’s and NC’s journals, respectively; we use -B and -T to refer to the Barbican Estate and Trellick Tower, respectively.The Barbican Estate: Autoethnographic JournalAn intricate concrete world emerges almost without warning from the throng of glass office blocks and commercial buildings that make up the City of London's Square Mile. The Barbican Estate comprises a multitude of low-rise buildings, a glass conservatory, and three enormous high-rise towers. Each modular building component is finished in the same coarse concrete with burnished brick underfoot, whilst the entire structure is elevated above ground level by enormous concrete stilts. Plants hang from residential balconies over glimmering pools in a manner evocative of concrete Hanging Gardens of Babylon.Figure 1. Barbican Estate Figure 2. Cromwell Tower from below, Barbican Estate. Figure 3: The stairwell, Cromwell Tower, Barbican Estate. Figure 4. Lift button pods, Cromwell Tower, Barbican Estate.R’s journalMy first footsteps upon the Barbican Estate are elevated two storeys above the street below, and already an eerie calm settles on me. The noise of traffic and the bustle of pedestrians have seemingly been left far behind, and a path of polished brown brick has replaced the paving slabs of the city's pavement. I am made more aware of the sound of my shoes upon the ground as I take each step through the serenity.Running my hands along the walkway's concrete sides as we proceed further into the estate I feel its coarseness, and look up to imagine the same sensation touching the uppermost balcony of the towers. As we travel, the cold nature and relentless employ of concrete takes over and quickly becomes the norm.Our route takes us through the Barbican's central Arts building and into the Conservatory, a space full of plant-life and water features. The noise of rushing water comes as a shock, and I'm reminded just how hauntingly peaceful the atmosphere of the outside estate has been. As we leave the conservatory, the hush returns and we follow another walkway, this time allowing a balcony-like view over the edge of the estate. I'm quickly absorbed by a sensation I can liken only to peering down at the ground from a concrete cloud as we observe the pedestrians and traffic below.Turning back, we follow the walkways and begin our approach to Cromwell Tower, a jagged structure scraping the sky ahead of us and growing menacingly larger with every step. The estate has up till now seemed devoid of wind, but even so a cold begins to prickle my neck and I increase my speed toward the door.A high-ceilinged foyer greets us as we enter and continue to the lifts. As we push the button and wait, I am suddenly aware that carpet has replaced bricks beneath my feet. A homely sensation spreads, my breathing slows, and for a brief moment I begin to relax.We travel at heart-racing speed upwards to the 32nd floor to observe the view from the Tower's fire escape stairwell. A brief glance over the stair's railing as we enter reveals over 30 storeys of stair casing in a hard-edged, triangular configuration. My mind reels, I take a second glance and fail once again to achieve focus on the speck of ground at the bottom far below. After appreciating the eastward view from the adjacent window that encompasses almost the entirety of Central London, we make our way to a 23rd floor apartment.Entering the dwelling, we explore from room to room before reaching the balcony of the apartment's main living space. Looking sheepishly from the ledge, nothing short of a genuine concrete fortress stretches out beneath us in all directions. The spirit and commotion of London as I know it seems yet more distant as we gaze at the now miniaturized buildings. An impression of self-satisfied confidence dawns on me. The fortress where we stand offers security, elevation, sanctuary and I'm furnished with the power to view London's chaos at such a distance that it's almost silent.As we leave the apartment, I am shadowed by the same inherent air of tranquillity, pressing yet another futuristic lift access button, plummeting silently back towards the ground, and padding across the foyer's soft carpet to pursue our exit route through the estate's sky-suspended walkways, back to the bustle of regular London civilization.Trellick Tower: Autoethnographic JournalThe concrete majesty of Trellick Tower is visible from Westbourne Park, the nearest Tube station. The Tower dominates the skyline, soaring above its neighbouring estate, cafes, and shops. As one nears the Tower, the south face becomes visible, revealing the suspended corridors that join the service tower to the main body of flats. Light of all shades and colours pours from its tightly stacked dwellings, which stretch up into the sky. Figure 5. Trellick Tower, South face. Figure 6. Balcony in a 27th-floor flat, Trellick Tower.N’s journalOutside the tower, I sense danger and experience a heightened sense of awareness. A thorny frame of metal poles holds up the tower’s facade, each pole poised as if to slip down and impale me as I enter the building.At first, the tower is too big for comprehension; the scale is unnatural, gigantic. I feel small and quite squashable in comparison. Swathes of unmarked concrete surround the tower, walls that are just too high to see over. Who or what are they hiding? I feel uncertain about what is around me.It takes some time to reach the 27th floor, even though the lift only stops on every 3rd floor. I feel the forces of acceleration exert their pressure on me as we rise. The lift is very quiet.Looking through the windows on the 27th-floor