Disseminating History Group One

CONFERENCE INTRODUCTION

DISSEMINATING HISTORY // 24TH APRIL 2014 // GROUP ONE

CONTENTS.

4.

5.

GRANDMECHANICS

6.‘Identity, Ideology and Indoctrination-Songs as a means to gain and maintain consent amongst the German youth during the Third Reich’

_Eva Heinemann_

7.‘Identity in Infrastructure’

_Paul Taaffe_

9.‘Politics, Persuasion and Paranoia: Responses to the Commission on Vocational Organisation’

_Liam Colford_

‘ The 1990 Irish P re sidential E lection - Mature Recollection, Mary, and the Media’

_David Molumby_

8.

GROUP ONE // 24TH APRIL 2014 // DISSEMINATING HISTORY

10.

GROUNDMECHANICS

11.Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know - the Moplahs of Malabar

_Colm Healy_

12.

B e n e f it s a n d B e t raya l : A b o r i g i n a l Au st ra l i a n E n l i st m e nt i n Wo rl d Wa r T wo

_Helen Scanlon_

13.‘Black and White Answers: The Irish in the

south during the American Civil War’

_Declan Clear_

14.‘Jewish letters, Nazi language? - The use of Nazi discourse in Jewish letters to Hitler’

_Arjen Engeltjes_


ntonio Gramsci, who was born in Sardinia in 1891,

was an Italian communist activist and intellectual who was imprisoned by the Fascist regime from 1926 until his death in 1937. His ideas are concerned with the application of Marxist analysis to the revolutionary process in advanced industrial societies but have attracted the attention of historians working in a broad range of contexts. What historians have found most interesting in his work are his thoughts on the relationship between culture and power. Using his concept of cultural hegemony Gramsci attempted to explain how dominate groups generate and maintain the consent of broader society to their rule. Our conference will examine how Gramsci's idea of cultural hegemony can be applied to a wide variety of historical situations to explain "how the rulers rule." The first half of our conference, "Grand Mechanics," will look at this question primarily from the perspective of the rulers while the

second half, "Ground Mechanics," will examine the same question from the perspective of a variety of subordinate groups. We will encounter Irish people living within the Confederacy durinh the Civil War and their views on slavery, Jewish Germans writing affectionate letters to HItler, anti-colonial nationalists demonising peasant rebels, Irish progressives tearing

up the script, New Deal democrats embracing fascist architecture, De Valera's acolytes snubbing the pope, Australian aboriginals fighting for the Empire and school children singing their way to racial purity. This diverse cast of peoples and places will shed light on the power of culture to mould our responses in often surprising and unexpected ways.

Our conference will examine how Gramsci's idea of cultural

hegemony can be applied to a wide variety of historical situations to

explain "how the rulers rule."

DISSEMINATING HISTORY

4 //DISSEMINATING HISTORY


GRAND MECHANICS

PART ONE


‘Identity, Ideology and Indoctrination-Songs as a means to gain and maintain consent amongst the German youth during the Third Reich’

I was born and raised in Germany and moved to Ireland at the age of twenty to study History and English Literature. After finishing my Arts degree and my Postgraduate Diploma in Education I decided to do a master’s degree in Totalitarianism. Being German, I was taught about the Third Reich and the Holocaust from a very early age and it became part of my national identity. While having been passionate about History all my life, the history of the Third Reich always was of particular interest to me. Especially the daily life of people fascinates me. This is way I decided, for my dissertation, to research the similarities and differences of childhood and youth in urban and rural areas during the Third Reich.

Eva He i ne m a n n

In his theory about cultural hegemony, Antonio Gramsci argued that to achieve a national collective will in a society- and this way gain and maintain consent- the dominant group could not simply introduce a completely new ideology but instead needed to combine the people’s popular feelings of national identity and patriotism with the ideological system of the ruling group. Adolf Hitler and the Nazis saw the youth as the future of a people and thus it was particularly they that needed to be rallied. This paper will discuss how far Gramsci’s thought is applicable to Nazi Germany and the Nazis’ attempt to achieve a Volksgemeinschaft and gain/ maintain consent amongst the youth through the means of songs. In other words, it will be examined whether the usage of songs was purposefully arranged in such a way so that national identity was indeed combined with the new ideology to gain support.


DISSEMINATING HISTORY// 7


Paul is a former graduate student from UCD having completed a BA in History and Economics in 2013. Currently he is an American History student who has a keen interest in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal America, looking at both social and economic history. He also has a great fondness of beer.

Paul Taaffe

All political systems have showcase projects through which they present themselves to the world and expect their aims, methods, and ideals to be judged. For Italian Fascism and Roosevelt’s New Deal, these projects were largely public works programs. Both, made used of aspects of cultutal hegymony to garner public loyalty and support through the use of the these public works programs, engineering a nation of the people for the people.

