Stef Craps | Ghent University (original) (raw)
Books by Stef Craps
Trauma has become a catchword of our time and a central category in contemporary theory and criti... more Trauma has become a catchword of our time and a central category in contemporary theory and criticism. In this illuminating and accessible volume, Lucy Bond and Stef Craps:
- provide an account of the history of the concept of trauma from the late nineteenth century to the present day
- examine debates around the term in their historical and cultural contexts
- trace the origins and growth of literary trauma theory
- introduce the reader to key thinkers in the field
- explore important issues and tensions in the study of trauma as a cultural phenomenon
- outline and assess recent critiques and revisions of cultural trauma research
Trauma is an essential guide to a rich and vibrant area of literary and cultural inquiry.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction: Not Even Past
1. The History of Trauma
2. Words for Wounds
3. Trauma Theories
4. The Future of Trauma
Conclusion: The Limits of Trauma
Glossary
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Lucy Bond is a principal lecturer in English literature at the University of Westminster, UK.
Stef Craps is a professor of English literature at Ghent University, Belgium.
DISCOUNT
Use the promotional code FLR40 at checkout to receive a 20% discount: http://www.routledge.com/9780415540421.
Though still a relatively young field, memory studies has undergone significant transformations s... more Though still a relatively young field, memory studies has undergone significant transformations since it first coalesced as an area of inquiry. Increasingly, scholars understand memory to be a fluid, dynamic, unbound phenomenon—a process rather than a reified object. Embodying just such an elastic approach, this state-of-the-field collection systematically explores the transcultural, transgenerational, transmedial, and transdisciplinary dimensions of memory—four key dynamics that have sometimes been studied in isolation but never in such an integrated manner. Memory Unbound places leading researchers in conversation with emerging voices in the field to recast our understanding of memory's distinctive variability.
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations
Introduction: Memory on the Move
Lucy Bond, Stef Craps, and Pieter Vermeulen
Chapter 1. Staging Shared Memory: Je Veux voir and L’Empreinte de l’ange
Max Silverman
Chapter 2. Remembering the Indonesian Killings: The Act of Killing and the Global Memory Imperative
Rosanne Kennedy
Chapter 3.Transnational Memory and the Construction of History through Mass Media
Aleida Assmann
Chapter 4. Small Acts of Repair: The Unclaimed Legacy of the Romanian Holocaust
Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer
Chapter 5. Fictions of Generational Memory: Caryl Phillips’s In the Falling Snow and Black British Writing in Times of Mnemonic Transition
Astrid Erll
Chapter 6. The Uses of Facebook for Examining Collective Memory: The Emergence of Nasser Facebook Pages in Egypt
Joyce van de Bildt
Chapter 7. Connective Memory: How Facebook Takes Charge of Your Past
José van Dijck
Chapter 8. Embodiments of Memory: Toward an Existential Approach to the Culture of Connectivity
Amanda Lagerkvist
Chapter 9. Metaphorical Memories of the Medieval Crusades after 9/11
Brian Johnsrud
Chapter 10. The Agency of Memory Objects: Tracing Memories of Soweto at Regina Mundi Church
Frauke Wiegand
Chapter 11. Cultural Memory Studies in the Epoch of the Anthropocene
Richard Crownshaw
Chapter 12. “Filled with Words”: Modeling the September 11 Digital Archive and the Utility of Digital Methods in the Study of Memory
Jessica K. Young
Bibliography
Index
Despite a stated commitment to cross-cultural solidarity, trauma theory—an area of cultural inves... more Despite a stated commitment to cross-cultural solidarity, trauma theory—an area of cultural investigation that emerged out of the 'ethical turn' affecting the humanities in the 1990s—is marked by a Eurocentric, monocultural bias. This book takes issue with the tendency of the founding texts of the field to marginalize or ignore traumatic experiences of non-Western or minority groups, and to take for granted the universal validity of definitions of trauma and recovery that have developed out of the history of Western modernity. Moreover, it questions the assumption that a modernist aesthetic of fragmentation and aporia is uniquely suited to the task of bearing witness to trauma, and criticizes the neglect of the connections between metropolitan and non-Western or minority traumas. Combining theoretical argument with literary case studies, Postcolonial Witnessing contends that the suffering engendered by colonialism needs to be acknowledged more fully, on its own terms, in its own terms, and in relation to traumatic First World histories if trauma theory is to have any hope of redeeming its promise of cross-cultural ethical engagement.
This book offers a critical reading of the novels of Graham Swift in light of recent developments... more This book offers a critical reading of the novels of Graham Swift in light of recent developments in literary theory and criticism. It shows how the novels elaborate an ethics of alterity by means of a detailed study of one of Swift’s most persistent and fascinating – yet all too often ignored – concerns: the traumatic experience of reality.