walkway that connects the lift tower to the main building, I realise how high up I am. I can see fog. The city moves and modulates beneath me. It is so far away, and I can’t reach it. I’m suspended, isolated, cut off in the air, as if floating in space.The buildings underneath appear tiny in comparison to me, but I know I’m tiny compared to this building. It’s a dichotomy, an internal tension, and feels quite unreal.The sound of the wind in the corridors is a constant whine.In the flat, the large kitchen window above the sink opens directly onto the narrow, low-ceilinged corridor, on the other side of which, through a second window, I again see London far beneath. People pass by here to reach their front doors, moving so close to the kitchen window that you could touch them while you’re washing up, if it weren’t for the glass. Eye contact is possible with a neighbour, or a stranger. I am close to that which I’m normally separated from, but at the same time I’m far from what I could normally access.On the balcony, I have a strong sensation of vertigo. We are so high up that we cannot be seen by the city and we cannot see others. I feel physically cut off from the world and realise that I’m dependent on the lift or endlessly spiralling stairs to reach it again.Materials: sharp edges, rough concrete, is abrasive to my skin, not warm or welcoming. Sharp little stones are embedded in some places. I mind not to brush close against them.Behind the tower is a mysterious dark maze of sharp turns that I can’t see around, and dark, narrow walkways that confine me to straight movements on sloping ramps.“Relentless Employ of Concrete:” Body versus Stone and HeightThe “relentless employ of concrete” (R-B) in the Barbican Estate and Trellick Tower determined our physical interactions with these Brutalist objects. Our attention was first directed towards texture: rough, abrasive, sharp, frictive. Raw concrete’s potential to damage skin, should one fall or brush too hard against it, made our bodies vulnerable. Simultaneously, the ubiquitous grey colour and the constant cold anaesthetised our senses.As we continued to explore, the constant presence of concrete, metal gratings, wire, and reinforced glass affected our real and imagined corporeal potentialities. Bodies are powerless against these materials, such that, in these buildings, you can only go where you are allowed to go by design, and there are no other options.Conversely, the strength of concrete also has a corporeal manifestation through a sense of increased physical security. To R, standing within the “concrete fortress” of the Barbican Estate, the object offered “security, elevation, sanctuary,” and even “power” (R-B).The heights of the Barbican’s towers (123 metres) and Trellick Tower (93 metres) were physically overwhelming when first encountered. We both felt that these menacing, jagged towers dominated our bodies.Excerpt from R’s journal (Trellick Tower)Gaining access to the apartment, we begin to explore from room to room. As we proceed through to the main living area we spot the balcony and I am suddenly aware that, in a short space of time, I had abandoned the knowledge that some 26 floors lay below me. My balance is again shaken and I dig my heels into the laminate flooring, as if to achieve some imaginary extra purchase.What are the consequences of extreme height on the body? Certainly, there is the possibility of a lethal fall and those with vertigo or who fear heights would feel uncomfortable. We discovered that height also affects physical instantiation in many other ways, both empowering and destabilising.Distance from ground-level bustle contributed to a profound silence and sense of calm. Areas of intermediate height, such as elevated communal walkways, enhanced our sensory abilities by granting the advantage of observation from above.Extreme heights, however, limited our ability to sense the outside world, placing objects beyond our range of visual focus, and setting up a “bizarre segregation” (R-T) between our physical presence and that of the rest of the world. Height also limited potentialities of movement: no longer self-sufficient, we depended on a working lift to regain access to the ground and the rest of the city. In the lift itself, our bodies passively endured a cycle of opposing forces as we plummeted up or down numerous storeys in mere seconds.At both locations, N noticed how extreme height altered her relative body size: for example, “London looks really small. I have become huge compared to the tiny city” (N-B). As such, the building’s lift could be likened to a cake or potion from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. This illustrates how the heuristics that we use to discern visual perspective and object size, which are determined by the environment in which we live (Segall et al.), can be undermined by the unusual scales and distances found in Brutalist structures.Excerpt from N’s journal (Barbican Estate)Warning: These buildings give you AFTER-EFFECTS. On the way home, the size of other buildings seems tiny, perspectives feel strange; all the scales seem to have been re-scaled. I had to become re-used to the sensation of travelling on public trains, after travelling in the tower lifts.We both experienced perceptual after-effects from the disproportional perspectives of Brutalist spaces. Brutalist structures thus have the power to affect physical sensations even when the body is no longer in direct interaction with them!