Lessons from the Past?

: Memory,
Narrativity and Subjectivity 1st Edition
Bernhard Forchtner (Auth.)
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://textbookfull.com/product/lessons-from-the-past-memory-narrativity-and-subject
ivity-1st-edition-bernhard-forchtner-auth/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

The Rule Of Violence Subjectivity Memory And Government

In Syria 1st Edition Salwa Ismail

https://textbookfull.com/product/the-rule-of-violence-
subjectivity-memory-and-government-in-syria-1st-edition-salwa-
ismail/

Biota Grow 2C gather 2C cook Loucas

https://textbookfull.com/product/biota-grow-2c-gather-2c-cook-
loucas/

Border Lampedusa: Subjectivity, Visibility and Memory

in Stories of Sea and Land 1st Edition Gabriele Proglio

https://textbookfull.com/product/border-lampedusa-subjectivity-
visibility-and-memory-in-stories-of-sea-and-land-1st-edition-
gabriele-proglio/

Redrawing the Historical Past History Memory and

Multiethnic Graphic Novels Martha J. Cutter

https://textbookfull.com/product/redrawing-the-historical-past-
history-memory-and-multiethnic-graphic-novels-martha-j-cutter/
Limits of Computation From a Programming Perspective
1st Edition Bernhard Reus (Auth.)

https://textbookfull.com/product/limits-of-computation-from-a-
programming-perspective-1st-edition-bernhard-reus-auth/

Dementia and the Advance Directive Lessons from the

Bedside 1st Edition Marcia Sokolowski (Auth.)

https://textbookfull.com/product/dementia-and-the-advance-
directive-lessons-from-the-bedside-1st-edition-marcia-sokolowski-
auth/

Demography of Russia: From the Past to the Present 1st

Edition Tatiana Karabchuk

https://textbookfull.com/product/demography-of-russia-from-the-
past-to-the-present-1st-edition-tatiana-karabchuk/

The Seventeen Traditions: Lessons from an American

Childhood 1st Edition Nader

https://textbookfull.com/product/the-seventeen-traditions-
lessons-from-an-american-childhood-1st-edition-nader/

The Palgrave Handbook of Neo-Victorianism 1st Edition

Bernhard Esslinger

https://textbookfull.com/product/the-palgrave-handbook-of-neo-
victorianism-1st-edition-bernhard-esslinger/
Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies

Series Editor
Andrew Hoskins
University of Glasgow
Glasgow, United Kingdom

John Sutton
Department of Cognitive Science
Macquarie University
Macquarie, Australia
The nascent field of Memory Studies emerges from contemporary trends
that include a shift from concern with historical knowledge of events to
that of memory, from ‘what we know’ to ‘how we remember it’; changes
in generational memory; the rapid advance of technologies of memory;
panics over declining powers of memory, which mirror our fascination
with the possibilities of memory enhancement; and the development of
trauma narratives in reshaping the past. These factors have contributed to
an intensification of public discourses on our past over the last thirty years.
Technological, political, interpersonal, social and cultural shifts affect
what, how and why people and societies remember and forget. This
groundbreaking new series tackles questions such as: What is ‘memory’
under these conditions? What are its prospects, and also the prospects for
its interdisciplinary and systematic study? What are the conceptual, theo-
retical and methodological tools for its investigation and illumination?

More information about this series at

http://www.springer.com/series/14682
 Bernhard Forchtner

Lessons from the

Past?
Memory, Narrativity and Subjectivity
Bernhard Forchtner
School of Media,
Communication and Sociology
University of Leicester
Leicester, United Kingdom

Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies

ISBN 978-1-137-48321-8 ISBN 978-1-137-48322-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-48322-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016948577

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

The author(s) has/have asserted their right(s) to be identified as the author(s) of this work in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to
the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.

Cover illustration: © Steve Tucker / Alamy Stock Photo

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
The registered company address is: The Campus, 4 Crinan Street, London, N1 9XW,
United Kingdom
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book has been a long time coming. Its seeds having been planted
while doing my PhD at Lancaster University between 2007 and 2011, it
has grown into something very different since then: from a focus on the
working of one particular argumentation scheme (in the debate over the
war against Iraq in 2003) into a concern for a much broader typology of
claims to know and to have learnt from the past. At the same time, this
descriptive interest has never been disconnected from more prescriptive
concerns over the meaning and possibility of moral, collective learning
processes. That these interests have finally come to some sort of result, I
owe a debt to, first and foremost, my supervisors Andrew Sayer and Ruth
Wodak. In particular, I want to thank them for their scholarly advice and,
more importantly, their broader support. Furthermore, my wholehearted
thanks for financial support during my PhD go to the Austrian Academy of
Sciences and the Economic and Social Research Council.
Following my time in Lancaster, I was lucky enough to work with
Klaus Eder as a post-doc at the Humboldt-University of Berlin. My
thanks go to him for discussing ideas about collective learning with me
and commenting on Chap. 7 of this book. Marcos Engelken-Jorge also
commented on this chapter and I hope I have not distorted his com-
ments too much—thanks a lot for them. Thanks go also to Lars Breuer,
Irit Dekel, Alexander Dworzak, Paul Sarazin, Christian Schneickert,
Bernhard Weicht and Manuel Winkelkotte for valuable comments and
their friendship. In particular, however, I want to thank two colleagues
and friends, Raimundo Frei and Christoffer Kølvraa, who have both
read and commented extensively on the following pages as well as

v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

provided invaluable support along the way. This book would not be the
same without them.
Finally, I want to thank my parents for their support; clearly, I would
never have come so far without them. My biggest acknowledgement goes,
however, to my wife Simone and my children Max, Ruth and Casper—not
only because I have been reading, writing or away too often but much
more because all this would feel utterly pointless without them.
 CONTENTS

1 Lessons from the Past? Introducing the Rhetorics of

Learning 1

2 On Plot Grammars and Modes of Emplotment 17

3 The Rhetoric of Judging 41

4 The Rhetoric of Failing 77

5 The Rhetoric of Penitence 111

6 The Rhetoric of Judge-Penitence 151

7 Narrating Lessons and Collective Learning Processes 187

8 Concluding Remarks 215

Index 227

vii
 LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 1.1 Rhetorics of learning 4