Swift’s texts evoke the cultural pathologies of a nation (post-war Britain) and an era (modernity) through the narratives of individual characters who are struggling to come to terms with a traumatic personal and collective past. This study charts the entire trajectory of Swift’s engagement with the perils, pitfalls and possibilities of navigating a post-traumatic condition, proceeding from an emphasis on denial in his early work, through an intense preoccupation with the demands of trauma in the “middle-period” novels (including Waterland), to a seemingly liberating insistence on regeneration and renewal in Last Orders and The Light of Day.
By providing a wide-ranging and in-depth analysis of Swift’s novels against the background of the “ethical turn” in literary studies and the emergence of trauma theory, this book extends and enriches our understanding of what is arguably one of the most significant literary oeuvres of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
Essays by Stef Craps
Dynamics, Mediation, Mobilization: Doing Memory Studies with Ann Rigney, 2024
This chapter explores the problem of society’s environmental memory loss and the potential for li... more This chapter explores the problem of society’s environmental memory loss and the potential for literary and other artistic works to counteract it. The psychologist Peter Kahn has coined the term “environmental generational amnesia” to refer to the idea that each generation’s perception of what is “normal” in nature is shaped by their own experience rather than an objective standard. As a result, Kahn notes, we forget what we have lost and do not realize the full extent of environmental degradation that has occurred over time. This phenomenon is closely related to the notion of “shifting baseline syndrome,” introduced by the marine biologist Daniel Pauly, which describes how people’s baseline expectations of the state of the environment are constantly being reset to a lower level as they are born into a world with fewer resources and a more degraded environment than the generation before. Drawing on the work of Ann Rigney and the political theorist Mihaela Mihai, I argue that creative works can play a vital role in reversing these trends and curing our planetary amnesia.
Cahier voor Literatuurwetenschap, 2024
Dat literatuur kan fungeren als een krachtig instrument voor maatschappelijke bewustwording en ve... more Dat literatuur kan fungeren als een krachtig instrument voor maatschappelijke bewustwording en verandering is een te koesteren gedachte te midden van de polycrisis die de wereld doormaakt. Als geëngageerde literatuurwetenschapper leek het mij zinvol om in te zetten op het vergroten van de sociale impact van mijn onderzoeksobject én het onderzoek ernaar door het debat erover te voeden en aan te zwengelen via een bijzondere vorm van public outreach. In 2021 nam ik samen met mijn UGent-collega en jurist Eva Brems het initiatief om een impactproject op te starten rond literatuur en mensenrechten. Dat project heeft als doel begeleiders van leesgroepen voor volwassenen in Vlaanderen en Nederland hulpmiddelen aan te reiken om aan de slag te gaan met literatuur waarin mensenrechtenthema’s een prominente rol spelen.
Convergences océanes: Ces océans qui nous habitent, 2024
Imagine a single survivor, a lonely fugitive at large on mainland Mauritius at the end of the sev... more Imagine a single survivor, a lonely fugitive at large on mainland Mauritius at the end of the seventeenth century. Imagine this fugitive as a female. She would have been bulky and flightless and befuddled-but resourceful enough to have escaped and endured when the other birds didn't. Or else she was lucky.. .. Imagine that her last hatchling had been snarfed by a feral pig. That her last fertile egg had been eaten by a monkey. That her mate was dead, clubbed by a hungry Dutch sailor, and that she had no hope of finding another. During the past halfdozen years, longer than a bird could remember, she had not even set eyes on a member of her own species. Raphus cucullatus had become rare unto death. But this one fleshandblood individual still lived. Imagine that she was thirty years old, or thirtyfive, an ancient age for most sorts of bird but not impossible for a member of such a largebodied species. She no longer ran, she waddled. Lately she was going blind. Her digestive system was balky. In the dark of an early morning in 1667, say, during a rainstorm, she took cover beneath a cold stone ledge at the base of one of the Black River cliffs. She drew her head down against her body, fluffed her feathers for warmth, squinted in patient misery. She waited. She didn't know it, nor did anyone else, but she was the only dodo on Earth. When the storm passed, she never opened her eyes. This is extinction. 2 The Only Dodo on Earth The dodo is emblematic of the ongoing human-driven sixth mass extinction, which is predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid strike that killed the dinosaurs (Kolbert). The phrase "dead as a dodo" is evidence of its close association with species mortality. A large, somewhat ungainly, flightless bird endemic to Mauritius, the dodo probably mostly ate fallen fruit, along with seeds, bulbs, crustaceans, and insects. In the absence of mammals, the dodo had few competitors for these foods, nor did it have any
Green Deal Klimaatbestendige Omgeving , 2024
Binnenstebuiten, 2024
The Faculty of Arts and Philosophy is honoured to host Ursula Heise (UCLA) as an International Fr... more The Faculty of Arts and Philosophy is honoured to host Ursula Heise (UCLA) as an International Francqui Professor in the autumn of 2024. Heise is one of the foremost scholars in the environmental humanities, a field of inquiry that seeks to highlight how the various ecological crises we face-such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and widespread pollution-are not merely scientific or technological challenges but also deeply intertwined with culture, history, and politics. Her work has been highly influential in shaping the direction of ecocriticism or environmental literary and cultural studies in particular.
