Monday, 25 November 2024, 6 - 8 p.m., Natalia Otrishchenko (L’viv), ‘History and Beyond: Frames for Sense-Making during the War’

War is an ultimate disruption in human experience; it causes reevaluation and reframing, as the predictability of everyday life is lost due to violence and destruction. People learn to navigate in a new reality and search for possible connections—to experiences of others, family narratives, history textbooks, stories available in the culture, etc. Natalia Otrishenko will refer to the documentation project ‘24/02/22, 5 am: Testimonies from the war’ that was launched in March 2022 as a reaction to the russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine. She will reflect on the examples from the interviews where people refer to the idea of ‘impossible war’ but also provide different meaning-making frames to explain the event. The lecture will describe the transformation of the extended self during the war as people reframe their lives regarding the past(s)—their personal ones, families, communities, and society in general. It will conclude with notes on new war temporalities that not only disentangle personal stories but also make new connections within them.

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