Identity in Infrastructure



‘The 1990 Irish Presidential Election - Mature Recollection, Mary, and the Media’

David prides himself on being a gentleman first and a historian second... probably a philanthropist third. He graduated with a BA in History from UCD in 2012 and following a brief sabbatical and a failed attempt to climb the slippery ladder of showbusiness the mysterious gravitational pull of the UCD arts block made him return to study the History and the Media MA. As part of the course he recently completed his own history documentary, a biography of an Irish WW1 soldier. He likes Mars bars, Christmas and ABBA, he hates famine and suffering.

Dav id Molu m by

Gramsci’s writings raise interesting questions about attaining consent in civil societies and the use of cultural institutions in achieving and maintaining hegemony. But where do they fit in a modern context? And in a country like Ireland? From a “Gramscian” perspective the media must be interpreted as a crucial cultural institution in the second half of the 20th century, and has to be taken into account in the context of the theory of hegemony. The 1990 Irish Presidential election campaign was both played out in and dramatically influenced by the media and showed in a modern society just how important a tool it is in achieving consent.



‘Politics, Persuasion and Paranoia: Responses to the Commission on Vocational Organisation’

Liam graduated from College of the Holy Cross in Massachussetts in May 2013 as a History and World Literature double major. He is currently earning his M.A. in Modern Irish History. As an American student and seasoned veteran of Catholic and Jesuit education, he brings a unique lens to examine Irish Church and State relations. His presentation constitutes a broad portion of research for his thesis focusing on the Commission on Vocational Organisation.

Liam’s presentation will explore how Éamon de Valera and Fianna Fáil interacted with the eagerly awaited and comprehensive Commission on Vocational Organisation (1939-44) and how this resulted in an emphatic affirmation of the status quo.

Liam Colford

GROUND MECHANICS

PART TWO




Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know - the Moplahs of Malabar

Colm first attended UCD in the 1980’s when he completed a B. Comm., a Master’s in Management Science and a Diploma in Professional Accounting. After a twenty five year career in finance and technology he has taken a year out to complete an MA in the History of International Relations. His research is concerned with colonial violence in British India in the immediate aftermath of World War I.

My presentation will examine why the violent suppression by the British authorities of the 1921 rebellion by the Moplahs, the Muslim minority community of Malabar in south west India, received such little critical scrutiny even from those normally acutely sensitive to colonial abuses.

Colm Healy



I am Helen Scanlon, a student from Co. Wicklow. I completed my B.A. in History, Politics and International Relations in University College Dublin in 2013. I am currently studying for an M.A. in the History of International Relations, and I have a particular interest in the decline of the British Empire, and in its relationship with Australia.

Helen Scanlon

In 1939, ‘full-blooded’ Aboriginal Australians were barred from war service, yet many Indigenous people fought to defend a country that did not count them as citizens. This presentation will assess the extent to which by enlisting, they participated in maintaining the symbolic universe of White Australia and so assisted in legitimating their position within it.

Benefits and Betrayal: Aboriginal Australian Enlistment in World War Two



Declan Clear

In Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony the concept of consent by a subordinate group within society is what comes to mind when looking at the Irish in the south during the American Civil War. While Irish people accepted the idea of slavery to elevate their place in southern society it was something which they did not necessarily understand. This is highlighted by Patrick Cleburne’s petition to the Confederacy to enlist slaves to fight for the Confederate-army.

‘Black and White Answers: The Irish in the south during the American Civil War’

Declan graduated with a BA in History and Greek and Roman Civilization from University College Dublin in 2013. He is currently enrolled in the MA American History. His research interests include the role of the Irish in the American Civil War and the history of the American presidency.



I am Arjen Engeltjes, born on the 23rd of December 1988 in Den Helder, Netherlands. I grew up in a small town called Anna Paulowna, went to school in Schagen, worked for a year at a flower farm and after that I did my bachelors degree in History at the University of Amsterdam. Because of my interest in totalitarian states I came to UCD to study an MA in Totalitarianism.

Arjen Engeltjes

During the years of Hitler's reign in Germany, Jews wrote letters to Hitler. Did these Jews or their relatives and friends use in their letters the general Nazi discourse and cultural values? By looking at the letters written by or for Jews, I shall try to look whether cultural hegemony is applicable here, or whether the Jews did try to put forward a completely different discourse.

‘Jewish letters, Nazi language? - The use of Nazi discourse in Jewish letters to Hitler’



We would like to thank the following people who aided in organizing the conference:Dr David Kerr (module coordinator), all the supervisors who have greatly helped us with the work, Kate Breslin, Anthony Hyland and all the staff of the School of History and Archives.

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Disseminating History Group One

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