Selma Leydesdorff
Biographic Data
| ID | 410693 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Selma Leydesdorff |
| GIVEN NAMES | Selma |
| FAMILY NAME | Leydesdorff |
| SIGNATURE | LEYDESDORFF S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Amsterdam |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2691-9480 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 152 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 5 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1990 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2019 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
My parents were killed in Sobibor, but it feels as if I was there: Imagination in my Interviews
During the Demjanjuk trial in Munich (2009–2011), I had the unexpected privilege to interview the Nebenkläger (co-plaintiffs) who testified in court about Sobibor. They related extremely sad stories about losing fathers, mothers, spouses and close family. In this article, I attempt to analyse their extreme loneliness and I wonder how to interpret their fragmented language of trauma. What kind of knowledge did they commit, and in what way are thei…
Oral Tradition and Historical Methodology
Oral traditions are historical sources of a special nature. Their special nature derives from the fact that they are &s;unwritten&s; sources couched in a form suitable for oral transmission, and that their preservation depends on the powers of memory of successive generations of human beings. Ethnologists who have attempted to study the past of peoples without writing have been faced with the problem of how much worth to attach to oral tradition.…
The Interpretation of History
Interpretation is a choice between several possible hypotheses, and the good historian is the one who chooses the hypothesis that is most likely to be true. In practice it can never have more than a likelihood of truth, because the past has gone for good and all, and the possibility of first-hand observation of past events is forever excluded. The layman is too often inclined to entertain a completely false idea as to the powers of the historian,…
Tradition as a Chain of Testimonies
This chapter focuses on the special nature of oral tradition. It is differentiated from other kinds of historical source by being a chain of testimonies. The chapter deals with the three problems: the relation between each testimony and the tradition as a whole, the methods of transmission, and the kind of distortions that may arise in the course of transmission. Verbality is a quality which the testimonies belonging to an oral tradition share wi…
The Evaluation of Testimonies
The value of a testimony is always a relative matter, depending upon the extent to which the account it gives of a historical event, or a series of historical events, is reliable or not. The value of the testimonies of the informants in the chain of transmission, one must make sure that each has had the opportunity of hearing the testimony of the preceding link in the chain which he is supposed to have repeated. Comparison of testimonies will est…
The Testimony as a Mirage of Reality
Testimony is no more than a mirage of the reality it describes. The initial informant in an oral tradition gives, either consciously or unconsciously, a distorted account of what has really happened, and places his own interpretation on what he has seen. This chapter analyses three factors: distortions made in defence of private interests, distortions made under the influence of cultural values, and distortions due to the individual psychology of…
Historical Knowledge
This chapter explores the typology of traditional sources and the characteristics of each type and explains the characteristics of oral tradition in general and discusses the scientific disciplines which the historian can use as an auxiliary aid to enable him to go beyond the limitations inherent in oral traditions. These scientific disciplines have their own bias and their own limitations, but they are of a very different order from those of ora…
Understanding the Testimony
This chapter discusses the three topics: historical content of a testimony, its structure, and its meaning. Knowledge of both the literal meaning and the purport of the text of a testimony make it possible to arrive at an accurate understanding of its overall meaning. The most important distinction to be established among the various types of oral tradition is that between testimonies which do, whether intentionally or unintentionally, produce a …
Memories of Mass Repression: Narrating Life Stories in the Aftermath of Atrocity
Gender & Memory: Memory and Narrative Series
Tapestry of Memory: Evidence and Testimony in Life-Story Narratives
Contributors present narratives and explore the way they influence the past. While aknowledging the debate about the validity of qualitative research based on narratives, the volume aims to illuminate how truth and evidence form part of a much wider debate on the representation of history
Oral Tradition: A Study in Historical Methodology
Oral traditions are historical sources of a special nature. Their special nature derives from the fact that they are ""unwritten"" sources couched in a form suitable for oral transmission, and that their preservation depends on the powers of memory of successive generations of human beings. In many parts of the world inhabited by peoples without writing, oral tradition forms the main available source for a reconstruction of the past. Do the speci…
Trauma: Life Stories of Survivors
Gender and Memory
Birth, Sex and Abuse: Women's voices under Nazi Rule, by Beverley Chalmers
Over the past few decades, the study of the Holocaust has become intertwined with gender studies, resulting in an ever-greater awareness of the suffering specific to women during the Nazi regime. S
Stories from No Land: The Women of Srebrenica Speak Out
It is argued that the stories of the survivors of the Srebrenica massacre in 1995 have been neglected by the memorial culture of Bosnia and by the various national reports that investigated how the massacre could have taken place. The author argues that a satisfactory history of the genocide has to include the voices of the survivors, in this case, the women. These are stories of trauma that are hard to listen to. She compares listening to them t…
Transnational Families: Memories and Narratives
