Papers by Elizabeth Rechniewski
Meanjin, 1993
The various forms of commitment of French intellectuals over the years are discussed through exam... more The various forms of commitment of French intellectuals over the years are discussed through examples, highlighting their role as social and political guides and also spiritual guides to society. The transformation of their commitment to the creation of literary texts only during the pre-war years is highlighted, suggesting that their lack of visible commitment at present is because most of them are academics and due to the routine nature of political life.
Australian Left Review, 1992
McGill-Queen's University Press eBooks, May 31, 2017
Aumla-journal of The Australasian Universities Language and Literature Association, May 1, 2007
Mester, Nov 23, 2011
I n his recent overview of the origins of racism, George M. Fredrickson argues that the influence... more I n his recent overview of the origins of racism, George M. Fredrickson argues that the influence of Enlightenment thinking on attitudes towards human diversity was ambiguous, a consequence of "the dual character of Enlightenment rationalism-its simultaneous challenge to hierarchies based on faith, superstition and prejudice and the temptation it presented to create new ones allegedly based on reason, science and history".! On the one hand, the Enlightenment concern with tolerance, civil rights and liberties, and its critique of existing institutions, created the intellectual climate in which it was possible to reconsider attitudes and practices towards those peoples who were the victims of prejudice, exclusion, or, worse, of conquest and slavery. On the other hand, as the philosophers stripped away religious interpretations of the world, it became possible to understand humankind as belonging not to God but to Nature, and thus to be the object of scientific scrutiny, with its accompanying c1assifications. 2 But what was to constitute the basis of classification? What features, which criteria, would be selected for purposes of identification and distinction in the case of human diversity? Would purely scientific criteria be found, able to resist the influence of traditional ideas and the admixture of moral or aesthetic prejudice? I have shown in a previous article on ideas about national difference in the Enlightenment the "temptation" to reproduce traditional prejudice about other nations in new forms. 3
Mester, Jan 26, 2012
Of all the inno\ ati\e late nineteenth, •arl) t\\entieth c ntury Fren h writers, Guillaum > Apoll... more Of all the inno\ ati\e late nineteenth, •arl) t\\entieth c ntury Fren h writers, Guillaum > Apollinaire had perhaps the grcate t impact on the international avant-garde. From the age of thirty, hi" work.-art and literary critici'm, poetry, prose and theatn..reached an ever wider international audience. He wa!> the mediator, interpreter amI ritic of the ncw trend" in art not only for a national but for an international audience. Provocative essays such as I.es Peintres culJ/Stes (191 Q), L'Ant,tracbtToll jutunste (191 S) and L'Esprit nouveau el If'S poetf'S (1917) propo~cd a manifesto, a programme and a call to artistic arms. I I.e Poete assa. slllr (1916) et L,s ,11amel/es dl' Tlrhw .(191 i) oOE-red a new ile. thetic
Routledge eBooks, Mar 27, 2023
Commonwealth essays and studies, Apr 1, 2016
SEPC (Société d'études des pays du Commonwealth)
Vingtième siècle, revue d'histoire, 2009
Ces vingt dernieres annees, periode qui correspond a « l’ere de commemoration » identifiee par Pi... more Ces vingt dernieres annees, periode qui correspond a « l’ere de commemoration » identifiee par Pierre Nora, l’anniversaire du debarquement a Gallipoli, quand les Anzac ont lance un assaut infructueux contre les troupes turques, solidement retranchees, ont ete marquees en Australie avec une nouvelle ferveur. Avec le soutien du gouvernement et des media pour cette « reinvention de la tradition », Gallipoli a acquis, dans l’imaginaire australien, un statut iconique comme evenement fondateur de la nation. Cet article suggere des raisons pour lesquelles cette histoire s’est dotee d’un tel pouvoir, examine la nature et les origines du mythe et les aspects de l’identite australienne qui y trouveraient leur expression. Il signale le role des elites, et surtout des hommes politiques, dans la dissemination de la legende et cela a leurs propres fins – a des fins assez diverses, d’ailleurs, car les evenements se pretent a plusieurs interpretations.
Revue LISA, Jun 25, 2020
A translation of Maurice Henensal’s poem « Petit, lorsque tu seras grand » by Elizabeth Rechniews... more A translation of Maurice Henensal’s poem « Petit, lorsque tu seras grand » by Elizabeth Rechniewskiin homage to Dr. Denis Mukwege When You Are Older, Little One When you are older, little oneThey will tell you who to fight,And with their finger single outThe enemy that you must smite. And they will say: look, there’s your foe.At him! little one, die or kill,There is the soldier clad in greyMake him the subject of your will. And you will march, in armour clad,A number, tethered in, poor lad, ..