Fig. 2.1 A reconstruction of the workings of the topos of history
as a teacher 20
Fig. 2.2 Greimas’ actantial model 25
Fig. 3.1 The plot grammar underlying the rhetoric of judging 58
Fig. 4.1 The plot grammar underlying the rhetoric of failing 93
Fig. 5.1 The plot grammar underlying the rhetoric of penitence 129
Fig. 6.1 The plot grammar underlying the rhetoric of judge-penitence 172
Fig. 8.1 Rhetorics of learning 216

ix
 CHAPTER 1

Lessons from the Past? Introducing

the Rhetorics of Learning

Once upon a time, the idea of progress, the promise of utopian projects
and bright futures, guided (Western) actors. It might still do so—but this
tale or, to put it more sociologically, the classical narrative of modernity,
has arguably exhausted itself to an ever greater extent. Instead of ‘pro-
gressive narratives’ (Alexander, 2002), it has been ‘present pasts’
(Huyssen, 2000) which have increasingly been put on centre stage, a
development illustrated by the memory wave building up since the
1980s. Against this background, looking back has become more impor-
tant for the formation of collective and individual subjectivities. This is not
to say that it has ever been irrelevant; but is has become a less legitimate
option not to remember, especially concerning suffering and ‘trauma’. In
fact, such memory work oriented towards recognition of past wrong-
doings, for example concerning the Holocaust and Latin American dicta-
torships, has been increasingly future-oriented, aiming for preventing
evil.1
As this development has sparked calls for and processes of ‘coming to
terms with’ (Vergangenheitsbewältigung) and securing past wrongdoings
(Vergangenheitsbewahrung, see Assmann, 2010, p. 105), it is deeply inter-
woven with implicit and explicit claims to know the lessons and, some-
times even, claims to have successfully learnt from what happened. Such
claims, which offer orientation in a complex world by insisting on the
exemplary nature of past events, draw on the classic topos of historia
magistra vitae (in the following simply ‘history as a teacher’) which

© The Author(s) 2016 1

B. Forchtner, Lessons from the Past?, Palgrave Macmillan Memory
Studies, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-48322-5_1
2 LESSONS FROM THE PAST?

Cicero (1959, II, pp. 9, 36) famously summarised by saying that history
‘sheds light upon reality, gives life to recollection and guidance to human
existence’. While Koselleck (2004) spoke of the decline of this under-
standing of time in historiography due to the rise of Neuzeit and the
emergence of progress, the memory boom of recent decades has offered a
backdrop against which claims to know the lessons become a promising
rhetorical option in public and private debates, be it in discourses on
military interventions or the banking crisis of the early twenty-first
century.
However, while numerous speeches, pamphlets and policy proposals
have claimed to know the lessons from past wrongdoing—texts which
have fed the field of memory studies—there still appears to be no
systematic framework for understanding these claims, no taxonomy of
claims for knowing. That is, while many studies have included analyses
of claims for knowing (see, for example, works published in this book
series), there is a lack of studies concerning abstract, conceptual ques-
tions (and how these questions are connected) along the following
lines: ‘From what past wrongdoing are we supposed to learn? (Is
wrongdoing attributed to the in-group or an out-group?)’ ‘To what
present-day wrongdoing are lessons from this past linked? (Is wrong-
doing attributed to the in-group or an out-group?)’ And, finally, ‘What
subject positions emerge through these narrative connections of past,
present and future?’ After all, as memories of the past are selective
products of contemporary meaning making, they are deeply interwo-
ven with projects of identity building and legitimation (Halbwachs,
1992). Memories and subjectivities are thus linked in complex ways
and pasts, presents and futures imagined and mobilised in narrating
lessons, in narratives about what to learn from the past, contribute to
fix subjects in certain positionalities of meaning. The ambition of this
book is, therefore, to provide an abstract model of types of claims for
knowing the past and its lessons, and the consequences these claims
have for identities—a model conceptualising what I call rhetorics of
learning.
Before elaborating on these rhetorics, let me indicate the relevance of
these questions by turning briefly to two quotes taken from the
European Parliament, sitting on 29 January 2003, which debated a
possible attack on Iraq (EP, 2003). In this (as well as the wider) debate
over an attack by the USA under President George W. Bush against the
Iraq of Saddam Hussein who allegedly harboured weapons of mass
 1 LESSONS FROM THE PAST? INTRODUCING THE RHETORICS OF LEARNING 3

destruction, both supporters as well as opponents of military action

frequently claimed to know the lessons from the past—though these
were very different ones.

Example (E) 1/1:

Political torment plagued Europe in the last century. The ideologically
‘legitimised’ obsession with power on the part of dictators created millions
of victims. They certainly did not spare their own citizens. Is the parallel with
the loathsome regime of Saddam Hussein not obvious here? [ . . . ] Recent
European history should show government leaders their responsibility in
this regard.

E1/2:
America should listen to old Europe, this wise old lady, covered in blood
and tears [ . . . ] Let America listen to her! This old lady would say: choose
security through international law, bow to the decisions of the UN, agree to
another UN meeting, which we must demand, for another resolution.

On the one hand, these two examples—the first quote is taken from a
speech by Bastiaan Belder, Member of the European Parliament (MEP)
and of the Eurosceptic Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities,
while the second comment was made by Bernard Poignant, a MEP from
the social democratic Group of the Party of European Socialists—illustrate
conflicting uses of the topos of history as a teacher, one favouring military
intervention, the other making the case against it. On the other hand,
however, I am not primarily interested in the particular content, the
political position put forward in specific claims but rather in diverging
structures underlying narrating lessons. Looking at these two examples,
the former appears to draw lessons from a wrong committed by others
(‘dictators’ driven by extremist ideologies) and directs them towards
others who do wrong in the present (those ‘government leaders’
who have not yet realised their ‘responsibility’). In contrast, the latter
narrates an in-group (‘old Europe’; at one point in his speech, Poignant
explicitly speaks of ‘our Europe’) which has failed and is polluted by past
wrongdoings while calling on a present-day other to learn from it
(‘America should listen to old Europe’).2 Whatever readers make of
these particular performances, they indicate a structural difference in
how knowing the lessons from the past can be claimed. It is exactly this
kind of difference which will occupy me for the rest of this book. Instead
4 LESSONS FROM THE PAST?

