FROM THE EDITOR

The magazine, untold, is the product of a collaboration between two professors, one in journalism and the other in history, and their students at Washington and Lee University during the winter term of 2023.

Late last year, I decided that I wanted students in my Editing for Print and Online Media class to create a magazine as their final project. But I needed content. I found it in the History Department at W&L.

Professor Romina Green Rioja, who teaches Historical Memory in Latin America, agreed to my proposed collaboration: My Editing class would use her students’ essays as the basis for designing and creating a magazine that delved into the topic of historical memory.

The study of historical memory emerged in the 20th century as a method for scholars to understand collective identities and experiences. Later, it became a way to explain collective and historical trauma.

At the start of the term, my Editing students began reading the essays that Professor Green’s students wrote that chronicled their paths over the next 12 weeks to the realization that there is often more to history than what’s in history books.

My Editing students learned along with the history class about indigenous people whose stories were erased and voices were silenced by conquerors who told only one side of the story of the development of several nations.

The magazine in your hands depicts the magic that occurs when students immerse themselves in compelling content that ignites creativity. My Editing students developed the magazine from scratch. As a group, they made decisions that determined its look and feel, from its size and shape to its fonts and color schemes.

They also experimented with artificial intelligence-generated images to create the photograph on the magazine’s cover. A student asked Open AI’s DALL-E deep learning model to produce a “photorealistic over-the-shoulder image” with an “archival feel” of a student reading a book.

I hope you, the reader, are as proud as I am of the journalism and history students for their commitment to tackling such an important subject that affects people around the world.

professor of journalism & mass communications

Graciela Gaviria

Carly Snyder

Stef Chiguluri

Fraley Williams

Lilah Kimble

Archita Aggarwal

Jak Krouse

HISTORY 235: HISTORICAL MEMORY IN LATIN AMERICA

“Historical memory studies emerged in the 20th century as a method to understand collective identities and experiences, and, later, as an avenue to articulate collective and historical trauma. This class will examine the complex role of historical memory in 19th and 20th c. Latin America. We will study collective, official, counter, and living memory as analytical concepts, as well as specific memory battles and historical trauma. Readings explore the impact of Holocaust memory studies in Latin America and the erasure of indigenous and African stories from national histories. However, a special focus will be placed on how historical memory is employed as a counter-memory from below to institutional histories about the military regimes of the 1970s and 1980s. In the final part of the course students will learn how and why historical memory and human rights has become the political language of expanding democratic rights.”

— Professor Green’s course syllabus.

DESIGN BY GRACIELA GAVIRIA

Q: What is historical memory and why is it a relevant field of study?

A:Wehaveaverybig systemthatisconstantly erasing.Andtheonlyway todosoisthroughthe same methods of historical memory.

Itʼsoralhistorypassingon, andyoujusthopethatthe nextgenerationalsogets exposed.

Q: Where does your interest with historical memory come from?

A:Mygrandmothermadea veryconsciousefforttotell mesinceIwasverylittleof these stories. And in some ways,theycouldseemlike storiesyoushouldnʼttell childrenbecausetheyʼre abouttorture,theyʼre aboutrape,theyʼreabout fear.Andsomepeopleare afraidtotellthestories, andIdefinitelyhavefamily members and friends who werenevertold,right?

Butmygrandmother justthoughtitwasher politicaldutytotellme, eventhoughshewasnot ideologicallycommitted.