14 Jun 2021
Call for Papers: Culture Wars - Statues, Flags, Streets and Squares by WPCC
Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture (WPCC) has announced a call for papers in which it welcomes submissions that cover the role of the media in all forms (from public service broadcasting to social media, feature films to advertising) exploring contested representations of symbols and their remediation. Flags, emblems, monuments, street names, statues are some of the means by which nations and states promote themselves, both to their own citizens and to the world at large; the public face of our imagined communities. But as they seek to unify, such symbols have often been the occasion for contestation, disagreement, violence even. Empires, systems, regimes rise and fall. Societies change, and with such change comes a reassessment of societies’ symbolic life, as…
14 Jun 2021
'Teaching Literature in Times of Crisis', Turning Students into Historical Actors - an Interview with Sofia Ahlberg
“Whatever overwhelming change we might be going through needs to be part of the classroom. We used to think of the classroom as a space that was somehow removed from the world: I think that’s a losing game.” Let’s make it clear, Sofia Ahlberg’s teaching practices were not disrupted by the pandemic. Before teaching at Uppsala University, she had worked for over twenty years in Australia, where online teaching is very common. As a result of this, she did not start writing this book because of the pandemic, on the contrary, she had already started a couple of months before the pandemic hit. “I noticed that my teacher training students were responding to their education in a different way from…
9 Jun 2021
Exhibition Review: “Nazipropaganda voor de jeugd, 1933-1945” - Nationaal Onderwijsmuseum
The Nationaal Onderwijsmuseum (Dutch National Education Museum), located in Dordrecht, organized a compelling exhibition on Nazi propaganda targeted to the youth, set to last until the 31st of October 2021. The “Nazipropaganda voor de jeugd, 1933-1945” exhibition gives an insight into the daily lives of children in Nazi Germany, warning the visitors of the dangers of subtle propaganda. For pupils and history educators alike, it offers multiple points of reflection during and beyond the exhibition. The visitor is confronted with visually appealing historical pieces of propaganda that nevertheless evoke a sense of discomfort. The context of the exhibition In 2012, the Dutch journalist and professor Gerard Groeneveld (b. 1956) suggested that the Onderwijsmuseum should organize an exhibition featuring his…