Memory Studies Review, 2024
This essay explores the problem of society's environmental memory loss and the potential for lite... more This essay explores the problem of society's environmental memory loss and the potential for literary and cultural works to counteract it. It uses the concepts of environmental generational amnesia and shifting baseline syndrome to argue that our connection to the natural world has been eroded by our severely limited experience of it. Each generation's perception of what is "normal" in nature is shaped by their own experience rather than an objective standard. As a result, we forget what we have lost and do not realise the full extent of environmental degradation that has occurred over time. People's baseline expectations of the state of the environment are constantly being reset to a lower level as they are born into a world with fewer resources and a more degraded environment than the generation before. The essay examines two case studies to illustrate how creative works can play a vital role in reversing these trends and curing our planetary amnesia: The Lost Words: A Spell Book and its sequel The Lost Spells by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris, and What Is Missing?, an interactive digital project by Maya Lin.
Wijsgerig Perspectief, 2024
Klimaatrechtvaardigheid speelt doorgaans geen prominente rol in internationale politieke discussi... more Klimaatrechtvaardigheid speelt doorgaans geen prominente rol in internationale politieke discussies zoals VN-klimaattoppen, waar economische en technische maatregelen voor mitigatie en adaptatie de gesprekken beheersen. Het adjectief ‘global’ in ‘global warming’, de opwarming van de aarde, impliceert dat de hele wereld wordt beïnvloed door klimaatverandering, en wetenschappelijke rapporten zoals die van het Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), het VN-klimaatpanel, focussen op de gemiddelde stijging van de mondiale temperatuur. We zitten allemaal in hetzelfde schuitje, zo lijkt het wel.
Maar in werkelijkheid is dat natuurlijk niet zo: er is grote ongelijkheid in de mondiale verdeling van verantwoordelijkheid en kwetsbaarheid voor klimaatverandering. Diegenen die het minst verantwoordelijk zijn voor klimaatverandering worden het hardst getroffen door de gevolgen ervan. Het Westen, dat historisch gezien verantwoordelijk is voor de meeste uitstoot van broeikasgassen, is het minst kwetsbaar; het Globale Zuiden is het meest kwetsbaar. Naast geografische locatie zijn ras, gender en socio-economische status bepalende factoren voor kwetsbaarheid voor klimaatverandering: mensen van kleur, vrouwen en mensen in armoede lopen meer kans om getroffen te worden dan witte mensen, mannen en rijke mensen.
In dit artikel zal ik de manier bespreken waarop de literatuur en de literatuurstudie omgaan met kwesties van klimaatrechtvaardigheid, na die eerst te kaderen binnen de ruimere theorievorming rond het antropoceen. De focus zal niet uitsluitend liggen op teksten die verschillen in verantwoordelijkheid en kwetsbaarheid voor klimaatverandering expliciet thematiseren maar evenzeer op teksten die ze schijnbaar of effectief uit de weg gaan. Aan de hand van de casus van een door mij gedoceerd mastervak over de literaire verbeelding van de klimaatcrisis zal ik een lans breken voor een geëngageerd literatuuronderzoek en -onderwijs die actief bijdragen aan het nastreven van klimaatrechtvaardigheid.
Working Paper 2, WG5 "Transformation of the Environment," Slow Memory COST Action, 2024
This working paper presents a multifaceted examination of four innovative impact projects that ad... more This working paper presents a multifaceted examination of four innovative impact projects that address the challenge of memorializing the Anthropocene, the new geological epoch characterized by massive human influence on the planet. Authored by four members of the "Transformation of the Environment" working group of the Slow Memory COST Action, it delves into diverse initiatives spanning the realms of art, museum curation, commemoration, and tourism. Each project offers a distinct and unique approach to getting the public to engage with the realities, complexities, and complicities of living in a time of climate and ecological crisis.
Teaching the Literature of Climate Change, 2024
This essay discusses a graduate course at Ghent University on the literary imagination of the cli... more This essay discusses a graduate course at Ghent University on the literary imagination of the climate crisis that pays particular attention to the ways in which creative writers address inequalities in the global distribution of responsibility for and vulnerability to climate change in their work. A selection of recent humanities scholarship theorizing climate change and its cultural framings and impacts provides a background for the analysis of a wide range of literary responses across different genres, from novels and short stories to graphic novels, poems, and plays. The essay focuses specifically on how questions of climate justice continually guide and inform classroom discussions, shedding light not only on texts that explicitly engage with such concerns but also, and perhaps especially, on texts that largely evade them.
parallax, 2023
This essay seeks to demonstrate the value of different guilt-ridden and grief-stricken cultural f... more This essay seeks to demonstrate the value of different guilt-ridden and grief-stricken cultural forms and social practices in helping us develop a new emotional literacy to navigate the challenges of environmental breakdown and collective responsibility. It examines three case studies – Octavia Cade’s novella The Impossible Resurrection of Grief, Chris Jordan’s documentary film Albatross and the self-immolation of David Buckel – that illustrate the complex interplay between environmental guilt and grief, showing how these emotions can serve as motivators for positive change and contribute to ecological attunement. The essay emphasises the importance of moving beyond individualised guilt to a collective understanding of environmental responsibility and offers insights into the potential of guilt and grief to drive meaningful action in addressing the ecological crisis.