“Challenge to Privacy:” Intersubjective Ideals in Brutalist DesignAs embodied beings, our corporeal manifestations are the primary transducers of our interactions with other people, who in turn contribute to our own body schema construction (Joas). Architects of Brutalist habitats aimed to create residential utopias, but we found that the impact of their designs on intersubjective corporeality were often incoherent and contradictory. Brutalist structures positioned us at two extremes in relation to the bodies of others, forcing either an uncomfortable intersection of personal space or, conversely, excessive separation.The confined spaces of the lifts, and ubiquitous narrow, low-ceilinged corridors produced uncomfortable overlaps in the personal space of the individuals present. We were fascinated by the design of the flat in Trellick Tower, where the large kitchen window opened out directly onto the narrow 27th-floor corridor, as described in N’s journal. This enforced a physical “challenge to privacy” (R-T), although the original aim may have been to promote a sense of community in the “streets in the sky” (Moran 615). The inter-slotting of hundreds of flats in Trellick Tower led to “a multitude of different cooking aromas from neighbouring flats” (R-T) and hence a direct sensing of the closeness of other people’s corporeal activities, such as eating.By contrast, enormous heights and scales constantly placed other people out of sight, out of hearing, and out of reach. Sharp-angled walkways and blind alleys rendered other bodies invisible even when they were near. In the Barbican Estate, huge concrete columns, behind which one could hide, instilled a sense of unease.We also considered the intersubjective interaction between the Brutalist architect-designer and the inhabitant. The elements of futuristic design—such as the “spaceship”-like pods for lift buttons in Cromwell Tower (N-B)—reconstruct the inhabitant’s physicality as alien relative to the Brutalist building, and by extension, to the city that commissioned it.ReflectionsThe strength of the autoethnographic approach is also its limitation (Chang 54); it is an individual’s subjective perspective, and as such we cannot experience or represent the full range of corporeal effects of Brutalist designs. Corporeal experience is informed by myriad factors, including age, body size, and ability or disability. Since we only visited these structures, rather than lived in them, we could have experienced heightened sensations that would become normalised through familiarity over time. Class dynamics, including previous residences and, importantly, the amount of choice that one has over where one lives, would also affect this experience. For a full perspective, further data on the everyday lived experiences of residents from a range of different backgrounds are necessary.R’s reflectionDespite researching Brutalist architecture for years, I was unprepared for the true corporeal experience of exploring these buildings. Reading back through my journals, I'm struck by an evident conflict between stylistic admiration and physical uneasiness. I feel I have gained a sympathetic perspective on the notion of residing in the structures day-to-day.Nevertheless, analysing Brutalist objects through a corporeal perspective helped to further our understanding of the experience of living within them in a way that abstract thought could never have done. Our reflections also emphasise the tension between the physical and the psychological, whereby corporeal struggle intertwines with an abstract, aesthetic admiration of the Brutalist objects.N’s reflectionIt was a wonderful experience to explore these extraordinary buildings with an inward focus on my own physical sensations and an outward focus on my body’s interaction with others. On re-reading my journals, I was surprised by the negativity that pervaded my descriptions. How does physical discomfort and alienation translate into cognitive pleasure, or delight?ConclusionBrutalist objects shape corporeality in fundamental and sometimes contradictory ways. The range of visual and somatosensory experiences is narrowed by the ubiquitous use of raw concrete and metal. Materials that damage skin combine with lethal heights to emphasise corporeal vulnerability. The body’s movements and sensations of the external world are alternately limited or extended by extreme heights and scales, which also dominate the human frame and undermine normal heuristics of perception. Simultaneously, the structures endow a sense of physical stability, security, and even power. By positioning multiple corporealities in extremes of overlap or segregation, Brutalist objects constitute a unique challenge to both physical privacy and intersubjective potentiality.Recognising these effects on embodied being enhances our current understanding of the impact of Brutalist residences on corporeal sensation. This can inform the future design of residential estates. Our autoethnographic findings are also in line with the suggestion that Brutalist structures can be “appreciated as challenging, enlivening environments” exactly because they demand “physical and perceptual exertion” (Sroat). 