Reflection

The way I think about the passage of time, construction of memory, and continuity of trauma as a result of the theories posed in this class has undoubtedly deepened and multiplied. Through writing these blog posts, I have been able to reflect upon the major themes of this class that have impacted me most: the importance of narrative in commemorative efforts, how temporality affects trauma and memory, and the subjectivity of eventhood. Each of these themes has helped me realize the importance of memory and history in my understanding of my own education and interest in working toward social justice.

My post on the commemoration of Covid and my Ukraine post each spoke to the importance of narrative. In the Alexander piece I reference in discussing Russian war crimes, narrative is highlighted as a necessary tool in creating universal moral standards to which international actors must adhere. My Covid piece, which draws on scholarship by Wagner-Pacifici and Tavory, also treats narrative as a tool. However, narrative in this regard is useful in its absence; the lack of narrative in the story of Covid is the problem I wanted to make sense of. In each case, a narrative is a lens through which a certain event can be viewed to make sense of its meaning. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about narratives this semester because my American Studies senior exercise relied heavily on the idea of social narratives acting as political motivators, as well as cultural meta-narratives that fail to accurately convey historical truths. Through my sociological exploration of narrative, I was able to see clearly the ways that narrative impacts the formation of morality and how its absence of it troubles our cultural unity. 

Secondly, I think my reparations post and my Covid post each aim to make sense of the role of temporality in understanding memory formation. I find the passage of time (and how we make sense of it) a really interesting thing to ponder—this was one of my motivations for taking the class at all. However, exploring how time passage impacts memory was a useful thought exercise on how we make meaning out of the present. In each case study I discussed, I tried to make sense of how the past and the present are intertwined; each one complicates the idea that time flows in only one direction when we conceive of our past. I found my reparations post especially helpful as someone interested in transitional justice. Applying sociological theories about temporality to real-life, impossible-to-solve problems may not have illuminated precise solutions, but did provide a framework for why solving such problems is so important.

Finally, the subjectivity of an “event” and of “trauma” made me reconsider my entire historical education. Prior to taking this class, I realized that the way we told stories about certain events of the past was influenced by the biases of the people who wrote those stories. However, it wasn’t until internalizing the theories presented in this class and by writing these blog posts that I really considered that an event even being considered something worth telling a story about (and remembering) was also a man-made construction. I am a person greatly interested in history and culture, but my time in this class has made me re-evaluate the ways history is taught, why it is taught, and what makes the process of its construction as important as the events themselves. As an aspiring educator with an interest in using education to achieve social justice, I have found this approach to eventhood extremely useful as I think about the impact of curriculum on future students of history.

All of the cases I have discussed represent traumas of the past (in the case of Covid, a very recent one) that impact politics, societal interaction, and cultural memory. Using sociological concepts to parse these endlessly complex and difficult topics has helped me understand why they matter and how they will impact us in the future. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to explore such topical, relevant subjects through a creative but academically-informed process. These concepts have truly shifted my own perception of my formal and cultural education and I plan on using them as I move into a future indelibly shaped by the past and present.