rekto:verso, 2024
Verdriet, angst, wanhoop, schuldgevoelens en woede: geconfronteerd met de klimaatcatastrofe spele... more Verdriet, angst, wanhoop, schuldgevoelens en woede: geconfronteerd met de klimaatcatastrofe spelen verschillende emoties op, maar die krijgen vooralsnog weinig plaats en erkenning in de samenleving. Kunstenaars en activisten ontwikkelen ondertussen rouwpraktijken. Die zijn niet zaligmakend, maar wel noodzakelijk om voorbij het collectieve ontwijkingsgedrag te geraken.
Memory Studies, 2023
The essay explores the roots, growth, and impact of the Mnemonics network, an international colla... more The essay explores the roots, growth, and impact of the Mnemonics network, an international collaborative initiative aimed at providing doctoral training in memory studies. Since 2012, Mnemonics has organized an annual rotating summer school centred around specific themes in memory studies. The essay discusses the network’s grassroots origins, the way it operates, its efforts to maintain openness, and the factors that account for its endurance. Acknowledging the challenges of expansion and inclusivity, it concludes by reflecting on how Mnemonics seeks to embody the true spirit of academia by nurturing intellectual growth and fostering collaboration and mutual support.
Critical Memory Studies: New Approaches, 2023
The Anthropocene, the new geological epoch defined by the transformative impact of human activity... more The Anthropocene, the new geological epoch defined by the transformative impact of human activity on the planet, has seen a dramatic increase in the pace, scope, and severity of various kinds of environmental degradation, including climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. Moreover, according to a plethora of bleak scientific reports, these trends show little sign of abating, boding ill for the future of humanity and life on Earth in general. The experience and anticipation of environmental loss-whether of plant and animal species, ecosystems, landscapes, or an inhabitable planet-cause profound sorrow, which is being felt more and more acutely by a growing portion of the world's population as we move ever deeper into the Anthropocene. However, as yet, we are somewhat at a loss as to how to adequately navigate the affective terrain of environmental breakdown. Lacking standard protocols and procedures, we do not quite know how to make sense of, channel, or cope with its psychological impact.
This essay will explore how literature, and art more generally, serves as a cultural laboratory for articulating and dealing with grief related to environmental loss, which remains largely unspoken and unrecognized. The act of naming the often disenfranchised and marginalized forms of grief arising from environmental loss is a major step in bringing them to public awareness and granting them social acceptance and legitimacy so that they can be processed more effectively. Coming to terms with ecological grief can inspire efforts to work through it and reinvigorate practices of environmental advocacy in the face of the daunting ecological challenges confronting global society in the twenty-first century.
The essay consists of three parts. First, I will explain why the very idea of ecological mourning meets with strong resistance in some quarters. I will go on to discuss the phenomenon of glacier funerals, which has helped ecological mourning overcome that resistance and go mainstream in recent years. I will end by discussing a newly published novella that offers a profound meditation on its perils, pitfalls, and possibilities: The Impossible Resurrection of Grief by Octavia Cade.
Handelingen van de Koninklijke Zuid-Nederlandse Maatschappij voor Taal- en Letterkunde en Geschiedenis, 2021
De vroege eenentwintigste eeuw zag een golf van literaire teksten waarin de klimaatverandering ce... more De vroege eenentwintigste eeuw zag een golf van literaire teksten waarin de klimaatverandering centraal staat. Dit artikel bespreekt wat tegenwoordig klimaatfictie of "cli-fi" wordt genoemd als een alternatieve vorm van klimaatcommunicatie, omarmd niet alleen door literatuurliefhebbers maar ook door wetenschappers en activisten die tegen de grenzen van het informatietekort-model aanlopen in hun pogingen om bewustwording en gedragsverandering te bewerkstelligen. Bijzondere aandacht wordt besteed aan de opkomende trend van hoopvolle, utopische klimaatverhalen als tegenwicht voor de dominantie van het post-apocalyptische genre, waarvan de effectiviteit steeds meer ter discussie staat.
Memory Studies, 2021
Working at the intersection of political science, ethnographic sociology, and contemporary histor... more Working at the intersection of political science, ethnographic sociology, and contemporary historiography, Sarah Gensburger specializes in the social dynamics of memory. In this interview, she talks about her book Memory on My Doorstep: Chronicles of the Bataclan Neighborhood, Paris 2015-2016, which traces the evolving memorialization processes following the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, their impact on the local landscape, and the social appropriations of the past by visitors at memorials and commemorative sites. She also discusses her new project Vitrines en confinement - Vetrine in quarantena ("Windows in Lockdown"), which documents public responses to the coronavirus pandemic from different sites across Europe through the creation of a photographic archive of public space. The interview highlights issues around the immediacy of contemporary memorialization practices, the ways in which people engage with their local space during times of crisis, and how we are all actively involved in preserving memory for the future.
