Clare Goes on a Bitchy Rant

My first non-librarian/KM conference is finally over. My experience was mixed; I'm returning with a phone full of Evernotes and a head overflowing with as yet jumbled ideas. I've not really assessed the learning yet because it's rather daunting and I've no clue where to start. But never have I encountered such cliquey unfriendliness, and in some cases pure discouraging rudeness.

Academia has a problem. You only have to regularly read the Times Higher Ed and realise that the humming halls of learning disguise a bearpit of competition, backstabbing and secrecy. I'm an outsider in this world, just standing on tiptoes looking in, like a child at a window listening to warring parents. And I've no wish to join this dysfunctional family in a professional capacity. My library training and natural inclination is for openness, collaboration, and making room for new ideas from external influences and as such, I'm clearly unwelcome.

From Jerusalem to Bethlehem: or Wo ist...?

There are a number of reasons why a few days in Berlin is a Good Thing. The least important one, despite it being the main event, is the rather large Renaissance Society of America 2015 conference which stretches over three packed days. More of that anon, if I ever navigate the 500 page programme guide. And once I have chosen lectures, will I find the right place out of the 100s of seminar rooms dotted around Humboldt University campus.

War, memory and museums

Of all the lectures so far this one interested me the most even though some of the ideas Dr Gabriel Koureas presented I want to argue with. I remember being deeply affected by a visit to the Imperial War Museum's Holocaust galleries, as well as visiting the Wiener Archives earlier in the year, so I read the entire suggested lecture journal/book list with fascinated interest.

'Traumatic recall is full of fleeting images the percussion of blows, sounds and movement of the body' wrote Roberta Coulson in 1995. Ordinary memories are something we can recall or narrate however this is not the case with traumatic memories. There is a break in the narrative. Someone who experiences war finds it hard to construct a narrative for that event. They experience embodied flashbacks/memories.