Data

Although the voice of migrants and minorities has increasingly being heard in migration research, studies of past narratives of migration remain comparatively rare. The reason for this lies in the fact that accessing historical records of migrants’ personal accounts is technically difficult. Voicing the experiences and ‘inner life’ of migrants, the immigrant press represents a suitable compromise.

Stefan Krebs uses the case of Germany to investigate maintenance and repair as a central part of automobility. The chapter will look at two sides of car repair as the need to maintain the mobility function and the practice of a hobbyist consumer activity that promised status, community and identity. It highlights four aspects that framed repair as a necessary part of car consumption: the (un-)reliability of automobile technology; the emergence of a car repair infrastructure; repair costs, which determined to a large extent whether one could afford to drive a car; and DIY repair practices.

Belgian historical research concerning the repression of collaboration after the Second World War, has mostly overlooked the East Cantons. This mostly German-speaking region only became a part of Belgium in 1920, as a consequence of the treaty of Versailles. The integration of these populations turned out to be a very complicated process. In 1940, Nazi-Germany did not only occupy the East Cantons like the rest of Belgium, but annexed them back into the Third Reich.

Since the beginning of historical writing, historians, philosophers and poets have reflected on the complex relationship between history and its linguistic representation, between the narrative and the reality expressed in it, between the textual formulation of the truth requirement and the stylistic or rhetorical work of persuasion. For centuries, and even for more than two millennia, this debate has always revolved around a major epistemological problem, summed up by the French historian Ivan Jablonka as follows: "How can truth be told in and through a text?

This article examines the influence of patients' families in the Schaerbeek asylum for the insane between 1853 and 1914. Through the examination of the institution's medico-administrative registers during four periods of psychiatric internment (admissions, establishment of diagnoses, social relations of the patients, and discharges), the central role played by the patients' entourage in the asylums is revealed. Between high economic capital and favorable legal provisions, families are indeed able to influence the possibilities and modalities of psychiatric internment.

As media environments and communication practices evolve over time, so do theoretical concepts. This book analyzes some of the most well-known and fiercely discussed concepts of the digital age from a historical perspective, showing how many of them have pre-digital roots and how they have changed and still are constantly changing in the digital era. Written by leading authors in media and communication studies, the chapters historicize 16 concepts that have become central in the digital media literature, focusing on three main areas.