Trauma has become a catchword of our time and a central category in contemporary theory and criti... more Trauma has become a catchword of our time and a central category in contemporary theory and criticism. In this illuminating and accessible volume, Lucy Bond and Stef Craps:
- provide an account of the history of the concept of trauma from the late nineteenth century to the present day
- examine debates around the term in their historical and cultural contexts
- trace the origins and growth of literary trauma theory
- introduce the reader to key thinkers in the field
- explore important issues and tensions in the study of trauma as a cultural phenomenon
- outline and assess recent critiques and revisions of cultural trauma research
Trauma is an essential guide to a rich and vibrant area of literary and cultural inquiry.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction: Not Even Past
1. The History of Trauma
2. Words for Wounds
3. Trauma Theories
4. The Future of Trauma
Conclusion: The Limits of Trauma
Glossary
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Lucy Bond is a principal lecturer in English literature at the University of Westminster, UK.
Stef Craps is a professor of English literature at Ghent University, Belgium.
DISCOUNT
Use the promotional code FLR40 at checkout to receive a 20% discount: http://www.routledge.com/9780415540421.
Though still a relatively young field, memory studies has undergone significant transformations s... more Though still a relatively young field, memory studies has undergone significant transformations since it first coalesced as an area of inquiry. Increasingly, scholars understand memory to be a fluid, dynamic, unbound phenomenon—a process rather than a reified object. Embodying just such an elastic approach, this state-of-the-field collection systematically explores the transcultural, transgenerational, transmedial, and transdisciplinary dimensions of memory—four key dynamics that have sometimes been studied in isolation but never in such an integrated manner. Memory Unbound places leading researchers in conversation with emerging voices in the field to recast our understanding of memory's distinctive variability.
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations
Introduction: Memory on the Move
Lucy Bond, Stef Craps, and Pieter Vermeulen
Chapter 1. Staging Shared Memory: Je Veux voir and L’Empreinte de l’ange
Max Silverman
Chapter 2. Remembering the Indonesian Killings: The Act of Killing and the Global Memory Imperative
Rosanne Kennedy
Chapter 3.Transnational Memory and the Construction of History through Mass Media
Aleida Assmann
Chapter 4. Small Acts of Repair: The Unclaimed Legacy of the Romanian Holocaust
Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer
Chapter 5. Fictions of Generational Memory: Caryl Phillips’s In the Falling Snow and Black British Writing in Times of Mnemonic Transition
Astrid Erll
Chapter 6. The Uses of Facebook for Examining Collective Memory: The Emergence of Nasser Facebook Pages in Egypt
Joyce van de Bildt
Chapter 7. Connective Memory: How Facebook Takes Charge of Your Past
José van Dijck
Chapter 8. Embodiments of Memory: Toward an Existential Approach to the Culture of Connectivity
Amanda Lagerkvist
Chapter 9. Metaphorical Memories of the Medieval Crusades after 9/11
Brian Johnsrud
Chapter 10. The Agency of Memory Objects: Tracing Memories of Soweto at Regina Mundi Church
Frauke Wiegand
Chapter 11. Cultural Memory Studies in the Epoch of the Anthropocene
Richard Crownshaw
Chapter 12. “Filled with Words”: Modeling the September 11 Digital Archive and the Utility of Digital Methods in the Study of Memory
Jessica K. Young
Bibliography
Index
Despite a stated commitment to cross-cultural solidarity, trauma theory—an area of cultural inves... more Despite a stated commitment to cross-cultural solidarity, trauma theory—an area of cultural investigation that emerged out of the 'ethical turn' affecting the humanities in the 1990s—is marked by a Eurocentric, monocultural bias. This book takes issue with the tendency of the founding texts of the field to marginalize or ignore traumatic experiences of non-Western or minority groups, and to take for granted the universal validity of definitions of trauma and recovery that have developed out of the history of Western modernity. Moreover, it questions the assumption that a modernist aesthetic of fragmentation and aporia is uniquely suited to the task of bearing witness to trauma, and criticizes the neglect of the connections between metropolitan and non-Western or minority traumas. Combining theoretical argument with literary case studies, Postcolonial Witnessing contends that the suffering engendered by colonialism needs to be acknowledged more fully, on its own terms, in its own terms, and in relation to traumatic First World histories if trauma theory is to have any hope of redeeming its promise of cross-cultural ethical engagement.
This book offers a critical reading of the novels of Graham Swift in light of recent developments... more This book offers a critical reading of the novels of Graham Swift in light of recent developments in literary theory and criticism. It shows how the novels elaborate an ethics of alterity by means of a detailed study of one of Swift’s most persistent and fascinating – yet all too often ignored – concerns: the traumatic experience of reality.
Swift’s texts evoke the cultural pathologies of a nation (post-war Britain) and an era (modernity) through the narratives of individual characters who are struggling to come to terms with a traumatic personal and collective past. This study charts the entire trajectory of Swift’s engagement with the perils, pitfalls and possibilities of navigating a post-traumatic condition, proceeding from an emphasis on denial in his early work, through an intense preoccupation with the demands of trauma in the “middle-period” novels (including Waterland), to a seemingly liberating insistence on regeneration and renewal in Last Orders and The Light of Day.
