The politics and aesthetics of commemoration: national days in southern Africa

The contributions to the special section in this issue study recent independence celebrations and other national days in South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Madagascar and the Democratic Republic of Congo. They explore the role of national days in state-making and nation-building, and examine the performativity of nationalism and the role of performances in national festivities. Placing the case studies in a broader, comparative perspective, the introduction first discusses the role of the state in national celebrations, highlighting three themes: firstly, the political power-play and contested politics of memory involved in the creation of a country’s festive calendar; secondly, the relationship between state control of national days and civic or popular participation or contestation; and thirdly, the complex relationship between regional and ethnic loyalties and national identifications. It then turns to the role of performance and aesthetics in the making of nations in general, and in national celebrations in particular. Finally, we look at the different formats and meanings of national days in the region and address the question whether there is anything specific about national days in southern Africa as compared to other parts of the continent or national celebrations world-wide.Web of Scienc

Professor*innen als Führungskräfte? Ergebnisse des Bielefelder Fragebogens zu Arbeitsbedingungen an Hochschulen

Gieselmann J, Burian J. Professor*innen als Führungskräfte? Ergebnisse des Bielefelder Fragebogens zu Arbeitsbedingungen an Hochschulen. In: Behrenbeck S, Sager K, Schmidt U, eds. "Die ganze Hochschule soll es sein" Wolff-Dietrich Webler zum 80. Geburtstag. Hochschulwesen, Wissenschaft und Praxis. Vol NF, 38. Bielefeld: UniversitätsVerlag Webler; 2020: 207-232

Selective Remembering: Minorities and the Remembrance of the First World War in Britain and Germany

Remembering the war dead, so historical writing suggests, was considerably easier for the victors than for the vanquished. Yet, as this essay suggests, this strict dichotomy was not quite as rigid as the historiography implies. In both Britain and Germany, ethnic, religious and national minorities did play some role in nascent memory cultures. However, while some groups were remembered, other minorities, such as Britain’s African troops or Germany’s Polish soldiers, were all too often missing from the commemorative landscape. The absence of minorities from the remembrance process, then, had less to do with the outcome of the war, but was rather contingent on place, time and the minority group in question