Category: 22.1 Life and Narrative

Abstract The Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) resulted in a great many cultural expressions, which gained much attention of scholars. Up to now, however, political prints about the war have not been analysed extensively. Nevertheless, they are an interesting topic for literary studies. The prints that were published in De Amsterdammer by the Dutch artist Johan… Continue reading Jeroen Dera | De lachspiegels van Transvaal: Braakensieks prenten over de Boerenoorlog in De Amsterdammer (Masterclass)

Abstract This article focuses on the issue of imposed silence and its influence on collective memory. It attempts to contribute to current discussions on how memory can be preserved through the use of cultural media. The case study of the Katyn massacre, a mass slaughter committed in 1943 on Polish officers and intellectuals by the… Continue reading Aleksandra Rychlicka | Remembering What Should Be Forgotten: The Case of the Katyn Massacre (Masterclass)

Abstract With L’Amour, la fantasia, the Algerian author Assia Djebar made her first attempt at writing her autobiography, only to realize that the very language she uses – that of the former colonizer – imposes not just personal but also collective memories on her that ask for recollection: in order to write the self, she… Continue reading Isis Butôt | L’Amour, la fantasia: Writing the Self through the Lost Collective (Masterclass)

Abstract This article approaches the theme of ‘life and narrative’ from the perspective of cultural memory studies and argues for a less individualized approach to the analysis of narrative self-fashioning. It uses the case of Bobby Sands, who died on hunger strike in Northern Ireland in 1981, as an example of the complex interactions between… Continue reading Ann Rigney | Embodied and Remembered Lives

Abstract This article takes as its starting point the prominent use of Stephen Greenblatts concept of ‘selffashioning’ in the recent work of a number of Dutch Early Modernists. Our text’s main aim is to point out the notion’s dual conceptual background. On be traced back in Greenblatts work to a number of prototypical humanist reflections… Continue reading Jürgen Pieters & Julie Rogiest | Self-fashioning in de vroegmoderne literatuuren cultuurgeschiedenis: genese en ontwikkeling van een concept

Abstract This article discusses three Dutch fictional biographies about the painter Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669): Rembrandt (1931) by Theun de Vries, Hendrickje Stoffels: Roman uit het leven van Rembrandt (1936) by Rovan Oven and Licht en schaduw: De roman van Rembrandt’s leven (1942) by Ch. Huygens. A comparative analysis of these novels’ dominant modes of… Continue reading Machteld de Caluwé & Koen Rymenants | Leven en sterven van Rembrandt: De fictionele biografie tussen geschiedenis en psychologie

Abstract Stories on people’s lifes play an ever growing part in postmodernism. This article discusses the way narrativity relates three fields: the autobiographical, the historical, and the psychological. Creative processes create accounts of happenings in which narrative structures are introduced en a story takes form. More interesting, however, are the moments in which narrativity is… Continue reading Solange Leibovici | Over narrativiteit en fictionalisering in de (auto)biografische ruimte