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I love memory. It reminds me of who I am and how to get home, whether there's bread in the freezer and if I've already seen a movie. It's less helpful on whether I've already met someone and utterly useless in reminding me if I owe money. Overall, though, I'd rather have it than not. Psychologists and philosophers tell us that memory is one of the ways in which we maintain the integrity of the self. I've never met anyone who's lost his memory, but we've all seen movies in which it happens. First, you lose your memory, then you're accused of a crime you can't remember committing. I forget how it turns out but I did once see a documentary about a man who'd lost his memory. It was horrible. It was driving him insane. He could remember his wife, but couldn't remember when he'd last seen her. He thought it was years ago although it had only been 5 minutes. Every time she entered the room, he traversed paroxysms of agony as though seeing her again after an eternity of waiting. The experience was overwhelming for both of them. Of course, psychoanalysts are unequivocal about the importance of memory: repressed memories are the very stuff of the unconscious and analysis helps us remember. When memories are repressed, bad things happen. As Breuer and Freud stated in 1893, "hysterics suffer mainly from reminiscences". History has also long been concerned to discover a true memory, or at least an official one. And history has become one of the main cultural battlegrounds over the right way to remember. But lately, memory has become big business. Entire industries are devoted to selling it back to us. Not private memories, but the likely memories of a group. For example, my newsagent carries at least 3 "nostalgia" magazines, replete with loving photographs of old toys, reprints of old ads, interviews with old personalities, and so on. Fortunately, they're all just a bit too old and the absence of my personal nostalgia reassures me that I'm not quite as decrepit as Generation Xers claim. Nonetheless, amongst my 200-odd TV channels, there is one devoted exclusively to old shows, TVLand. It broadcasts nothing later than 1981 and, though its policies are clearly guided by contractual availability and cost, specialises in TV of the mid-1960s. Now that is getting dangerously close to home. And I confess that, after 30 years, re-viewing episodes of Julia or Petticoat Junction or The Mod Squad ("one's white, one's black, one's blond") is an experience both compelling and embarrassing. And again, this summer, as for the past 15 years, movie screens were awash in retro-films. Not films with old-fashioned plots or deliberately nostalgic styles -- such as Raiders of the Lost Ark -- but films based on cultural artefacts of the near past: The Avengers, Lost in Space, Sergeant Bilko, McHale's Navy, another Batman, The Mask of Zorro, etc. Indeed, now that we've lived through roughly six Star Treks, Mission Impossible, The Flintstones, The Twilight Zone, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Jetsons, and in view of the fact that even now -- even as I write these very lines -- locations are being scouted for Gilligan's Island: The Movie, it seems appropriate to ask if there is a single TV show of the 1960s which will NOT become a major Hollywood movie? That's not all. I have access to approximately 10 "golden oldies" music stations, some specialising solely in "PowerHits of the '70s" or "Yesterday's Country" or "Hits of the Big Band Era". In fact, I think Big Band is making a comeback on the pop charts. Maybe everything old is new again. On the other hand, memory has also become highly political. Much more that I ever remembered. All over the world, governments and institutions are rushing to remember the wrongs of the past and issue sincere apologies. President Clinton apologised to Japanese Americans, some Australian state and local governments to Aborigines, Canada to the displaced Inuit, Tony Blair to the Irish, Swiss banks to the victims of Nazi gold. The return of the repressed is apparently highly therapeutic and certainly very virtuous. Strangely, though, the institutional process of memory recovery is happening at precisely the time that the same recovered memory theory is under attack in the courts. After having been a potent argument in the 1980s, especially in cases involving a sexual component, recovered memory is now widely discredited. Indeed, even movies-of-the-week which at one time preached recovered memory as unassailable truth now regularly use it as the cover of false accusations and gross miscarriages of justice. Even the Canadian Minister of Justice is under pressure to review the cases of all persons jailed as a result of its use. It would seem that after having been private for so many years, memory has gone public. It's a political tool, a legal argument, a business. The opposite of hysteria: we suffer from too much memory. Which leads me to my problem. I can't remember Princess Diana. This is no doubt because I avoided all mention of her when she was alive. And when she died, I was away. Not far away but conceptually away. Away from the media. I didn't follow the news till days later, when it was all over and TV had moved on to something else. Her exit, of course, was rather nasty. Not the sort of thing I'd want to witness, but certainly the sort of thing I'd like to know about. And it didn't exactly happen away from the public eye. There was, it is said, a crush of paparazzi in hot pursuit. And there are allegedly tons of photographs. So how come we haven't seen any? How have the authorities managed to control all those pictures? Supremely concerned with her image in life, Diana is fortunate that others are concerned with it in death. At least the absence of photographs allows us to preserve an unblemished memory of Diana, beautiful, beneficent, almost a people's princess. It does seem though that her memory, like her fame, is largely a by-product of media exposure. If you're in it, everyone knows about you. You're everywhere, inescapable. Your smiling face beams down on