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The Documentary Remains of the Perpetrator: Images and Texts

No. 65

Remains of the World War I: War against War by Ernst Friedrich and Two Approaches to Reading Archives

DOI
https://doi.org/10.12795/themata.2022.i65.04
Submitted
March 7, 2022
Published
2022-07-11 — Updated on 2022-07-13
Versions

Abstract

In this paper I analyze two methods of reading archives: ‘against the grain’ and ‘along the grain’. First one focuses mainly on reveling what is marginalized and omission in archive’s dominant narration. Whereas the other carefully studies logic of an archive itself. As such, reading against the grain lets reveal victims’ forgotten stories, while reading along the grain helps to understand perpetrators’ perspective that may further allow to better recognize mechanisms of organized violence. I apply both this approaches to the album War against War (1924) by Ernst Friedrich that contains archival photographs from World War I.

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