The Unpublished Papers of Frederick Jackson Turner

Students in the United States learn about the history of enslavement throughout their educational experiences. Yet our understanding of what students from different racial, ethnic, and gender backgrounds know about this difficult period in American history is limited. In this study, we use mixed methods to examine written narratives of students’ understanding of the history of enslavement in the United States. As a whole, narratives about enslavement were most commonly associated with its end (the Civil War and abolition) and with its violence (general brutality). Differences were found by race and ethnicity as well as by gender. Understanding how students narrate what they know can help educational researchers and teachers better serve diverse educational needs by designing curricula that relate to students’ multiple social identities.     

The Enactment and Appraisal of Authenticity in a Skid Row Therapeutic Community

This article describes the enactment and appraisal of authenticity in a skid row therapeutic community for the treatment of substance problems. Commitment to recovery was a basic requirement of participation in treatment, but it was widely assumed among program participants that many of their peers merely feigned commitment to recovery in order to remain sheltered. As a result, the enactment and appraisal of authentic commitment to recovery became a central organizing feature of therapeutic practice in the program. I first describe how the program's demand that participants engage in authentic self-disclosure bore on the treatment experienced by homeless residents of skid row. I then outline local techniques employed by program members for enacting and appraising authentic commitment to recovery through progressive stages of the treatment process. I conclude with a discussion of how this analysis deepens our understanding of the enactment and appraisal of authenticity throughout social life and a critique of Hochschild's influential constructionist formulation of the relationship between emotion management and personal authenticity.     

On Coloniality,Racialized Forgetting and the “Group Effect”: Interrogating Ethnic Studies' Meta-Narrative of Race

Against the backdrop of collaborative antiracist struggle, this paper considers knowledge about race constructed by contemporary ethnic studies. Examining narratives of self, history and purpose produced by ethnic studies, it argues that these narratives highlight processes of racialization at the level of received ethnic groups while eliding cross-group processes. It argues that the hyper-visibility of racialization at the level of distinct groups, coupled with the invisibility of cross-group processes, creates a “group effect” which has significant implications for alliance-building and solidarity. It ends with a discussion of some possibilities for countering the group effect.     

Doing Authenticity: The Gendered Construction of Authentic Leadership

Authenticity has been a focus of much leadership research in recent years. Despite this interest, there has been a dearth of studies that explore the role of gender in the social construction of authenticity. To date, authentic leadership theories have tended to be either gender neutral or, where gender has been considered, it is argued that women as ‘outsiders’ are less likely to be accepted by their followers as authentic leaders. In this study we examine the media representations of the CEOs — one male, one female — of two major Australian retail banks during the global financial crisis. Our approach enables us to show that authenticity is something leaders ‘do’ rather than something they ‘have’ or ‘are’, and that being constructed as authentic depends on the leader performing authenticity in line with gender norms deemed appropriate for the socially constructed context in which they are expected to lead.     

Stolen looks,people unbound: picturing contraband people during the civil war

This article evaluates the images of contraband slaves published in Harper’s Weekly and Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper during the Civil War. As these publications competed for business, they established and reiterated numerous claims regarding the authenticity of their images and news reports. Illustrators initially depicted African Americans using repurposed racial stereotypes that had existed for generations. Blackface minstrelsy, scientific racism, and racialized printed materials depicting African Americans are used as context to understand the images in the two illustrated newspapers. The visual representation of African Americans dramatically changed as emancipation unfolded and black Union military service expanded.     

Politicians,celebrities and social media: a case of informalisation?

With electoral politics no longer organised by social class, politicians increasingly seek to relate to a broad spectrum of citizens and part of their relatability is conjured through more casual, informal performances aimed at cultivating authenticity. The various platforms of social media promote forms of authentic communication by blurring the public/private divide, creating ‘spontaneous’ and instant access to ‘real life’. This article seeks to investigate the informalisation thesis by applying it to data from young people aged 16–21 years in Australia, the UK and the USA, asked about the way politicians and celebrities use social media. Findings reveal respondents’ desire for more authentic and accessible politicians, but this was in direct tension with traditional views and expectations of politicians needing to be professional, informed and worthy of respect. Informalisation amongst politicians is evident and welcomed by young citizens but persistent traditional views means it also threatens their credibility.     

