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Slide Notes

What exactly does this mean? Explain the question in this way: Can the gaps tell as good a story as the information given can? Do we have the ability to make judgements about history/an event through the lack of information? Is this judgement just as accurate/valid as the situation in which we have all the details? For example...
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how can the absence of historical knowledge be just as telling as its presence?

Published on Nov 05, 2015

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PRESENTATION OUTLINE

how can the absence of historical knowledge be just as telling as its presence?

Zoie Konneker, Stephanie Diaz, Keresa Richards
What exactly does this mean? Explain the question in this way: Can the gaps tell as good a story as the information given can? Do we have the ability to make judgements about history/an event through the lack of information? Is this judgement just as accurate/valid as the situation in which we have all the details? For example...
Photo by *Muhammad*

samizdat & the missing 20 million

The absence is just as telling as the presence - Stalin’s regime, Samizdat (missing people, red flag) - what does the missing records/millions of disappearances tell us? What judgements can we make?
i.Covering up certain events served a purpose for them- equally to deny the situation but all scare tactics - could we include other examples? Such as the Japanese cover up of Tiananmen Square (one of the more mundane/trite examples of this). Perhaps ask the audience if they also have examples of this to share.
ii. Is history even reliable in the first place if we have all these contrasting issues/POVS? This is a segway to a question we later bring up about different points of views.
On the other hand, does the absence perhaps tell us that there is another side to the story? Do we know for sure that any of the missing people even died? Does this lead to other conclusions being drawn? Mass abduction by aliens? The information is just too ambiguous.
Photo by Paul_Blakeman

absence vs. presence

The Stonewall Riots

The presence of knowledge is more telling than the absence– Whitewashing of American Textbooks as well as Stonewall (which can be the segway) - Stephanie please explain Stonewall more because you know more about this! Also We can talk about the upcoming movie and show pictures from it?
Photo by EJP Photo

Marsha P. Johnson

Who started it all?

...or some white guy?

who's writing our history?

When we look at the textbooks, we have to look at the primary sources that the writers used, who the writers were, what their knower profile was, etc. (& how did they know all of this information - knower profile: emotional attachment to the past that they are describing [we lost the war etc.], memories and authority- what they have been told and what they remember from the events.)
b. The fact that crucial information is left out (and edited) shows how the movement was started, who was in control, and how important it is that we talk about representation/truth and what the history of the movement really is
On the other hand...

Everyone please get in a circle!

  • Person 1 starts the chain by reading the story...
  • The next person does the same thing, and so on and so forth.
  • You cannot repeat yourself, and you only get one try. So after you say your first sentence, you cannot go back and revise it. Also, please try to whisper.
Photo by kevin dooley

How do imagination and memory play a role in filling in the gaps of history?

Explanation for the game: How memory and imagination play a role in filling in the gaps of oral/written/all history - Also introduces the counterclaim that the absence of information is not telling and assumption causes confusion and inaccuracies (limitation of history) (remember the subKQ: What is the role of imagination in filling the gaps of history? )
i. Personal examples of stories that were changed throughout history because of lost details. Include time for sharing?
Making essays/stories relevant to a detail we know
Zoie can share her story about her parents almost getting divorced at their wedding - the way my mom told, how I understood it, then passed it to someone else, then circulated back to mom incorrectly
Photo by Truthout.org

Do new points of view have the ability to change history... or just explain it?

Although many German Nazi soldiers knew exactly where they were sending persecuted groups in the Holocaust, some did not. The soldiers were the bad guys of the war, but later on when they were given a new perspective and shown exactly what was happening in Concentration camps, and their perspective and personal history was changed. On the other hand, this explained the actions they took during the war. ( http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/06/11/photo_german_soldiers_react... )
Ferguson (and other current shootings issues) - As we attain different points of view in these stories, history begins to change. In this instance, for many people, different perspectives change what happened- the word “explain” isn’t necessarily accurate in this instance.
Female authors overlooked in top list, now looked at - As different perspectives and points of views are added into what we see as historical literature, history begins to be explained in different detail, and the details of events change too.
Photo by backonthebus

the nazi's view of the holocaust

so what does it all mean?

In conclusion...
Photo by brian hefele