millions, your every thought reported. And it's not just the excessive, tabloid press, the fake news programmes, and the tawdry scandal sheets that indulge in this oversaturation -- although they do indulge quite a bit -- but all media. Obviously, competitive pressures are to blame. And probably also a cultivated appetite for the sordid and the scandalous. The upside of so much attention, of course, is that, once you're gone, there will be lots of images and sound bites to remember you by. These will be recycled again and again and again. Today's fragments of time are tomorrow's memories. Consequently, if you must be a public figure, try to have a good exit. Consider perhaps James Dean's advice to "live fast, die young, and leave a good looking corpse." Especially a good looking corpse. Of course, if you're out of it -- out of the media system, that is -- then, you're just out of it. Nobody will remember you anyway. This is why Elvis will never die and John Kennedy will never stop dying. Except perhaps for his heavy Las Vegas phase, virtually all of the images of the King show him as magnetic, powerful, and exciting. Colonel Parker was careful about that. Elvis constantly exudes energy, an all-too-palpable physicality, forever re-energised and re-distributed by the film images of him. And the posters, and the sound of his voice, and the myth of his wildness. Fortunately, though, Elvis had the good grace to expire privately, beyond the public eye. In this, he resembled Marilyn, Rock Hudson, and Walt Disney. Of that event, he left no record. Indeed, the absence of such a record has allowed the remaining images to fuel a new myth. Endlessly re-circulated in a media sub-system, the images prove that Elvis lives! Consequently, people -- usually those first contacted by aliens -- keep spotting him at 7-Elevens, supermarket checkouts, and isolated gas stations. Apparently, he just wanted to live life normally. The fame had become too intrusive. And who could begrudge him that? So he faked his death, left no trace, and wandered off into the wilderness. To this extent, Elvis shares the fate of Hitler and the Romanovs whose deaths were deliberately obscured. As a result, Hitler lives on, at times on a desert island, sometimes in a bunker deep beneath the earth. And wasn't that Alexis, the tsarevitch? And over there, Anastasia? Aren't they having lunch with Amelia Earhardt? Kennedy, though, left a bad image, the queasy head shot. Too public, too visible, too shocking. It wasn't what James Dean meant. And that one image has absorbed all the others. This is ironic because Kennedy was the first president to look and behave like an actor whereas it would be years before an actor could look and behave like the president. Kennedy loved the camera and the camera, as they say, loved him. He had a permanent staff photographer who generated thousands of shots. He embraced television as no president had before, dominating the televised debates, holding live press conferences, opening the White House to TV tours. He invited Robert Drew to film his 1959 nomination campaign in Primary, giving him, as is always said in these cases, "unprecedented access". But the only pictures we remember come from Dallas. Gloria Steinem called it "the day the future died". Then, if we think really hard, we remember the funeral. But we can hardly remember anything else. Pictures of Jack campaigning, playing with the kids, receiving Marilyn's birthday greetings, are almost surprising. They're so fresh, as though we'd never seen them before. Kennedy should have died like Elvis, he would have lived longer in the imagination. As it is, he only ever dies and the very publicness of his death seems to have authorised its endless restaging. Has any film ever been more publicly scrutinised, examined, and re-created than the Zapruder film? The incident has littered the culture with such stock phrases as 'lone gunman' and 'grassy knoll'. It's also the birthplace of every crazy conspiracy theory. And everyone from the Warren Commission to Oliver Stone and Jerry Seinfeld has used the phrase "Back, and to the left". It's not surprising that our memory of public events should be bound up with images of those events. Most of us, most of the time, have no other access to them. This knowledge, combined with the pervasiveness of the media system, has led clever marketers of all sorts, to attempt to stage what Daniel Boorstin in 1961 called "pseudo-events". Events which exist for the benefit of the camera, with no real substance of their own. Their purpose is precisely to create an image, a feeling, a mood. Of course, every propagandist of any skill understood these facts long before Boorstin. How many photographs were doctored on Stalin's orders? How often was the mole on Mao's chin repainted? How often was Lenin's face itself repainted with embalming fluid? And didn't Adolf Hitler surround himself with the most exquisite filmmakers, photographers, and image-makers available? You just can't dictate without a firm grasp of your image. And that's the other side of modern times. Increasingly, we all have a firm grasp of image. We are no longer the media dupes which moralists frequently presume. The media have made us all rather sophisticated in the ways of the media. Everyone understands that politicians manage their images and stage events. Everyone knows that advertising is only creatively truthful. No one believes that what happens in a film really happens. We all realise that most of what's seen on TV is spin doctoring. We're hardened. And this is no doubt why the creamy sincerity of