This introduction to a special issue of the journal explores not only the role of memory and narratives in understanding gender and transnational families, but suggests how such families use and understand their memories to construct coherent narratives of the self and kin. In common with renewed thinking about the multifaceted nature of migration, the complexities of the process, and the continuing dialogue that migration establishes between the…
Trauma and Life Stories
Gender and the Categories of Experienced History
This paper examines the problematic relationship between oral history and gender and women's history. The article suggests that the methodological and research problems currently facing oral historians of gender in the context of multiculturalism and globalisation can only be overcome by undertaking research that links the small, local and regional focus characteristic of much oral history to new pat‐terns of history writing so that a plurality o…
Gender and Memory: International Yearbook of Oral History and Life Stories
Gender and Memory is the fourth volume of the International Yearbook of Oral History and Life Stories. Once again, its theme is a fundamental issue, the shaping of memory by gender. Are the different ways in which men and women are recalled in public and private memory, and also the differences in men's and women's own memories of similar experiences, simply reflections of unequal lives in gendered societies, or are they more deeply rooted? How e…
International Yearbook of Oral History and Life Stories: Volume IV
Gender and Memory is the fourth volume of the International Yearbook of Oral History and Life Stories. Once again, its theme is a fundamental issue, the shaping of memory by gender. Are the different ways in which men and women are recalled in public and private memory, and also the differences in men's and women's own memories of similar experiences, simply reflections of unequal lives in gendered societies, or are they more deeply rooted? How e…
Feminisms and Nazisms: A Colloquium in Honour of Rita Thalmann
Oral History and Perestroika, Moscow, 2-5 October 1989
Journal Article ORAL HISTORY AND PERESTROIKA, MOSCOW, 2–5 OCTOBER 1989 Get access Selma Leydesdorff Selma Leydesdorff Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar History Workshop Journal, Volume 29, Issue 1, Spring 1990, Pages 205–208, https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/29.1.205 Published: 01 March 1990
Transnational Families: Memories and Narratives
This introduction to a special issue of the journal explores not only the role of memory and narratives in understanding gender and transnational families, but suggests how such families use and understand their memories to construct coherent narratives of the self and kin. In common with renewed thinking about the multifaceted nature of migration, the complexities of the process, and the continuing dialogue that migration establishes between the…
Oral Tradition: A Study in Historical Methodology
Oral traditions are historical sources of a special nature. Their special nature derives from the fact that they are ""unwritten"" sources couched in a form suitable for oral transmission, and that their preservation depends on the powers of memory of successive generations of human beings. In many parts of the world inhabited by peoples without writing, oral tradition forms the main available source for a reconstruction of the past. Do the speci…
Gender and the Categories of Experienced History
This paper examines the problematic relationship between oral history and gender and women's history. The article suggests that the methodological and research problems currently facing oral historians of gender in the context of multiculturalism and globalisation can only be overcome by undertaking research that links the small, local and regional focus characteristic of much oral history to new pat‐terns of history writing so that a plurality o…
Stories from No Land: The Women of Srebrenica Speak Out
It is argued that the stories of the survivors of the Srebrenica massacre in 1995 have been neglected by the memorial culture of Bosnia and by the various national reports that investigated how the massacre could have taken place. The author argues that a satisfactory history of the genocide has to include the voices of the survivors, in this case, the women. These are stories of trauma that are hard to listen to. She compares listening to them t…
Oral History and Perestroika, Moscow, 2-5 October 1989
Journal Article ORAL HISTORY AND PERESTROIKA, MOSCOW, 2–5 OCTOBER 1989 Get access Selma Leydesdorff Selma Leydesdorff Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar History Workshop Journal, Volume 29, Issue 1, Spring 1990, Pages 205–208, https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/29.1.205 Published: 01 March 1990
Feminisms and Nazisms: A Colloquium in Honour of Rita Thalmann
Gender and Memory: International Yearbook of Oral History and Life Stories
Gender and Memory is the fourth volume of the International Yearbook of Oral History and Life Stories. Once again, its theme is a fundamental issue, the shaping of memory by gender. Are the different ways in which men and women are recalled in public and private memory, and also the differences in men's and women's own memories of similar experiences, simply reflections of unequal lives in gendered societies, or are they more deeply rooted? How e…
International Yearbook of Oral History and Life Stories: Volume IV
Gender and Memory is the fourth volume of the International Yearbook of Oral History and Life Stories. Once again, its theme is a fundamental issue, the shaping of memory by gender. Are the different ways in which men and women are recalled in public and private memory, and also the differences in men's and women's own memories of similar experiences, simply reflections of unequal lives in gendered societies, or are they more deeply rooted? How e…
Gender and the Categories of Experienced History
This paper examines the problematic relationship between oral history and gender and women's history. The article suggests that the methodological and research problems currently facing oral historians of gender in the context of multiculturalism and globalisation can only be overcome by undertaking research that links the small, local and regional focus characteristic of much oral history to new pat‐terns of history writing so that a plurality o…
Trauma and Life Stories
Transnational Families: Memories and Narratives