Present-day wrongdoing
as their wrongdoing

The rhetoric of The rhetoric of

judge-penitence judging

Past wrongdoing Past wrongdoing

as our wrongdoing as their wrongdoing

The rhetoric of The rhetoric of

penitence failing

Present-day wrongdoing
as our wrongdoing

Fig. 1.1 Rhetorics of learning

of analysing particular case studies, I introduce a typology of four struc-

turally different types of claims to know the lessons from the past by
conceptualising four rhetorics of learning (Fig. 1.1). This will attempt to
clarify how their respective uses of the topos of history as a teacher affect
subjects and their identities, events and their significance, objects and
their mobilisation, and processes and their outcomes, in distinct ways.
I use the term rhetoric in a broad sense, referring to ‘the possible means of
persuasion’ (Aristotle, 1982, I, pp. 2, 1), while dismissing its widespread,
negative connotations. I am, however, not interested in whether these
attempts to persuade are consciously applied or not (see Bruner, 2011,
pp. 404f.), but rather in the ways in which they mobilise cultural structures
in their attempts to offer objects of desire and subject positions. Rhetorics of
learning are thus persuasive uses of language—here, in particular, due to the
narrative form through which experiences and demarcations are created and
actors and actions become symbolically polluted or purified (Douglas, 2002).
But what does this mean in relation to rhetorics of learning? Looking at
Fig. 1.1, and starting in the top-right corner, the rhetoric of judging
 1 LESSONS FROM THE PAST? INTRODUCING THE RHETORICS OF LEARNING 5

narrativises past wrongdoing as committed by an out-group; a background

against which the subject of this rhetoric claims to know the lessons and
constructs a present-day out-group as being not ‘in the know’. The
rhetoric of failing also narrates past wrongdoing as committed by an out-
group. This past is, however, self-critically directed towards the present-
day in-group, as the claim to know gives rise to a warning that, this time,
the in-group might fall. The rhetoric of penitence differs to the extent that
the in-group’s past is narrated as wrong. This admission prepares the
ground for claims to know the lessons which are self-critically directed
towards the present-day in-group, thus facilitating a continuous process of
more or less severe self-questioning. Finally, via the rhetoric of judge-
penitence, past in-group wrongdoing is narrated as having been success-
fully ‘worked through’. The confessing subject has allegedly learnt the
lessons, is reformed—while the out-group supposedly has not and is thus
in need of our guidance.
Let me add to this that, first, while I will mostly talk about collective
subjects, about nations and political groups, of us versus them, the four
rhetorics are understood to be both relevant for the construction of
collective subjects as well as individual ones. Second and equally impor-
tant, while I will usually speak of past and present wrongdoing, the present
I refer to includes our or their potential future wrongdoing, i.e. warnings
and predictions. Third and most importantly, the four rhetorics are con-
ceived as types. In consequence, the numerous examples employed in the
following will illustrate a wide range of possible realisations, some closer to
‘the ideal’ of the respective rhetoric, while others will be borderline cases.
Looking at Fig. 1.1, a speech might, broadly speaking, realise a rhetoric of
penitence, though it might include either unambiguous acknowledge-
ments of our past and present-day failures (being thus located in the
bottom left and constituting a rather ‘pure’ example) or hedging and
mitigation which would place it close to the centre.
Despite such differences, all four rhetorics of learning deal with wrong
pasts in the present; and in arranging events, they are presented to the
audience in narrative form. The latter has long been recognised as a form
that is not culture-specific, but shared by humanity across time and space;
a form through which meaning is created by selectively arranging events in
a causal sequence. This implies that lessons are not ‘out there’, waiting to
be found if only one would look hard enough. Not only is the past far too
complex to serve as a blueprint for the present and future (Gumbrecht,
1997, p. 411)—at least if going beyond commonplaces such as
6 LESSONS FROM THE PAST?

‘preventing evil is important’. But, more fundamentally, memory always

comes in narrative form and is meaningful exactly because of this form.
Memories, i.e. stories about the past, are thus never complete but selec-
tive, present-day arrangements which play a key role in discursive strug-
gles. While things have undoubtedly happened in the past, and while
individual events are certainly verifiable, the assembling of events as in
particular stories about what the past teaches in the present, is charac-
terised by a coherence and fullness which does not come naturally.
This is what White’s (1980, p. 27) well-known statement is about: to
narrativise ‘arises out of the desire to have real events display the coher-
ence, integrity, fullness, and closure of an image of life that is and can only
be imagined’. The power of narrativity, its seductive force and rhetorical
strength, is thus due to its ability to establish meaning, to offer storylines
actors can willingly identify with. In line with this, Booth (1988, p. 272)
once remarked that if we surrender to the patterns of desire established in
narratives, ‘we find ourselves to some degree shaped into those patterns’.
The four rhetorics of learning I conceptualise in the following indeed offer
different desires and types (as well as extents) of closure—but whomsoever
‘accepts’ one of these rhetorics and their narrative structure enters a
particular network of positions and ‘adopts’ a particular identity (White,
2008; Eder, 2006). While stories, i.e. realisations of the narrative form,
give identities (Somers, 1994; Ricoeur, 1991), it is due to particular
symbols, intertextual and interdiscursive references and so on, that these
narratives become forceful interventions able to facilitate the construction
of symbolic boundaries.3 Therefore, all narratives are also rhetorical in
their bid for power and their attempt to convey a persuasive message
(Toolan, 1988, p. 3).
In order to conceptualise different narrative structures underlying the
four rhetorics of learning, I adopt two complementary modes of inter-
pretation and analysis. First, and in order to understand the desires and
positions offered by these rhetorics, I draw on Greimas’ (1983) actantial
model which consists of sender and receiver, object and subject, as well as
helper and opponent in order to reconstruct four distinct plot grammars
underlying the four rhetorics. This carves out analytical, comparable
structures characterising these rhetorics; I illustrate their articulation
by drawing on largely decontextualised, stand-alone examples, utilising
some elements of the discourse-historical approach in critical discourse
analysis (Reisigl & Wodak, 2001, 2009). Second, and in order to
understand the emotional dimension of these rhetorics, the way these
 1 LESSONS FROM THE PAST? INTRODUCING THE RHETORICS OF LEARNING 7

