Historical Cases: Contextualizing the Self

Chapter 3 explores letters and images that situate selves and events in time, developing the themes of literacy and material agency from Chapter 1, and identity-formation from Chapter 2. Jewish and Catholic approaches to time and events past are then discussed, followed by a psychoanalysis and panorama of present-day period-awareness and embodied engagements such as re-enactments. Topics discussed include the following: the impact of conflict on the will to historicize in writing: the cases of the Aspö rune-stone in Sweden, the American Civil War aftermath, and the Greek War of Independence; writing as creation and as self-therapy; activated memory rather than historicizing records, and the weight of names, words, and the Word divine; visual reifications of time in Italian art: the cases of Angelico’s and Caravaggio’s annunciations; space and the absences signalled by art and architecture: the case of Mary’s house divided; present-day receptions, conceptions, and needs revealed: the cases of Gettysburg, Azincourt, and others; and periodization and the self in search of orientation in time: the cases of Pythagoras and Paulinus.