the eager tears which now attend public disclosures, the touchy-feely goodness of anyone who can "feel our pain" are so much in demand. No matter how fake, how contrived, how manipulative, they at least look like the real thing. At one time, popular culture merely suggested shock and violence. It did not show them directly. The Kennedy assassination marked the end of that time as people turned away from the screen in horror, asking "Did they have to show us that?" We're now in a time when popular culture suggests nothing and shows everything, in as much detail as possible. This is the moment of Diana's death and we turn to our screens demanding to see more, shouting "We have a right to know!" But a slippage may be happening. We know so much about media operations -- or believe that we do -- that the media may be losing their ability to define events and construct memory. This appears to be one of the lessons of the Diana coverage: the paparazzi in particular, and the media in general, were at fault. Public anger was directed not at her driver, her companions or her lifestyle, but at the media. That the behaviour of the paparazzi remains to be fully elucidated, and that Diana had the weight of accumulated prestige and exposure on her side, make meaningful commentary more difficult, but there is a clear sense in which the public sided with perceived sincerity and genuineness and against perceived exploitation. Clearly, these matters are always open to revision, but the anger directed against the media in this affair spoke of pent-up rage, of long nursed grudges, of a generalised judgment that the media have done more harm than good. Something similar is happening in the Clinton-Lewinsky affair. The US media are apparently obsessed with this event and greatly agitated by the necessity of further coverage. Public opinion, however, has indicated just as firmly that it doesn't care and wants the whole thing to go away. There's a split between the definitional power of the media and public opinion, a drifting apart that wasn't supposed to happen. Media commentators of both the left and the right, both those who believe in media effects and those who decry the concentration of ownership, have long agreed on one thing: the media have too much power to tell us what to think. And yet, in this case, it's not happening. Indeed, 10 years from now, what will we remember? That Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky had an affair or that the media were very agitated about it? The way in which media images are linked to popular memory may be changing. We are less concerned with whether the media got the event right than with how they approached it at all. Already, concern over the Gulf War centres as much on the manner of coverage as on the legitimacy of the war's objectives. And the old complaint that the media cover elections as strategic horse races, thereby ignoring substantive issues, presumes the naivety of the audience. Everyone can tell exactly what the media are doing. So what will we remember? How will we feel in 40 years examining old footage of today's newscasts? Memory fades and images are about emotion. Will we experience the diffuse grimness of the WWII veteran watching Saving Private Ryan, identifying less with specific acts than with the general feeling of the moment? Probably. But perhaps we'll also carry with us a second layer of meaning, an equally diffuse recognition that the moment was constructed. I was watching a documentary last night about Hitler's last days. I'm sure everyone's seen it or something like it. The very fact I can be sure of this is the measure of the media's ability to shape popular memory. Hitler, visibly ailing, emerges from his bunker to acknowledge his last line of defence, a string of soldiers who are really only children. He stops as though to speak to one and pats the boy on the cheek. It's a profoundly creepy moment. One feels discomfort and distaste at being so close, one is acutely aware of the distance between the image's intention and the reality of which we have knowledge. Then, suddenly and imperceptibly, the camera shifts angles and follows Hitler down the line of soldiers, a standard travelling shot. It's invisible because that's the way military reviews are always shown. It works because we want a good view. It's compelling because it draws us into the scene. It looks so real and is plainly read that way, as historical actuality footage. But it's also plainly constructed. And that's increasingly what we see nowadays. We see the way in which images intend to connect to emotions. Maybe it's the future of all memory, to be disjointed and creepy. To acknowledge simultaneously the reality of the event and its fakeness. Rather like the performance of Hollywood actors or US presidents or publicly proffered sentiment. Clearly, we won't be dealing with the return of the repressed as we'll remember everything. We'll just have too much memory. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Paul Attallah. "Too Much Memory." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 1.2 (1998). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9808/memory.php>. Chicago style: Paul Attallah, "Too Much Memory," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 1, no. 2 (1998), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9808/memory.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Paul Attallah. (1998) Too much memory. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 1(2). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9808/memory.php> ([your date of access]).