Liverpool University Press eBooks, Oct 1, 2018
It is only very recently that recognition has been given to the massive and possibly decisive con... more It is only very recently that recognition has been given to the massive and possibly decisive contribution made by troops from France’s Empire to its ultimate victory in both World Wars. The ‘rediscovery’ of their role afforded them belated acknowledgement in the commemorations of the centenary of World War One. The original plans for the centenary barely acknowledged the role of colonial troops, an omission challenged by Rachid Bouchareb and Pascal Blanchard who successfully proposed the addition of the commemorative project ‘Frères d’armes’. This rediscovery invites reflection on what factors may have contributed to the long neglect of their participation in combat. This chapter explores the immediate historical context of the deployment of one segment of these colonial troops during World War One: the ...
Mots, 2000
CRISI О AUSENCIA DE CRISIS : UN EFECTO DE DISCURSO El articulo descrive a travez del analísis de ... more CRISI О AUSENCIA DE CRISIS : UN EFECTO DE DISCURSO El articulo descrive a travez del analísis de los articules de très periódicos australianos los procesos discursives que contribuyeron a la construcción del acontecimiento en el espacio público dos dias despues del anuncio de los ensayos nucleares franceses en 1995. Entre estos procesos se examina la elección de los portavoces, la presentación de palabras restituidas, tropos, tipos de designación, lo implicite y lo supuesto.
Portal: journal of multidisciplinary international studies, May 16, 2010
Australian Journal of French Studies, Sep 1, 2007
Essays in French Literature and Culture, Nov 1, 2016
IntroductionDuring the eight years of the Algerian War of Independence there were up to 470,000 F... more IntroductionDuring the eight years of the Algerian War of Independence there were up to 470,000 French troops on the ground in Algeria at any one time, the large majority national servicemen; perhaps two million appeles [conscripts] served during the course of the war1, many for considerably longer than the due service of eighteen months as the date of their release was continually postponed. Most were between twenty and twenty-two years old; many of them, from poor, rural backgrounds, had never travelled outside their local region. Transported to a completely unfamiliar territory where their official mission was to "restore order", the conscripts were drawn into the spiral of violence of an undeclared war. This article explores how the experience of the conscripts sent to Algeria has been represented in recent publications and cinema, with a particular focus on Laurent Herbiet's 2006 film, Mon Colonel. It uses these texts to examine the effect on young, inexperienced soldiers of having to implement counter-insurgency tactics developed by French military officers in the wake of defeat in Indochina, and to consider whether these ill-trained and ill-prepared conscripts can be considered amongst the victims of the Algerian War.Casualties of WarThe physical casualties of the war can be identified: over 26,000 French troops were killed in the war and some 70,000 were wounded, the majority conscripts, although there appear to be no reliable records of the numbers who suffered lasting physical handicaps. The impact of mental trauma is less easy to quantify, but some studies have estimated that a quarter of the conscripts suffer at some time in their lives from psychological problems resulting from their service (Bernard, 2003), a proportion that is in line with estimates of trauma from other wars. Since they had officially been involved only in operations of maintien de l'ordre, reservists and draftees did not obtain the rights, benefits and recognition to which they would have been entitled as war veterans until many years after the war.2 Nor did they receive the psychological counselling and support that would be offered today to soldiers exiting a theatre of war:Aucune institution ne tenta de prendre en charge les jeunes demobilises et de leur apporter un soutien psychologique. Or, la guerre d'Algerie fut pour beaucoup un poids que certains trainent encore, aujourd'hui, comme un fardeau ou comme une croix (Bantigny, 2004, 106).The conscripts returned at the end of their service to a France undergoing rapid transformation as a consumer society was built in the train of the Trente Glorieuses and the population, keen to forget the past whether of the Second World War or of the failed wars in Indochina and Algeria, "s[a]nk into a collective amnesia" (Alexander et al, 2002, 16). Censorship by the government, during and for some time after the war, along with the denials of the use of torture by the military hierarchy, left the conscripts to come to terms in silence and self-censorship with what they had seen and perhaps done. Interviewed late in life, many veterans claimed that if they did try to speak to friends and family of their experiences, they were met with indifference, disbelief or condemnation (Rotman, 2002, 250-1; Bantigny, 2004, 106). Moreover, how could the public understand the nature of the veterans' war experiences, so different from the confrontations of the regular armies of World War Two? The wars of decolonisation had led to the development of a doctrine of counter-revolutionary warfare that imposed on the soldiers the task of close surveillance and control of a population whose loyalties could never be decided.Counter-Insurgency WarfareThe defeat of the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 led some in the French military to question why an experienced, technologically advanced army had been outmanoeuvred by peasant forces. It was because, they argued, they had not adapted their tactics to the new post World War Two forms of combat, where the guerrillas lived among and drew support from the surrounding populations and into which they could disappear, in Mao's words, like fish in water. …
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Papers by Elizabeth Rechniewski