The commemoration of disasters is a product of social, cultural, economic, and political forces in human society. Southern California's largely unheard-of St. Francis Dam Disaster of 1928 provides an excellent opportunity to study this complex process of commemoration, engaging memory within different frames of reference. In particular, evaluating how and why this man-made dam disaster has been forgotten on a state and national level, but tenuously remembered within the flood-zone, allows for consideration of the diversity of commemorative processes in the construction of memory and heritage related to major catastrophes. This research synthesizes archival and survey data to better understand how the disaster and the dead have been commemorated throughout the 54-mile flood zone: spatially, through state monuments, community memorials, grave markers, and memorabilia, and conceptually, through poems, songs, and oral histories. Identifying what parts of the past are remembered, and how they are remembered and interpreted, provides understanding of how public memory develops. Further, being able to determine the factors that influence why certain things are remembered and memorialized, while other things are forgotten, can provide insight into not only the individual motivations and perceptions related to the creation of memory, but also to the larger issues of how a culture establishes both legends and traditions.

A son of Sephardic parents from Jerusalem, the author, journalist and scholar Victor Haim Perera (1934-2003) was born in Guatemala City and moved to New York at the age of twelve. He graduated from Brooklyn College and subsequently received a Master’s degree in English Literature from the University of Michigan. After that he moved to California to teach literature, writing and journalism at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and later at the Berkeley campus. Perera’s writings focused on Sephardic Jewry and on Latin America (particularly the Maya Indians). The goal of this presentation is to offer a glimpse into his works, personal library, interviews and other materials housed at the University of Michigan Library Special Collections Research Center.

This project examines the Second World War (WWII) history of the Newfoundland Airport (Gander, Newfoundland), with a focus on civilian and military life on the base, and the potential for aviation archaeology to enhance the historical record. To accomplish this, ten WWII era airplane crash sites were examined archaeologically, using a variety of methods depending on the state of the wreck and the environment of the site. On the grounds of the original airbase, the Royal Canadian Air Force Globe Theatre was excavated to determine the viability of excavating areas of the former nearby town site and to examine the material culture of those living at the base. In particular, information was sought on potential interactions between the three main countries residing and working at Gander in WWII; Canada, the United States, and Newfoundland. The aircraft crash sites yielded information about the crashes themselves, modern reuse of sites, and the potential risk of disturbance. They also allowed for further development of archaeological methods to be used at other aviation sites around Newfoundland and Labrador. A major conclusion of this study is that base life was less segregated than official documents indicated, and that there was a significant amount of cooperation and flow of goods between the three countries. A combination of archaeological, documentary and memory research indicated a more relaxed atmosphere to the base, but still a realization of the importance to the work being done and the impact of the war on those serving at Gander. This project has set much of the groundwork for further archaeological study in this province, where numerous aviation sites of historical importance and war-era aviation and naval bases have yet to be researched, such as the WWII and Cold War facilities in Stephenville.

Over the past two decades, advances in the field of genomics have presented new opportunities to shed light upon the origins of enslaved Africans and their contemporary descendants. While this possibility has caused enthusiasm among members of the public, it has provoked contention within the academic sphere. This paper represents an attempt to reconcile these opposing disciplinary divisions, by examining, explaining, and discussing the processes involved in the production of genetic “ancestry” estimates, in order to moderate the aura of absolute “truth” that is often associated with such techniques. Our discussion focuses on two case studies – the academic use of ancient DNA analyses to estimate the geographic origins of historically enslaved individuals, and the commercialization of DNA “ancestry” testing techniques aimed at African-American roots-seekers – and draws upon recent ethnographic data relating to the experiences of test creators and test-takers, in order to contribute to this debate.

The 1990s music scene in East-Central Europe has often been described as a melting pot of various genres wherein different official and unofficial musicians from the socialist era merged with all kinds of contemporary Western impulses. This begs the question: did all those new influences necessarily lead to a change of taste and expectations among audiences or even to a change in the music industry’s policies? In contrast to the popular narrative of the dynamic post-Velvet Revolution transformation of culture and society, this essay offers a contrasting view of a particularly anachronistic tendency that unfolded during the transition, the mover of which was a conservative post-underground audience that longed much less for novelty than for continuity and survival of the cultural and aesthetic patterns of the normalization period. Following a case study of the Czech alternative rock band Psí vojáci (Dog Soldiers) and pointing out several paradoxes that framed and determined its musical production and reception, the goal of the essay is to examine the socio-cultural mechanisms underlying the anachronistic and nostalgic stance that substantially shaped the post-socialist musical landscape. In doing so, it also explains the role of the audience, the music industry, and journalists whose attitude led to a stereotypical branding of the band as an ‘underground legend,’ a reduction that was only intensified by the business strategy of the band’s leading label, Indies Records. Drawing on the sociological approach to rock music and music industry studies, this study exposes the contradictory nature of the anti-commercialism myth of alternative music culture.

CIA and the JFK assassination

"Prologue «Everything starts with an email posted on the net between Ravers and ends with a Dj performing live and sited down, after his movie premiere (where he plays the main role) and in front of thousands, just by using a controller and a laptop». The scenes mentioned above, refer to (communicational) acts performed by members of a group with common ways of expression and communication, common interests, common identities and after all a common goal: the participation on an event where they can come together, communicate and dance to the music they love. This music which is usually characterized as Electronic Dance Music (EDM), it is produced from sounds coming out from (virtual or not) synthesizers, samplers and drum machines and is mixed and arranged on a computer. This nature of EDM music combined with the ways of expression and communication of the people listening to, dance to or even producing, refers to a dynamic and always developing or at least transforming subculture (the Rave Subculture) which is always highly depended on the latest achievements in the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The article which is going to follow is going to present and examine this relationship between the Rave subculture and the ICT under the terms of convergence, communication and transformation through a qualitative approach on scenes, quotations etc., but also on ways of promoting cinema movies who present to the public more or less the Rave Subculture. All this under the critical view of the Author, who has been and still is an active member of the Rave Subculture as a Raver and as a Dj and EDM Producer (under the alias Pete Bellis) with Dj performances in different Raves and Venues around Greece, FYROM, Bulgaria and Germany and with official releases in different Music Labels around the World. The examination is going to start with a short Review on the Terms of Convergence Culture and Rave Subculture, will continue with the presentation of three characteristic movies containing a synopsis and some general information of and about them and will end with a qualitative approach on selected scenes, quotations, interviews, reviews, critiques and ways of promoting them mostly through the internet in terms of convergence, communication and transformation."