Standing their ground: Southern white hegemonic defense of place through camouflaged narrative continuity

Public relations research typically conceptualizes the practice as organization-centric by emphasizing strategies, tactics, and tools used to achieve objectives that advance organizational interests. Often less organizational but essential to understanding community self-governance, grassroots actors use public relations to defend, advance, or challenge ideographs such as freedom, democracy or environmental quality. The ideograph analyzed in this case is the postbellum narrative continuity of “Southern Heritage not Hate” which served as camouflage for redeeming the Lost Cause, the argument that the South did not lose the Civil War. This essay normatively identifies, interprets and judges public relations strategies southern advocates used to “stand their ground” by defining place as a cultural issue and source of relational agency. This grassroots public relations campaign sought to defeat the post-Civil War Reconstruction narrative continuity that fostered the societal agency of African Americans; postbellum activists re-imposed a narrative favorable to Southern white male hegemony. To stand their ground, “Southern” voices used military textuality, focused on CSA General Robert E. Lee, as narrative continuity during the U.S. Civil War (1861–1865), Reconstruction (1865–1876), and Jim Crow (1877–1954). The term “camouflage” is used to explore this narrative and critically illuminate how text can define place so as to make it seem different than it is. Camouflage encodes messages differently to different decoders; it conceals as it reveals. Such strategies are typically more emergent contextually than the result of a grand plan. Through grassroots activism by groups such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy and Sons of Confederate Veterans, what once was overt became covert regarding national military culture.     

What We Should Want with History: A Meditation on Cultural Studies,Methodology, and Politics

This essay evaluates two of the central problems for Cultural Studies as a field: how to generate methodologically rigorous scholarship that is also politically useful; and how to productively use models and theory in the practice of history. Beginning with conversations about the place of (disciplinary) history in Cultural Studies, this essay explores one of the legendary debates in the field: between E. P. Thompson, Perry Anderson, and (at least in theory) Louis Althusser. Though the debate centered on the degree to which the English Civil War could be termed a “bourgeois revolution,” Thompson's fundamental critique concerned Anderson's use of abstract models in history. However, the distinctions Thompson makes are not nearly as clear‐cut in practice – particularly when we look at Ellen Meiksins Wood's attempt to intervene on Thompson's side in her 1991 book The Pristine Culture of Capitlism. Wood's understanding of capitalism relies on an abstract conceptualization of that mode of produciton that is ironically similar to that of Althusser and Anderson. Arguing this as an illustratration of the importance of explicit models and methods, the essay develops Richard Johnson's account of Marx's use of abstraction and theory in his own historical scholarship. Marx's framework is then deployed to reconsider the English Civil War in realation to a key contemporary concern: the origins of copyright and intellectual property. It ends by advocating for what I term anarchic abstraction: a conscious, rigorous, politically‐committed, and dialectical attention to the order and determinations of history with no strict hierarchy given in advance.     

Gender please, without the gender police: rethinking pain in archetypal narratives of butch, transgender, and FTM masculinity

Why is it that many of the often-cited narratives about butch, FTM, and/or transgender masculinity happen to be fictions that highlight suffering as a de facto rite of passage for the butch, FTM, or transgendered protagonist? This essay attempts to answer that question, first by outlining the "coherentist assumptions" of lesbian feminism and the forms of gender-policing that cast butch, FTM, and transgendered subjectivities as "false consciousness." It then analyzes the practice of anchoring butch, FTM, and/or transgender identity claims in pain-filled narratives such as "The Well of Loneliness," "Stone Butch Blues," and "Boys Don't Cry." While these narratives do important cultural work-exposing the violence heaped upon butches, FTMs, and transgendered guys-it may be time to imagine alternative narratives that are less invested in suffering as a barometer of masculine authenticity.     

Colonialism as a continuing project: The portuguese experience

The end of the American Civil War began a lengthy period of Southern inferiority vis-?-vis the North-a period so lengthy that some Southerners argue that it lasts to this day. Not until Woodrow Wilson's election in 1913 did the United States have a Southern-born president after the Civil War. Southerners sought novel means to assert some degree of superiority over their Northern neighbors. College football became a primary means of reasserting a Southern sense of identity and superiority. In inter-regional games in the 1920s and 1930s, the martial spirit of college football allowed Southerners to reassert their sense of honor, which had been maligned since defeat in the Civil War. As Bertram Wyatt-Brown (1982) has shown, the concept of honor defined Southern males' outlook; secession from the Union and civil war occurred when Southerners perceived Abraham Lincoln's election to the Presidency as the culmination of anti-slavery assaults upon their honor. Such racial definitions of Southern identity became problematic as the civil rights movement gained impetus in the 1950s and 1960s. To remain competitive with teams from other regions, Southern football teams began to recruit black players; The University of Alabama fielded its first black football player in 1971. However, transition from segregation to inclusion has not been easy. Symbols of white Southern pride highlight lingering racial difficulties, as a 1997 controversy over use of the "Rebels" nickname and fans' waving of the Confederate battle flag at The University of Mississippi illustrates. Controversies like this raise troubling questions about Southern identity, namely "Whose South is it?" and "Can expressions of Southern nationalist feelings possibly escape racial implications?"     

