Bearing Witness": The Role of Art in Post-Conflict Reconciliation
Conflicts throughout the centuries have provided endless fodder for the treatises of historians, ... more Conflicts throughout the centuries have provided endless fodder for the treatises of historians, politicians, sociologists, and negotiators, who are intent on analyzing geopolitical impact, psychological responses, and mediation techniques. Less frequently, however, have researchers studied the artistic reaction to violent social upheaval, a course of inquiry of critical importance in light of today’s unstable global climate. Using recent conflict in Northern Ireland as the crux of my research, I have uncovered numerous arts approaches to reconciliation processes that prove applicable across time and space. The oeuvre of one contemporary artist in particular, Rita Duffy (1959–), reveals a gradual progression of healing, stages of which appear in the artistic production of many tumultuous periods, from the Greco-Persian wars to tension between Protestant Reformers and Catholic Counter-Reformers to the social justice initiatives of the 20th century. Most important to this project is ensuring the relevance of my work to current situations that could benefit from such practices, as informed by the conflict art of the past. Through this investigation, I ultimately argue for the power of art in the face of divisive circumstances, a conclusion supported by successful outcomes in Northern Ireland. Thus, I paint artists as uniquely situated to lead others in a process of reconciliation after having come to terms with their personal experience of conflict through visual means. These practitioners mount a formidable force when they collectively concentrate their creative capacities toward lasting peace through the process of art
Interracial relationships on television are both negatively and positively represented on shows i... more Interracial relationships on television are both negatively and positively represented on shows in the United States. However, few studies have been conducted to address if these representations relate to viewers attitudes and behaviors — specifically on young adult viewers. Our study conducted a survey to find if greater exposure to interracial couples through TV-shows would relate to a) greater acceptance of diversity, and b) greater acceptance of other cultures overall as well as relate to more willingness to participate in an interracial relationship, based on social cognitive theory and cultivation theory. Both hypotheses were supported, as our study found a positive 0.40 correlation between overall show exposure and acceptance of diversity as well as above 0.30 correlations for exposure of shows such as New Girl and Glee and willingness to participate in an interracial relationship. Future research should consider conducting a content analysis to have the ability to compare an...
Piccolo ma Forte: The Child Narrator’s Role in Cultural Collective Processing of Historical Events
Whether dealing with genocide, organized crime or economic deprivation, the use of a child protag... more Whether dealing with genocide, organized crime or economic deprivation, the use of a child protagonist in film and literature allows for an unfiltered look at traumatic history that contributes to a broader collective healing process. In recollections of violent African events, painful Italian history and more recent happenings in Syria, artists use the child protagonist to introduce the perspective of a marginalized population into a historical reality, invoke sympathy from motivated audiences, and call attention to the universal and unifying human experience of suffering. This paper, firstly, compares the strategic use of the child narrator across cultures in short stories of African atrocities and Roberto Benigni\u27s Life is Beautiful (1997), according to Pamela Kroll\u27s six tools for understanding. Secondly, this paper demonstrates, in contrast to Giacomo Lichtner\u27s 2012 article regarding child narratives in Italian Holocaust films, that the adoption of a child\u27s perspective is not willing submission to ignorance, but a cathartic exercise to purge a population of an evil past
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Papers by Meghan Doyle