stories might ‘feel’, I link plot grammars to modes of emplotment. The

four basic modes of emplotment are romance (I will draw on its related
form melodrama), tragedy, irony/satire (I will speak of post-heroic irony)
and comedy (White, 1973; Frye, 1957); modes which are understood
as cultural resources that (Western) audiences are intuitively familiar with.
As soon as one notices how a certain story is emplotted, expectations
concerning the further development of the story follow. Those who sur-
render to particular rhetorics and their emplotment will subsequently enter
certain emotional states, including, for example, triumphant bliss and self-
pity, self-doubt and even horror—states which allow for whole, undivided
subjects or ambiguous, divided ones. In the case of melodrama and
comedy, the subject is more or less self-assured and experiencing fullness,
while tragedy and post-heroic irony result in varying levels of doubt and
fragmentation. That is, these modes, and the emotional states that char-
acterise them, facilitate more or less reflexive subjectivities.
Despite their different plot grammars and modes of emplotments, all
four rhetorics are thoroughly future-oriented practices and, I assume,
articulate (largely) sincere desires for reform and learning (whatever that
might mean in their particular contexts). As such, all four rhetorics
include, to various extents, the construction of a positive self-representa-
tion. While self-assured, undivided subjects enjoy what they already are,
even more or less self-questioning, reflexive subjects affirm a positive
vision of being in the process of becoming a reformed subject, a belief in
knowing ‘where to go’ in order to keep avoiding our fall.
As I take the fundamental concern behind claims to know the lessons
from the past, i.e. to prevent evil in the present and the future, seriously,
instead of viewing it as outright cynical, I supplement the descriptive goal
emphasised so far with a prescriptive one. That is, while I first conceptua-
lise the four rhetorics, I second discuss a theoretical framework for their
evaluation. This gives rise to the following question: What can a narrative
(i.e. non-intuitive, non-positivist), a theoretically justified (i.e. non-volun-
tarist) and collective (i.e. non-individualist) notion of learning, one able to
live up to the normative connotations of ‘learning from the past’, look
like? The puzzle I thus aim to address is that although one cannot make
sense of claims to know in terms of truth correspondence between history
and memory, i.e. in intuitive, positivist terms, I do nevertheless want to
outline which of the four rhetorics might carry the possibility of stimulat-
ing collective learning processes. I view such a strong notion of learning
(vis-à-vis claims to know the lessons from the past, more or less positivist
8 LESSONS FROM THE PAST?

notions of learning and learning in terms of accumulation of knowledge)

as enabling more egalitarian and inclusive boundaries, a process which
takes place in and through narratives able to facilitate more reflexive
intersubjective bonds and, thus, decentred subjectivities. Drawing on
Habermasian concepts and ideas (as well as their revisions), I will propose
a framework in which a theoretically justified notion of collective learning
is compatible with a narrative approach, a framework in which modes of
emplotment, more precisely emotional states and the coherence charac-
terising subjects who emerge from these modes, serve as social mechan-
isms for enabling or blocking collective learning processes to some extent.
Only by providing such a dual perspective, both descriptive and prescrip-
tive, is justice done to the various ways in which rhetorics of learning are
articulated at various occasions in public and private life.
Let me now turn to the data I will utilise in the following chapters. As my
primary aim is conceptual, this book does not contain case studies, though
it does draw on a defined set of sources from Austria, Denmark, Germany
and the USA. More specifically, I consider texts from two main contexts.
The first one is primarily concerned with the present (events for which
lessons are required), which is here the debate over the war against Iraq in
2003. The second context is concerned primarily with the past (events from
which lessons are drawn), which is here Holocaust commemoration in the
early twenty-first century. Across these two contexts, the four countries on
which I draw have taken a variety of positions—but the focus on a limited
number of countries and contexts ensures both a degree of homogeneity
(facilitating a smooth discussion) as well as a heterogeneous collection of
examples which enables me to identify the existence of similar structures.
Concerning data which tend to ‘ask’ for lessons, the main corpus
consists of opinion pieces (editorials, comment and debate pages etc.)
on ‘Iraq’ in four quality newspapers, from left/liberal to conservative/
right, in each of the three European countries and two major quality
newspapers in the USA published in the context of debates over the Iraq
War in 2003.4 These sources promise to give voice to different positions
regarding military action as the debate over Iraq was indeed highly
controversial (for example, Kaae & Nissen, 2008; Schwab-Trapp,
2007; Nikolaev & Hakanen, 2006). This controversy started in 2002
and became more and more intense at the beginning of 2003, shortly
before the invasion began on 20 March, while major combat operations
were proclaimed to have ended on 1 May 2003. Not only did this
debate deal with issues of life and death but, in consequence, it led to
 1 LESSONS FROM THE PAST? INTRODUCING THE RHETORICS OF LEARNING 9

mass demonstrations and public concern across Europe and beyond. In

January 2003, over 80 per cent of the populations of Austria, Denmark
and Germany viewed the participation of their respective countries in a
military intervention, without a preliminary decision of the United
Nations, as unjustified (though with such a decision, over 70 per cent
in Denmark viewed it as justified). At roughly the same time, support for
invading Iraq stood at slightly over 50 per cent in the USA (see EOS
Gallup, 2003; Jones, 2003). It also resulted in a split between the
European political elites. While the USA led the so-called Coalition of
the Willing (and Denmark participated in it), in Germany and Austria,
both the national governments and their publics opposed intervention.
In such divergent contexts, claims to know the lessons from the past
offered guidance; guidance through which, for example, further wrong-
doing committed by Saddam Hussein, or damage done to international
law, could allegedly be prevented.
Concerning data which tend to ‘provide’ lessons, sources consist of
commemorative speeches, by representatives of these countries, given on
Holocaust Remembrance Day and related occasions between 2000 and
2012.5 Here, the rationale is that the Holocaust and its wider context,
the Second World War, signify a ‘dark past’ which offers particularly
important lessons to the present (studies which have highlighted the
persistent significance of these pasts in Western publics include Karner &
Mertens, 2013; Pakier & Stråth, 2010; Lebow et al., 2006). The reasons
for this centrality are manifold, including the resurgence of memories and
conflicts only overlaid during the Cold War; the rise of human rights
discourses in the course of the massive use of violence in so-called ethnic
conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda which reminded
Europeans of their continent’s dark past; the demarcation between good
and evil the Holocaust provides in times of complexity; as well as the
vanishing of the last generation of those involved in the 1930s and 1940s,
in particular the survivors, which asked for communicative memory to be
replaced by institutional means. Such institutions include the The
Stockholm International Forum on Research, Remembrance and
Education on the Holocaust and the International Holocaust
Remembrance Alliance, as well as national and international commemora-
tion days. That is, the Holocaust serves as a prime source of moral and
political lessons. Indeed, the Holocaust has become a major pedagogic
device and it is the fact that this past, and its ‘lessons’, lend themselves to
morality plays which I am interested in.
10 LESSONS FROM THE PAST?