This introduction to a special issue of the journal explores not only the role of memory and narratives in understanding gender and transnational families, but suggests how such families use and understand their memories to construct coherent narratives of the self and kin. In common with renewed thinking about the multifaceted nature of migration, the complexities of the process, and the continuing dialogue that migration establishes between the…
Stories from No Land: The Women of Srebrenica Speak Out
It is argued that the stories of the survivors of the Srebrenica massacre in 1995 have been neglected by the memorial culture of Bosnia and by the various national reports that investigated how the massacre could have taken place. The author argues that a satisfactory history of the genocide has to include the voices of the survivors, in this case, the women. These are stories of trauma that are hard to listen to. She compares listening to them t…
Birth, Sex and Abuse: Women's voices under Nazi Rule, by Beverley Chalmers
Over the past few decades, the study of the Holocaust has become intertwined with gender studies, resulting in an ever-greater awareness of the suffering specific to women during the Nazi regime. S
Oral Tradition and Historical Methodology
Oral traditions are historical sources of a special nature. Their special nature derives from the fact that they are &s;unwritten&s; sources couched in a form suitable for oral transmission, and that their preservation depends on the powers of memory of successive generations of human beings. Ethnologists who have attempted to study the past of peoples without writing have been faced with the problem of how much worth to attach to oral tradition.…
The Interpretation of History
Interpretation is a choice between several possible hypotheses, and the good historian is the one who chooses the hypothesis that is most likely to be true. In practice it can never have more than a likelihood of truth, because the past has gone for good and all, and the possibility of first-hand observation of past events is forever excluded. The layman is too often inclined to entertain a completely false idea as to the powers of the historian,…
Tradition as a Chain of Testimonies
This chapter focuses on the special nature of oral tradition. It is differentiated from other kinds of historical source by being a chain of testimonies. The chapter deals with the three problems: the relation between each testimony and the tradition as a whole, the methods of transmission, and the kind of distortions that may arise in the course of transmission. Verbality is a quality which the testimonies belonging to an oral tradition share wi…
The Evaluation of Testimonies
The value of a testimony is always a relative matter, depending upon the extent to which the account it gives of a historical event, or a series of historical events, is reliable or not. The value of the testimonies of the informants in the chain of transmission, one must make sure that each has had the opportunity of hearing the testimony of the preceding link in the chain which he is supposed to have repeated. Comparison of testimonies will est…
The Testimony as a Mirage of Reality
Testimony is no more than a mirage of the reality it describes. The initial informant in an oral tradition gives, either consciously or unconsciously, a distorted account of what has really happened, and places his own interpretation on what he has seen. This chapter analyses three factors: distortions made in defence of private interests, distortions made under the influence of cultural values, and distortions due to the individual psychology of…
Historical Knowledge
This chapter explores the typology of traditional sources and the characteristics of each type and explains the characteristics of oral tradition in general and discusses the scientific disciplines which the historian can use as an auxiliary aid to enable him to go beyond the limitations inherent in oral traditions. These scientific disciplines have their own bias and their own limitations, but they are of a very different order from those of ora…
Understanding the Testimony
This chapter discusses the three topics: historical content of a testimony, its structure, and its meaning. Knowledge of both the literal meaning and the purport of the text of a testimony make it possible to arrive at an accurate understanding of its overall meaning. The most important distinction to be established among the various types of oral tradition is that between testimonies which do, whether intentionally or unintentionally, produce a …
Memories of Mass Repression: Narrating Life Stories in the Aftermath of Atrocity
Gender & Memory: Memory and Narrative Series
Tapestry of Memory: Evidence and Testimony in Life-Story Narratives
Contributors present narratives and explore the way they influence the past. While aknowledging the debate about the validity of qualitative research based on narratives, the volume aims to illuminate how truth and evidence form part of a much wider debate on the representation of history
Oral Tradition: A Study in Historical Methodology
Oral traditions are historical sources of a special nature. Their special nature derives from the fact that they are ""unwritten"" sources couched in a form suitable for oral transmission, and that their preservation depends on the powers of memory of successive generations of human beings. In many parts of the world inhabited by peoples without writing, oral tradition forms the main available source for a reconstruction of the past. Do the speci…
Trauma: Life Stories of Survivors
Gender and Memory
My parents were killed in Sobibor, but it feels as if I was there: Imagination in my Interviews
During the Demjanjuk trial in Munich (2009–2011), I had the unexpected privilege to interview the Nebenkläger (co-plaintiffs) who testified in court about Sobibor. They related extremely sad stories about losing fathers, mothers, spouses and close family. In this article, I attempt to analyse their extreme loneliness and I wonder how to interpret their fragmented language of trauma. What kind of knowledge did they commit, and in what way are thei…
History (12 works) · Psychology (8 works) · Oral History, Memory, Narrative Analysis (6 works) · Political science (6 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Law (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Memory (5 works) · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration (5 works) · Computer Science (4 works)