Combating Racial Inequity Through Local Historical Analysis: A Community-Informed Social Studies Unit

One way for teachers to use engaging and relevant social studies curriculum is by delving into local history to help students understand the influence that community activists have had on national policies and events. In this article, we provide teachers an approach to incorporate topics of racial inequity in their classrooms by showcasing a dynamic social studies unit that reveals the role of local history and community activists during the national Civil Rights Movement. As an example within the unit, we present a local, historical narrative that describes the activism of three local Black teachers in Palm Beach County, Florida, whose efforts in the 1940s significantly impacted the foundations of what was to become the Civil Rights Movement. We then present a multicultural social studies unit developed from this local history and guidelines for teachers to enact their own locally informed social studies unit. This content will help teachers expose students to the rich history of their community’s past by sharing ways that teachers can incorporate culturally relevant instruction of racially charged topics into the classroom.     

Between martyrology and historiography: Elias Tcherikower and the making of a pogrom historian

This article examines the dialectical relationship between martyrology and historiography, religion and secularism in the works of the Russian‐Jewish historian and communal activist, Elias Tcherikower. Tcherikower, although a disciple of Shimon Dubnov, who maintained a commitment to a positive portrayal of Jewish life in the Diaspora, championed what Salo Baron called “the lachrymose conception of Jewish history,” the view that understood Jewish history as consisting primarily of a series of persecutions. From World War One onward, Tcherikower romanticised Jewish martyrs and argued that religious and cultural renaissance followed on the heels of persecution and martyrdom. This preoccupation with the relationship between Jewish martyrdom and cultural creativity inspired Tcherikower first in his role as an historian of the pogroms of the Russian Civil War and then as a leader of YIVO. Until the eve of World War Two, Tcherikower believed that modern Yiddish scholarship served the same transcendent purpose as had Torah study in the past and that Jewish historiography could inspire the Jewish people in the same manner as had pre‐modern martyrology. Tcherikower’s work thus provides a fascinating case study of the persistence of traditional religious conceptions in twentieth‐century East European nationalist Jewish historiography.     

‘Keeping it real’: tryhards,clones and youth discourses of authentic identity from Hollywood to high school

Authenticity is a key cultural rubric for youth in the contemporary West. Texts aimed at young people frequently direct viewers to ‘keep it real’, to ‘be themselves’ and to avoid ‘putting up a front’. ‘Being yourself’ is portrayed as a moral achievement, yet also as something subjects should ‘naturally’ be. This article examines how students at an urban high school in Aotearoa/New Zealand conceive of being ‘real’, exploring what they deem to be authentic identity and its expressions. This article considers the students' use of both constructionist ‘surface’ and essentialist ‘depth’ discourses of identity. It examines how the students conceive of authentic identity as both stable and fluid, anchored in bodily experience and produced at the moment of recognition by others. It argues that through the production of the figures of the ‘clone’ and the ‘tryhard’, the students resolve the tension created by their positioning of identity as inseparable from the gaze of others and their view that to live for others is inauthentic. The students distance themselves from the behaviour of these Others, who they conceive as presenting themselves inauthentically. The students' conceptualisation of authenticity and use of the figures of the clone and the tryhard provides impetus for the positioning of authentic identity as performative, produced through its enactment.     

All the way from … authenticity and distance in world music production

World music and the narratives it produces are at the very centre of a formerly transnational production and consumption process. However, the shortened distance between the sites of production and consumption of this good, brought on by migration and greater participation, has created a dilemma for the UK-based artists who perform it: how to maintain authenticity without the added value of ‘distance’. Therefore, the aim of this article is to examine the ways in which musicians and other participants attempt to overcome this problem and in doing so (re)-construct particular aspects of their identity. Rather than being just another critique on authenticity, this article uses distance as an organizing concept in understanding the challenges facing world music production in the UK.     