By providing a wide-ranging and in-depth analysis of Swift’s novels against the background of the “ethical turn” in literary studies and the emergence of trauma theory, this book extends and enriches our understanding of what is arguably one of the most significant literary oeuvres of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
Dynamics, Mediation, Mobilization: Doing Memory Studies with Ann Rigney, 2024
This chapter explores the problem of society’s environmental memory loss and the potential for li... more This chapter explores the problem of society’s environmental memory loss and the potential for literary and other artistic works to counteract it. The psychologist Peter Kahn has coined the term “environmental generational amnesia” to refer to the idea that each generation’s perception of what is “normal” in nature is shaped by their own experience rather than an objective standard. As a result, Kahn notes, we forget what we have lost and do not realize the full extent of environmental degradation that has occurred over time. This phenomenon is closely related to the notion of “shifting baseline syndrome,” introduced by the marine biologist Daniel Pauly, which describes how people’s baseline expectations of the state of the environment are constantly being reset to a lower level as they are born into a world with fewer resources and a more degraded environment than the generation before. Drawing on the work of Ann Rigney and the political theorist Mihaela Mihai, I argue that creative works can play a vital role in reversing these trends and curing our planetary amnesia.
Cahier voor Literatuurwetenschap, 2024
Dat literatuur kan fungeren als een krachtig instrument voor maatschappelijke bewustwording en ve... more Dat literatuur kan fungeren als een krachtig instrument voor maatschappelijke bewustwording en verandering is een te koesteren gedachte te midden van de polycrisis die de wereld doormaakt. Als geëngageerde literatuurwetenschapper leek het mij zinvol om in te zetten op het vergroten van de sociale impact van mijn onderzoeksobject én het onderzoek ernaar door het debat erover te voeden en aan te zwengelen via een bijzondere vorm van public outreach. In 2021 nam ik samen met mijn UGent-collega en jurist Eva Brems het initiatief om een impactproject op te starten rond literatuur en mensenrechten. Dat project heeft als doel begeleiders van leesgroepen voor volwassenen in Vlaanderen en Nederland hulpmiddelen aan te reiken om aan de slag te gaan met literatuur waarin mensenrechtenthema’s een prominente rol spelen.
Convergences océanes: Ces océans qui nous habitent, 2024
Imagine a single survivor, a lonely fugitive at large on mainland Mauritius at the end of the sev... more Imagine a single survivor, a lonely fugitive at large on mainland Mauritius at the end of the seventeenth century. Imagine this fugitive as a female. She would have been bulky and flightless and befuddled-but resourceful enough to have escaped and endured when the other birds didn't. Or else she was lucky.. .. Imagine that her last hatchling had been snarfed by a feral pig. That her last fertile egg had been eaten by a monkey. That her mate was dead, clubbed by a hungry Dutch sailor, and that she had no hope of finding another. During the past halfdozen years, longer than a bird could remember, she had not even set eyes on a member of her own species. Raphus cucullatus had become rare unto death. But this one fleshandblood individual still lived. Imagine that she was thirty years old, or thirtyfive, an ancient age for most sorts of bird but not impossible for a member of such a largebodied species. She no longer ran, she waddled. Lately she was going blind. Her digestive system was balky. In the dark of an early morning in 1667, say, during a rainstorm, she took cover beneath a cold stone ledge at the base of one of the Black River cliffs. She drew her head down against her body, fluffed her feathers for warmth, squinted in patient misery. She waited. She didn't know it, nor did anyone else, but she was the only dodo on Earth. When the storm passed, she never opened her eyes. This is extinction. 2 The Only Dodo on Earth The dodo is emblematic of the ongoing human-driven sixth mass extinction, which is predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid strike that killed the dinosaurs (Kolbert). The phrase "dead as a dodo" is evidence of its close association with species mortality. A large, somewhat ungainly, flightless bird endemic to Mauritius, the dodo probably mostly ate fallen fruit, along with seeds, bulbs, crustaceans, and insects. In the absence of mammals, the dodo had few competitors for these foods, nor did it have any
Green Deal Klimaatbestendige Omgeving , 2024
Binnenstebuiten, 2024
The Faculty of Arts and Philosophy is honoured to host Ursula Heise (UCLA) as an International Fr... more The Faculty of Arts and Philosophy is honoured to host Ursula Heise (UCLA) as an International Francqui Professor in the autumn of 2024. Heise is one of the foremost scholars in the environmental humanities, a field of inquiry that seeks to highlight how the various ecological crises we face-such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and widespread pollution-are not merely scientific or technological challenges but also deeply intertwined with culture, history, and politics. Her work has been highly influential in shaping the direction of ecocriticism or environmental literary and cultural studies in particular.