The four countries I draw on are characterised by, at least until fairly
recently, rather different paths and dominant ways of constructing this
past. In Germany past wrongdoing concerning the Holocaust has been,
more or less successfully, internalised, leading to a relatively self-critical
culture of remembrance with regular ‘rituals of confessions of guilt’
(Giesen, 2004, p. 130; see also Assmann, 2015). In turn, Austria has
acknowledged ‘co-responsibility’ only since the late 1980s and early
1990s, having previously externalised guilt by viewing itself as ‘Hitler’s
first victim’ (Uhl, 2006; Albrich, 1997).6 In contrast to these two succes-
sor states of the so-called ‘Third Reich’, narratives in Denmark (Bryld &
Warring, 1999; Poulsen, 1995) and the USA (Levy & Sznaider, 2006;
Novick, 2000) evolved in a different ecology. Denmark long followed the
traditional path of previously occupied European states in constructing
itself as a victim, though one which heroically resisted and, more particu-
larly, rescued its Jewish population. In turn, the USA have both remem-
bered the war as the ‘Great Crusade’ and have been a key actor in shaping
the Holocaust as a global symbol of evil. While both countries have also
experienced self-critical debates over their deeds before and during the
Second World War, they are diverging cases of non-successor states which
have shaped and reacted to the contemporary, global image of the
Holocaust. In other words, storied memories, even if as transnational as
those to do with the Holocaust, are always also situated ones, and thus
draw on locally available symbols, narratives etc. The examples I have
selected do, however, not require specialist knowledge, and are largely
not analysed with regard to their particular effect within a particular
context. Instead, they are supposed to illustrate actants. Nevertheless,
concise outlines of the Danish context and the context of the Stockholm
International Forum in 2000, as well as the Austrian and German context,
are provided prior to E3/9, E4/9, E5/9 and E6/9 in Chaps. 3–6.
While the examples I will work with thus emerge from particular
contexts, the model I am presenting should in no way be mistaken as
applying only to official discourses, the Holocaust and the Second World
War, as well as crises such as Iraq. Instead, I am convinced that these
rhetorics can be found equally, for example, among ‘ordinary’ members of
the public and in contexts such as the banking crisis.
Let me close with a few words about the structure of the book.
Following this introduction, Chap. 2 will offer an account of narrativity
and its relevance for analysing claims to know the lessons from the past.
The argument proposed is that the narrative form prevents any intuitive,
 1 LESSONS FROM THE PAST? INTRODUCING THE RHETORICS OF LEARNING 11

more or less positivist, understanding of learning from the past. That is,
there are no objective lessons as the past is only present through selec-
tively arranged events. This discussion is followed by an introduction to
the modes of interpretation and analysis utilised in this study, including,
first, Greimas’ actantial model and a brief introduction to categories
from the discourse-historical approach that will help in grasping actual
articulations of these structures. Second, I discuss the concept of
emplotment, focusing in particular on four modes of emplotment (melo-
drama, tragedy, comedy and post-heroic irony) and their consequences
for subject positions emerging out of the four rhetorics.
Chapters 3–6 describe the rhetorics of judging, failing, penitence
and judge-penitence. Each of these chapters follows the same pattern
and is comprehensible on its own, even though I do relate the four
rhetorics to each other in the course of conceptualising them. First, I
reconstruct the actantial structure of the respective rhetoric, through
brief discussions of stand-alone examples which do not consider their
political impact before summarising the interplay of these actants, via a
more contextualised discussion of one of this structure’s performance.
Second, each rhetoric is linked to one, dominant mode of emplotment.
Each of these modes invites different expectations concerning the
course of events and thus different emotional relationships, different
feelings of the lessons: the rhetoric of judging is predominantly con-
nected to melodrama, the rhetoric of failing to tragedy, the rhetoric of
penitence to what I call post-heroic irony and the rhetoric of judge-
penitence to comedy.
Chapter 7 builds on these conceptualisations but moves beyond
description towards an explicit discussion of their evaluation and norma-
tive aspects. The question no longer simply concerns how claims to know
the lessons link pasts and presents; instead, this chapter discusses the
possibility of learning from the past which, after all, I considered should
be rejected in Chap. 2. What would an ‘acceptable’ notion of learning and
learning processes look like? How would or could such a notion be linked
to the four rhetorics? And what are the theoretical foundations on which
such a notion could be developed and justified? The chapter suggests
drawing on the Habermasian notion of intersubjectivity and the concept
of collective learning processes, i.e. processes through which intersubjec-
tive relations become more open and egalitarian, before offering a revision
of this concept. My proposal will be to link existing theories of collective
learning to narrative theory, in particular the aforementioned modes of
12 LESSONS FROM THE PAST?

emplotment which I understand as social mechanisms rather enabling or

blocking collective learning processes.
Chapter 8 summarises my argument before closing with a discussion of
two questions which emerged in the course of conceptualising and eval-
uating rhetorics of learnings. This concerns, first, possible limits of the
formal character of my suggestions (vis-à-vis a substantive conceptualisa-
tion and evaluation of claims for knowing) and, second, how to make
sense, theoretically, of combinations of the four rhetorics which are able to
motivate action but do so in a reflexive manner. Thus, this conclusion
both brings to an end as well as opens up avenues of research; after all,
narrating lessons is likely to remain prominent in struggles over meaning.

NOTES
1. I am thinking here especially of movements for historical justice and the
related rise in public or official apologies in the latter half of the twentieth
century. See writings on ‘reparation politics’ (Torpey, 2006), ‘the politics of
regret’ (Olick, 2007) and an ‘age of apology’ (Gibney et al., 2008), as well
as, among many, Cuypers et al. (2013), Lind (2008), Barkan and Karn
(2006) and Brooks (1999). See also Chap. 5. For shifting regimes of
temporality more generally, see Hartog (2015) and Assmann (2013).
2. Speaking of ‘old Europe’ is an intertextual reference to a comment made by
then US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. It was widely perceived as
derogative and aiming for delegitimising France and Germany which
opposed an attack—though for many, it became a badge of honor (for
more on this remark, see Sect. 6.2).
3. Following contemporary conventions, I use ‘story’ and ‘narrative’ inter-
changeably (see Riessman, 2008, p.7).
4. This includes Der Standard, Salzburger Nachrichten, Kurier and Die Presse
in Austria; Dagbladet Information, Politiken, Berlingske Tidende and
Jyllands-Posten in Denmark; Frankfurter Rundschau, Süddeutsche Zeitung,
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Die Welt in Germany; as well as the
New York Times and the Washington Post in the USA.
5. The International Holocaust Remembrance Day takes place on 27 January
in most countries but has also been appropriated on other dates. For
example, Austria’s main commemoration takes place on 5 May, the day
the concentration camp Mauthausen was liberated (National Day Against
Violence and Racism in Memoriam of the Victims of National Socialism). In
Denmark, I have considered speeches given in the context of both January
27 (Auschwitz Day) as well as Liberation Day (5 May). Besides 27 January
(Day of Remembrance of the Victims of National Socialism), Germany has
 1 LESSONS FROM THE PAST? INTRODUCING THE RHETORICS OF LEARNING 13

other prominent commemoration dates though, due to the abundance of

data, I only also consider speeches commemorating the end of the Second
World War in the German parliament. With regard to the USA, I draw on
contributions made during the event held in the Capitol Rotunda during
the Days of Remembrance for the Victims of the Holocaust. In addition,
and due to its seminal influence on the transnational flow of these memories,
I include relevant texts from the The Stockholm International Forum on
Research, Remembrance and Education on the Holocaust in 2000.
6. These concepts, internalisation and externalisation, go back to Lepsius’
(1993) ideal typical categorisation of ways in which successor states of the
‘Third Reich’ have appropriated their pasts.