The Dilemma of "Authentic Self" Ideology in Contemporary Japan

This paper examines dilemmas inherent in the pursuit of the modern ideology of "authentic self", which first emerged in the 1960s and is now widespread in contemporary cultures. The ideology is exemplified, in a religious scene, as "self-transformative" religions wherein seekers seek to transform themselves spiritually in order to realize their authentic, or "sacred" selves. Through an examination of Aum Shinrikyo, which began as a typical "self-transformative" religion but later transformed into a destructive cult, I will explain the intrinsic moral imperatives of the ideology of "authenticity". This study of Aum explores the introverted lifestyle and extreme desocialization, which resulted in obsession with the central guru, being legitimated by the ideology. This search for "authenticity" resulted in the members cutting themselves off from the reality of the world. The final analysis suggests that possible consequences of the endless pursuit of the "authentic self" are a "vacuum" self and a loss of empathy with other people. The ontological conditions created by this bring about potential destructiveness, either internal or external.     

Conversion to Islam: Narratives of Awakening,Continuity, and Return

Previous research utilizing conversion narratives to understand how and why people convert has been troubled by the “accuracy” of the accounts. This study of Muslim converts in the United States sidesteps this problem by turning the focus away from the causes, motives, and drivers of conversion and placing it instead on the form or structure of their conversion narratives. More specifically, it foregrounds the subjective process of making sense of one's conversion story through the employment of formulaic narrative structures. Findings suggest that when accounting for their conversion to Islam, these respondents employed three different narrative structures: stories of awakening, continuity, and return. Although these stories vary in meaningful ways, each provides a different perspective on how conversion to Islam can be conceptualized and expressed narratively. The discussion centers on the similarities and differences between these stories in order to more fully articulate and distinguish their underlying premises. I conclude by considering how each of these stories are used by converts to convey the authenticity of their Muslim identities.     

“Grandpa was fatally administered by the Bulgarians1”: Family narratives,national identity,and state history

Grandparents’ World War Two (WWII) stories are emotionally powerful, intimate accounts of firsthand experience that can shape grandchildren's ideas of state history, nation, and identity. This effect, I argue, manifests most intensively in critical times when national history and identity are threatened. Such was the case when former Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev relayed a controversial version of Macedonian national history and identity in a TV interview. In reaction, many Macedonian citizens shared fragments of their grandparents’ WWII stories. This study analyzes several more detailed versions of these grandparents’ narratives in order to ascertain the formative power of family WWII stories over one's personal sense of national identity. To do so, it will examine the positioning practices of the present-day narrators, the grandchildren of WWII participants, focusing on the manners in which they interactively reproduce their own sense of national identity vis-a-vis-these stories.     

War against War!: pictures as means of social struggle in post-First World War Europe

Germany 1925: Ernst Friedrich, a young anarchist and anti-militarist activist, publishes one of the first independent books composed only of photographs and captions: War against War! His stated goal is to employ classified pictures of the First World War (WWI) to unmask nationalistic propaganda and expose the false narratives of militaristic rhetoric. Published on the eve of the golden age of photojournalism, this book is the first grassroots attempt to use photography as a means of social and cultural change on a large scale. Through in-depth analysis of some key pictures, I will investigate the relation this series of images establishes with the beholder and the role it plays in shaping his visual experience. Emphasis will be placed on 24 close-ups of disfigured faces which constitute the last set of this visually driven narrative. As I will seek to demonstrate, the complex array of pictures created by Ernst Friedrich testifies to a fundamental yet still embryonic change in the social perception of photography in the post-WWI Europe.     

Narrative Psychiatry and Family Therapy: Promoting Resilience and Collaboration with Persons with Intense Mental and Emotional Experiences at Risk of Causing Violence

Narrative psychiatry identifies meaning‐making as a primal force in our lives and guides family therapists and psychiatrists in cultivating narratives of resilience that support safety and wellbeing when working with families in which a member is dealing with intense mental and emotional experiences and may be at risk of causing violence. These contexts are fraught with implications about power, control, identity, and ethical responsibilities of care for those consulting with us and for the wider community. Offering benefits distinct from pathology‐focused psychiatric practice, narrative psychiatry applies the practices of narrative therapy in psychiatric contexts, focusing on strengths and meaning and honouring how values, intentions, and commitments compel and constrain our actions. Illustrated by case conversations, this paper describes five key practices of narrative psychiatry, including emotional attunement, understanding the person without the problem, externalising problems, creating narratives of resilience, and collaborative treatment planning. It shows how narrative psychiatry facilitates risk reduction through helping a person identify values and narratives that support non‐violence and strengthening abilities, relationships and resources that help them stay true to this commitment. Practical ways that family therapists and psychiatrists can use conversations about resources, including medicines, to deconstruct damaging discourses and generate narratives of resilience are described. Discussion is offered about how narrative psychiatry can support clinicians in ethically negotiating clinical dilemmas in which the preferences of the person or family are in conflict with the clinician's ethical and legal duty to protect life.