Male Identity and Martial Codes of Honor: A Comparison of the War Memoirs of Robert Graves, Ernst Junger, and Kande Kamara
This article compares and contrasts the memoirs of three combatants from the First World War: Robert Graves, Ernst Jünger, and the West African Tirailleur Kande Kamara. Though the soldiers' distinctive cultural heritage and service in the British, German, and French colonial armies, respectively, informed each interpretation, they shared similar, though particular, concepts of male identity and military duty that were socially specific, which they strove to honor. Their interpretations addressed particular audiences—categorized as "the victorious," "the defeated," and "the exploited"—that contributed to and reflected the political liturgies informing mass movements—especially in Germany and the Third World—throughout the twentieth century.
Remembering the Tirailleurs Sénégalais and the Great War: Oral History as a Methodology of Inclusion in French Colonial Studies
Pendant la Première Guerre mondiale plus que 140 000 Ouest-Africains ont été recrutés dans l'armée française de force et ont servi comme combattants en Europe. Cet essai examine un aspect crucial de cette unique rencontre interculturelle: la manière de commémorer les soldats de cette guerre. Ce thème est exploré dans trois contextes temporels et interprétatifs: (1) représentations coloniales françaises au sujet du rôle des Africains en temps de guerre antérieur à 1960, (2) les conventions françaises d'autrefois qui sont mises en question par les historiens des années 1960 à la fin des années 1980, et (3) la révélation des hommes derrière les masques du mythe colonial pendant les quinze ans précédents. L'accent de la dernière section sera mise sur la contribution de l'histoire orale à révéler-après presque 75 années de silence-contre-interprétations africains au sujet de leurs expériences en temps de guerre. En faisant ainsi cet essai illustre des tendances récentes dans l'historiographie interculturelle et dans l'interprétation du passé colonial franco-africain en général.
Thermal stability of reconstituted collagen fibrils. Shrinkage characteristics upon in vitro maturation
Thermal stability measured as area shrinkage without tension during heating was determined for membranes of collagen fibrils reconstituted from solutions of highly purified rat skin collagens. Shrinkage in per cent of area at 25 degrees C and shrinkage temperature were quantitated in a standardized way and determined as a function of in vitro maturation time for 11 to 104 days after aggregation for the collagen membranes. Similar to reports on intact rat skin, shrinkage temperature remained constant and shrinkage per cent declined with a rate decreasing with time during maturation. Solubility in water at 80 degrees C for 2 hours was 95-96% and remained unchanged for the maturation time (about 2 months) studied. The decreased shrinkage reflecting a lower degree of collapse is ascribed to an increasing thermal stability of the membranes during maturation. Development of heat-stable bonds in the reconstituted collagen fibrils is taken up to be amenable to this increased stability. Similarity in changes of shrinkage characteristics during in vivo and in vitro maturation indicates that maturation changes in reconstituted collagen fibrils reflect those occurring in intact collagen during in vivo aging.