REFERENCES
Albrich, T. (1997). Holocaust und Schuldabwehr. Vom Judenmord zum kollek-
tiven Opferstatus. In R. Steininger & M. Gehler (Eds.), Österreich im 20.
Jahrhundert. Band 2 (pp. 39–106). Wien: böhlau.
Alexander, J. C. (2002). On the social construction of moral universals: The
Holocaust from war crime trauma to drama. European Journal of Social
Theory, 5(1), 5–85.
Aristotle. (1982). The ‘art’ of rhetoric. London: Heinemann.
Assmann, A. (2010). The Holocaust – a global memory? Extensions and limits of a
new memory community. In A. Assmann & S. Conrad (Eds.), Memory in a
global age. Discourses, practices and trajectories (pp. 97–117). Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Assmann, A. (2013). Ist die Zeit aus den Fugen? Aufstieg und Fall des Zeitregimes
der Moderne. München: Hanser.
Assmann, A. (2015). Shadows of trauma. Memory and the politics of postwar
identity. New York: Fordham University Press.
Barkan, E., & Karn, A. (Eds.). (2006). Taking wrongs seriously. Apologies and
reconciliation. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Booth, W. C. (1988). The company we keep: An ethics of fiction. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Brooks, R. L. (Ed.). (1999). When saying sorry isn’t enough: The controversy over
apologies and reparations for human injustice. New York: New York University
Press.
Bruner, L. M. (2011). Rhetorical studies and national identity construction.
National Identities, 13(4), 403–414.
Bryld, C., & Warring, A. (1999). Besættelsestiden som kollektiv erindring. Roskilde:
Roskilde Universitetsforlag.
Cicero, M. T. (1959). De Oratore. Book II. London: Heinemann.
14 LESSONS FROM THE PAST?

Cuypers, D., Janssen, D., Haers, J., & Barbara, S. (Eds.). (2013). Public apologies
between ritual and regret. Symbolic excuses on false pretenses or true reconciliation
out of sincere regret? Amsterdam: Radopi.
Douglas, M. (2002). Purity and danger: An analysis of concepts of pollution and
taboo. London: Routledge.
Eder, K. (2006). Europe’s borders: The narrative construction of the boundaries
of Europe. European Journal of Social Theory, 9(2), 255–271.
EP. (2003). Sitting of the European Parliament on 29 January 2003. http://
www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/seance_pleniere/compte_rendu/traduit/
2003/01-29/P5_CRE(2003)01-29_DEF_EN.pdf. Accessed 24 Mar 2016.
Frye, N. (1957). Anatomy of criticism: Four essays. Princeton: Princeton University
Press.
Gallup, E. O. S. (2003). International crisis survey 21st–27th of January 2003—
Report. http://paks.uni-duesseldorf.de/Dokumente/International-Crisis-
Survey_Rapport-Final.pdf. Accessed 22 Oct 2010.
Gibney, M., Howard-Hassmann, R. E., Coicaud, J.-M., & Steiner, N. (Eds.).
(2008). The age of apology. Facing up to the past. Philadelphia: University of
Philadelphia Press.
Giesen, B. (2004). Triumph and trauma. Boulder: Paradigm.
Greimas, A. J. (1983). Structural semantics. An attempt at a method. Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press.
Gumbrecht, H. U. (1997). In 1926. Living at the edge of time. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press.
Halbwachs, M. (1992). On collective memory. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Hartog, F. (2015). Regimes of historicity: Presentism and experiences of time. New
York: Columbia University Press.
Huyssen, A. (2000). Present pasts: Media, politics, amnesia. Public Culture, 12(1),
21–38.
Jones, J. M. (2003). Public support for invasion of Iraq holds steady. http://
www.gallup.com/poll/7891/public-support-invasion-iraq-holds-steady.aspx.
Accessed 27 Feb 2016.
Kaae, M., & Nissen, J. (2008). Vejen til Iraq—hvorfor gik Danmark i krig?
Copenhagen: Gads.
Karner, C., & Mertens, B. (Eds.). (2013). The use and abuse of memory.
Interpreting World War II in contemporary European politics. New
Brunswick: Transaction.
Koselleck, R. (2004). Historia magistra vitae: The dissolution of the topos into the
perspective of a modernized historical process. In Future past: On the semantics
of historical time (pp. 26–42). New York: Columbia University Press.
Lebow, R. N., Kansteiner, W., & Fogu, C. (Eds.). (2006). The politics of memory
in postwar Europe. Durham: Duke University Press.
 1 LESSONS FROM THE PAST? INTRODUCING THE RHETORICS OF LEARNING 15

Lepsius, R. (1993). Das Erbe des Nationalsozialismus und die politische Kultur
der Nachfolgestaaten des »Großdeutschen Reiches«. In Demokratie in
Deutschland (pp. 229–245). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Levy, D., & Sznaider, N. (2006). The Holocaust and memory in the global age.
Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Lind, J. (2008). Sorry states: Apologies in international politics. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press.
Nikolaev, A. G., & Hakanen, E. A. (Eds.). (2006). Leading to the 2003 Iraq war:
The global media debate. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Novick, P. (2000). The Holocaust in American life. New York: Mariner Books.
Olick, J. K. (2007). The politics of regret: On collective memory and historical
responsibility. New York: Routledge.
Pakier, M., & Stråth, B. (2010). A European memory? Contested histories and
politics of remembrance. Oxford: Berghahn Books.
Poulsen, H. (1995). Dansk modstand og tysk politik. Den Jyske Historiker, 71, 7–18.
Reisigl, M., & Wodak, R. (2001). Discourse and discrimination: Rhetorics of
racism and anti-semitism. London: Routledge.
Reisigl, M., & Wodak, R. (2009). The discourse-historical approach. In R. Wodak
& M. Meyer (Eds.), Methods of critical discourse analysis (2nd ed., pp. 87–121).
London: Sage.
Ricoeur, P. (1991). Narrative identity. Philosophy Today, 35(1), 73–81.
Riessman, C. K. (2008). Narrative methods for the human sciences. California: Sage.
Schwab-Trapp, M. (2007). Kampf dem Terror. Vom Anschlag auf das World Trade
Center bis zum Beginn des Irakkrieges. Eine empirische Studie über die politische
Kultur Deutschlands im zweiten Jahrzehnt nach der Wiedervereinigung. Köln:
Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.
Somers, M. (1994). The narrative constitution of identity: A relational and net-
work approach. Theory and Society, 23, 605–649.
Toolan, M. J. (1988). Narrative. A critical linguistic introduction. London:
Routledge.
Torpey, J. (2006). Making whole what has been smashed. On reparations politics.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Uhl, H. (2006). From victim myth to co-responsibility thesis: Nazi rule, World
War II, and the Holocaust in Austrian memory. In R. N. Lebow, W.
Kansteiner, & C. Fogu (Eds.), The politics of memory in postwar Europe
(pp. 40–72). Durham: Duke University Press.
White, H. (1973). Metahistory. The historical imagination in nineteenth-century
Europe. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press.
White, H. (1980). The value of narrativity in the representation of reality. Critical
Inquiry, 7(1), 5–27.
White, H. C. (2008). Identity and control: How social formations emerge.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
 CHAPTER 2