Memory Studies Review, 2024
This essay explores the problem of society's environmental memory loss and the potential for lite... more This essay explores the problem of society's environmental memory loss and the potential for literary and cultural works to counteract it. It uses the concepts of environmental generational amnesia and shifting baseline syndrome to argue that our connection to the natural world has been eroded by our severely limited experience of it. Each generation's perception of what is "normal" in nature is shaped by their own experience rather than an objective standard. As a result, we forget what we have lost and do not realise the full extent of environmental degradation that has occurred over time. People's baseline expectations of the state of the environment are constantly being reset to a lower level as they are born into a world with fewer resources and a more degraded environment than the generation before. The essay examines two case studies to illustrate how creative works can play a vital role in reversing these trends and curing our planetary amnesia: The Lost Words: A Spell Book and its sequel The Lost Spells by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris, and What Is Missing?, an interactive digital project by Maya Lin.
Wijsgerig Perspectief, 2024
Klimaatrechtvaardigheid speelt doorgaans geen prominente rol in internationale politieke discussi... more Klimaatrechtvaardigheid speelt doorgaans geen prominente rol in internationale politieke discussies zoals VN-klimaattoppen, waar economische en technische maatregelen voor mitigatie en adaptatie de gesprekken beheersen. Het adjectief ‘global’ in ‘global warming’, de opwarming van de aarde, impliceert dat de hele wereld wordt beïnvloed door klimaatverandering, en wetenschappelijke rapporten zoals die van het Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), het VN-klimaatpanel, focussen op de gemiddelde stijging van de mondiale temperatuur. We zitten allemaal in hetzelfde schuitje, zo lijkt het wel.
Maar in werkelijkheid is dat natuurlijk niet zo: er is grote ongelijkheid in de mondiale verdeling van verantwoordelijkheid en kwetsbaarheid voor klimaatverandering. Diegenen die het minst verantwoordelijk zijn voor klimaatverandering worden het hardst getroffen door de gevolgen ervan. Het Westen, dat historisch gezien verantwoordelijk is voor de meeste uitstoot van broeikasgassen, is het minst kwetsbaar; het Globale Zuiden is het meest kwetsbaar. Naast geografische locatie zijn ras, gender en socio-economische status bepalende factoren voor kwetsbaarheid voor klimaatverandering: mensen van kleur, vrouwen en mensen in armoede lopen meer kans om getroffen te worden dan witte mensen, mannen en rijke mensen.
In dit artikel zal ik de manier bespreken waarop de literatuur en de literatuurstudie omgaan met kwesties van klimaatrechtvaardigheid, na die eerst te kaderen binnen de ruimere theorievorming rond het antropoceen. De focus zal niet uitsluitend liggen op teksten die verschillen in verantwoordelijkheid en kwetsbaarheid voor klimaatverandering expliciet thematiseren maar evenzeer op teksten die ze schijnbaar of effectief uit de weg gaan. Aan de hand van de casus van een door mij gedoceerd mastervak over de literaire verbeelding van de klimaatcrisis zal ik een lans breken voor een geëngageerd literatuuronderzoek en -onderwijs die actief bijdragen aan het nastreven van klimaatrechtvaardigheid.
Working Paper 2, WG5 "Transformation of the Environment," Slow Memory COST Action, 2024
This working paper presents a multifaceted examination of four innovative impact projects that ad... more This working paper presents a multifaceted examination of four innovative impact projects that address the challenge of memorializing the Anthropocene, the new geological epoch characterized by massive human influence on the planet. Authored by four members of the "Transformation of the Environment" working group of the Slow Memory COST Action, it delves into diverse initiatives spanning the realms of art, museum curation, commemoration, and tourism. Each project offers a distinct and unique approach to getting the public to engage with the realities, complexities, and complicities of living in a time of climate and ecological crisis.
Teaching the Literature of Climate Change, 2024
This essay discusses a graduate course at Ghent University on the literary imagination of the cli... more This essay discusses a graduate course at Ghent University on the literary imagination of the climate crisis that pays particular attention to the ways in which creative writers address inequalities in the global distribution of responsibility for and vulnerability to climate change in their work. A selection of recent humanities scholarship theorizing climate change and its cultural framings and impacts provides a background for the analysis of a wide range of literary responses across different genres, from novels and short stories to graphic novels, poems, and plays. The essay focuses specifically on how questions of climate justice continually guide and inform classroom discussions, shedding light not only on texts that explicitly engage with such concerns but also, and perhaps especially, on texts that largely evade them.
parallax, 2023
This essay seeks to demonstrate the value of different guilt-ridden and grief-stricken cultural f... more This essay seeks to demonstrate the value of different guilt-ridden and grief-stricken cultural forms and social practices in helping us develop a new emotional literacy to navigate the challenges of environmental breakdown and collective responsibility. It examines three case studies – Octavia Cade’s novella The Impossible Resurrection of Grief, Chris Jordan’s documentary film Albatross and the self-immolation of David Buckel – that illustrate the complex interplay between environmental guilt and grief, showing how these emotions can serve as motivators for positive change and contribute to ecological attunement. The essay emphasises the importance of moving beyond individualised guilt to a collective understanding of environmental responsibility and offers insights into the potential of guilt and grief to drive meaningful action in addressing the ecological crisis.
rekto:verso, 2024
Verdriet, angst, wanhoop, schuldgevoelens en woede: geconfronteerd met de klimaatcatastrofe spele... more Verdriet, angst, wanhoop, schuldgevoelens en woede: geconfronteerd met de klimaatcatastrofe spelen verschillende emoties op, maar die krijgen vooralsnog weinig plaats en erkenning in de samenleving. Kunstenaars en activisten ontwikkelen ondertussen rouwpraktijken. Die zijn niet zaligmakend, maar wel noodzakelijk om voorbij het collectieve ontwijkingsgedrag te geraken.