On Plot Grammars and Modes

of Emplotment

2.1 INTRODUCTION
The basic assumption underpinning this study is that narratives matter as
they connect and, simultaneously, create pasts, presents and futures. With
this in mind and drawing on Koselleck (2004b), the decline of the classic,
progressive narrative of modernity has affected the ‘horizon of expecta-
tion’, which has become increasingly undefined, even threatening and
lacking the previous promise of advancement and salvation. In turn, the
‘space of experience’ is ever more populated by stories of (our) past
wrongdoings instead of (our) triumphs. It is against this background
that claims to know the lessons from the past are meaningful in contem-
porary discursive struggles. And it is this configuration of experiences and
expectations which facilitates the delineating of new symbolic boundaries,
of us as already being or being in the process of becoming a reformed
collective or individual subject. This is exactly what all four types of
rhetorics of learning are about—though in very different ways.
In order to render transparent the variety of ways of doing so, I start by
turning to the crux of ‘knowing the lessons from the past’. While historians
seem to have largely lost their belief in ‘learning from the past’, public
debates still feature such claims and draw on an intuitive, more or less
positivist, notion of it. Such an understanding consists of a belief that the
past exists as an objective series of events which can, in principle, be
reconstructed. From such a perspective, the past, if properly read, is able
to provide concrete lessons for the present and the future; the past, in other

© The Author(s) 2016 17

B. Forchtner, Lessons from the Past?, Palgrave Macmillan Memory
Studies, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-48322-5_2
18 LESSONS FROM THE PAST?

words, exists independently of the present. Drawing heuristically on exam-

ples from what Rasmussen (2003) has called ‘the lessons literature’ in the
field of International Relations will help in illustrating such an understand-
ing. Against this background, I will illustrate the consequences of narrative
form for claims to know the lessons from the past, i.e. that ‘the past’ and its
lessons are not out there, waiting to be found but narrated as a selective
sequence of events, a narrative sequence necessarily constructed around a
moral point. Instead of assessing the truth correspondence between claims
to know the lessons and the past as it actually happened (the Rankean ideal
of wie es eigentlich gewesen), the focus thus shifts to the consequences of
such claims which position actors and affect discursive struggles. This is of
course at the heart of the presentist orientation of social memory studies
since its modern-day inception (Olick et al., 2011)—even when acknowl-
edging mnemonic path-dependency and constraints established by cultural
memories (Halbwachs, 2003; Olick & Levy, 1997; Assmann, 1992).
It is only after having touched more generally on the notion of learning
from the past and narrativity that this chapter turns to particular modes of
interpretation and analysis. These are the distinct, yet complementary,
perspectives adopted in order to understand the functioning and effects of
the four rhetorics of learning as they are outlined in Chaps. 3–6. They
include looking, first, at both plot grammars and their actantial configura-
tions as well as articulations of these structures. Second, I propose four
modes in which the four rhetorics are emplotted, which result in emotional
states and, thus, enable different levels of coherence (or decentration) of the
subjects in these rhetorics. I start by drawing on Greimas’ (1983) actantial
model which will illuminate key narrative functions and reveal the structural
power-potentials of the four rhetorics of learning. This offers a model
through which four distinct plot grammars, underlying the respective rheto-
rics of learning, are reconstructed. The interplay of these actants is sum-
marised by drawing selectively on the discourse-historical approach to
critical discourse analysis (Reisigl & Wodak, 2001, 2009). This provides
tools to grasp how these structures are articulated in actual claims to know
the lessons, the actual process of telling stories in particular contexts. The
concept of modes of emplotment (White, 1973; see also Frye, 1957 on
narrative genres) clarifies how story-types (melodrama, tragedy, comedy
and post-heroic irony) engage the audience by suggesting particular expec-
tations and feelings. As such, emplotment concerns the audience’s emo-
tional relation to the past, present and future, different feelings and levels
of coherence of the subject with which the audience is invited to identify.
 2 ON PLOT GRAMMARS AND MODES OF EMPLOTMENT 19

This is not only supposed to help understanding of the workings of the four
types of rhetoric; much more, these modes will ultimately be understood as
social mechanisms in the un/blocking of collective learning processes (to
which I turn in Chap. 7).
However, before thinking about such processes, let me start by discuss-
ing claims to know the lessons from the past within the context of
narrative theory.

2.2 LESSONS FROM THE PAST! WHAT’S THE (MORAL) POINT?

The assumption that the past, if thoroughly studied, offers lessons from
which collectives and individuals can learn is certainly an intuitive one. After
all, having burnt his hand once on the hob, my three-year-old son has, since
then, carefully avoided it. More philosophically minded readers might recall
Cicero’s remark on history shedding light upon reality, introduced earlier.
Although not the first thinker in antiquity to consider the exemplary nature
of the past, the topos of history as a teacher has indeed long been associated
with Cicero. It is thus not surprising that contemporary analysts of argu-
mentation and discourse have taken his comment as a point of departure.
For example, Reisigl and Wodak (2001, p. 80) offer a neat definition of this,
of what they call the topos of history: ‘because history teaches that specific
actions have specific consequences, one should perform or omit a specific
action in a specific situation (allegedly) comparable with the historical
example referred to’.1 This is best illustrated by using an analytical model
of argumentation in which the topos serves as a conclusion rule, justifying
the claim that a certain action represents knowledge of the lessons, and
possibly even successful learning, from the past (for more on this model,
and its extended version, see Toulmin, 2003, pp. 92–97). By narrativising a
particular past A1/X1, the warrant (or topos) of history as a teacher justifies
the conclusion, i.e. to act (or not) in a certain way A2 towards a certain
result X2 (see Fig. 2.1 below and Forchtner, 2016).
The idea that the past offers lessons is still widely shared, though, as I
have mentioned above, Koselleck (2004a) traces the decline of the exemp-
lary power of the past among those professionally dealing with history to
the rise of modernity and its notion of progress. However, this has not
meant that people have stopped thinking about the past and its potential
value in guiding present and future action. Indeed, it was in the course and
aftermath of the Vietnam War that a number of scholars in the USA
argued for a more substantial resort to history so as to improve political
20 LESSONS FROM THE PAST?

An action A1 had So, one should perform/omit an

beneficial/terrible action A2 (similar to A1)
consequences in the in order to
past (X1). achieve/avoid X2.

Because ‘history teaches that specific actions

have specific consequences, one should perform
or omit a specific action in a specific situation
(allegedly) comparable with the historical
example referred to’.

Fig. 2.1 A reconstruction of the workings of the topos of history as a teacher

decision making. Let me make heuristic use of this debate in order to

illuminate what I call an intuitive notion of knowing and learning lessons
from the past.
May (1973, pp. ix–xiv) opened this debate by laying out three theses:
(a) foreign policymakers are influenced by a belief that history teaches
lessons; (b) the uses of history are more often than not bad ones; and (c) a
better knowledge of history can avoid its misuse. Here, history is
embraced as ‘an enormously rich resource’ (May, 1973, p. xiv) while
May criticises the faulty application of historical parallels and those who
draw ‘haphazardly’ upon it. Instead, he argues for the inclusion of those
capable of careful and systematic engagement with the past. Jervis (1976,
p. 222) illustrates the significance of perception and misperception (as
they affect action) well, in terms of a sequence of ‘events → lessons →
future behavior’, arguing that it is a perceived lesson from a past event
which triggers a certain future behaviour. Indeed, it is this focus on
information processing that makes these authors sceptical of the ability
to learn from the past; and while I agree with the latter, there appears to be
a conviction that lessons could be learnt (otherwise, there could not be
wrong ones). That is to say, the past might be hard to understand, but it
can be decoded. The task becomes therefore, as May (1973, p. 143)
argued, to scrutinise the past in order to help in forecasting the future,
too, as Neustadt and May (1986, pp. 89f.) outlined a couple of years later:
‘Stop! Look! Listen!’. Similarly, Jervis’ (1976, pp. 409–424) Perception and
Misperception suggests a series of steps in order to minimise mispercep-
tions in the course of generalising from past events. In short, there appears
 2 ON PLOT GRAMMARS AND MODES OF EMPLOTMENT 21

to remain a belief in a past capable of speaking to us—even if we might not

always understand it correctly.
But what if this very possibility does not exist? What if the past is
not a series of events, a reservoir of structured knowledge which might
be discovered (or not) but is narrated in the present, with all the
consequences that the narrative form brings with it? What if these
consequences entail the very impossibility (and not only difficulty) of
such an intuitive understanding of learning the lessons? What if, as
Rasmussen (2003, p. 502) put it: ‘there is nothing to mediate’? In
order to explore these questions, I will now consider the implications
that narrative form has for claims to know the lessons and memory
studies more widely.
Memory has of course long been linked to narrativity (see Jacobs &
Sobieraj, 2007; Alexander, 2006; Smith, 2005; Zerubavel, 2003;
Welzer et al., 2002; Wertsch, 2002; Ringmar, 1996; Somers, 1994;
Sewell, 1992; Steinmetz, 1992). Indeed, life in general and memory in
particular are mainly experienced through narrative form, but the con-
sequences of this connection for narrating lessons have rarely been made
explicit. Yes, social memory studies have always viewed articulations of
the past in the present, of remembering, as selective constructions by
particular groups, warranting a degree of continuity (Halbwachs, 1992;
see also Assmann, 2011; Vinitzky-Seroussi, 2010; Eder, 2005, 2006;
Alexander et al., 2004; Zerubavel, 1996; Assmann, 1992; Wagner-
Pacifici & Schwartz, 1991; Connerton, 1989). From a point of view
grounded in narrative theory, these selective articulations are more than
intentional attempts to construct useful pasts but are due to structural
constraints fundamental to the human condition (Fisher, 1987;
Ricoeur, 1984; Barthes, 1977).
At the heart of this form lies the sequencing of events, of the more
or less complex portrayal of change from an initial state to another
one. By arranging events in sequences, wholes are constructed which
consist of a beginning, a middle and an end: the beginning of a story
usually involves breaking a law, breaching a contract, or a state of
insufficiency (e.g. Propp, 1968, pp. 34f.). It is this breaching (begin-
ning) which leads to events (middle) and their ultimate consequence
(end). Narratives thus provide a tool to talk meaningfully about a series
of events, and involve at least one temporal juncture, i.e. two clauses
sequentially arranged and referring to events indicating a before/after. The
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and
discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of Project
Gutenberg™ works.

• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of

any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in
the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90
days of receipt of the work.

• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg™

electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend

considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe
and proofread works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating
the Project Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works, and the medium on which they may
be stored, may contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to,
incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a
copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or
damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer
codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except

for the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph
1.F.3, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner
of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party
distributing a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work under this
agreement, disclaim all liability to you for damages, costs and
expenses, including legal fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO
REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH OF
WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE
FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY
DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE
TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL,
PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE
NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you

discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it,
you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by
sending a written explanation to the person you received the work
from. If you received the work on a physical medium, you must
return the medium with your written explanation. The person or entity
that provided you with the defective work may elect to provide a
replacement copy in lieu of a refund. If you received the work
electronically, the person or entity providing it to you may choose to
give you a second opportunity to receive the work electronically in
lieu of a refund. If the second copy is also defective, you may
demand a refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the
problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth in
paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied

warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted
by the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the
Foundation, the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the
Foundation, anyone providing copies of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works in accordance with this agreement, and any
volunteers associated with the production, promotion and distribution
of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, harmless from all liability,
costs and expenses, including legal fees, that arise directly or
indirectly from any of the following which you do or cause to occur:
(a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b)
alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any Project
Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of

Project Gutenberg™
Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.
It exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and
donations from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the

assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a
secure and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help,
see Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project

Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,

Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website
and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to

the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation
Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without
widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can
be freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the
widest array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small
donations ($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax
exempt status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating

charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and
keep up with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in
locations where we have not received written confirmation of
compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of
compliance for any particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where

we have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no
prohibition against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in
such states who approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make

any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of
other ways including checks, online payments and credit card
donations. To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About Project

Gutenberg™ electronic works
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed

editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,

including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how
to subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
back
back