Memory Studies, 2023
The essay explores the roots, growth, and impact of the Mnemonics network, an international colla... more The essay explores the roots, growth, and impact of the Mnemonics network, an international collaborative initiative aimed at providing doctoral training in memory studies. Since 2012, Mnemonics has organized an annual rotating summer school centred around specific themes in memory studies. The essay discusses the network’s grassroots origins, the way it operates, its efforts to maintain openness, and the factors that account for its endurance. Acknowledging the challenges of expansion and inclusivity, it concludes by reflecting on how Mnemonics seeks to embody the true spirit of academia by nurturing intellectual growth and fostering collaboration and mutual support.
Critical Memory Studies: New Approaches, 2023
The Anthropocene, the new geological epoch defined by the transformative impact of human activity... more The Anthropocene, the new geological epoch defined by the transformative impact of human activity on the planet, has seen a dramatic increase in the pace, scope, and severity of various kinds of environmental degradation, including climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. Moreover, according to a plethora of bleak scientific reports, these trends show little sign of abating, boding ill for the future of humanity and life on Earth in general. The experience and anticipation of environmental loss-whether of plant and animal species, ecosystems, landscapes, or an inhabitable planet-cause profound sorrow, which is being felt more and more acutely by a growing portion of the world's population as we move ever deeper into the Anthropocene. However, as yet, we are somewhat at a loss as to how to adequately navigate the affective terrain of environmental breakdown. Lacking standard protocols and procedures, we do not quite know how to make sense of, channel, or cope with its psychological impact.
This essay will explore how literature, and art more generally, serves as a cultural laboratory for articulating and dealing with grief related to environmental loss, which remains largely unspoken and unrecognized. The act of naming the often disenfranchised and marginalized forms of grief arising from environmental loss is a major step in bringing them to public awareness and granting them social acceptance and legitimacy so that they can be processed more effectively. Coming to terms with ecological grief can inspire efforts to work through it and reinvigorate practices of environmental advocacy in the face of the daunting ecological challenges confronting global society in the twenty-first century.
The essay consists of three parts. First, I will explain why the very idea of ecological mourning meets with strong resistance in some quarters. I will go on to discuss the phenomenon of glacier funerals, which has helped ecological mourning overcome that resistance and go mainstream in recent years. I will end by discussing a newly published novella that offers a profound meditation on its perils, pitfalls, and possibilities: The Impossible Resurrection of Grief by Octavia Cade.
Handelingen van de Koninklijke Zuid-Nederlandse Maatschappij voor Taal- en Letterkunde en Geschiedenis, 2021
De vroege eenentwintigste eeuw zag een golf van literaire teksten waarin de klimaatverandering ce... more De vroege eenentwintigste eeuw zag een golf van literaire teksten waarin de klimaatverandering centraal staat. Dit artikel bespreekt wat tegenwoordig klimaatfictie of "cli-fi" wordt genoemd als een alternatieve vorm van klimaatcommunicatie, omarmd niet alleen door literatuurliefhebbers maar ook door wetenschappers en activisten die tegen de grenzen van het informatietekort-model aanlopen in hun pogingen om bewustwording en gedragsverandering te bewerkstelligen. Bijzondere aandacht wordt besteed aan de opkomende trend van hoopvolle, utopische klimaatverhalen als tegenwicht voor de dominantie van het post-apocalyptische genre, waarvan de effectiviteit steeds meer ter discussie staat.
Memory Studies, 2021
Working at the intersection of political science, ethnographic sociology, and contemporary histor... more Working at the intersection of political science, ethnographic sociology, and contemporary historiography, Sarah Gensburger specializes in the social dynamics of memory. In this interview, she talks about her book Memory on My Doorstep: Chronicles of the Bataclan Neighborhood, Paris 2015-2016, which traces the evolving memorialization processes following the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, their impact on the local landscape, and the social appropriations of the past by visitors at memorials and commemorative sites. She also discusses her new project Vitrines en confinement - Vetrine in quarantena ("Windows in Lockdown"), which documents public responses to the coronavirus pandemic from different sites across Europe through the creation of a photographic archive of public space. The interview highlights issues around the immediacy of contemporary memorialization practices, the ways in which people engage with their local space during times of crisis, and how we are all actively involved in preserving memory for the future.
Collateral: Online Journal for Cross-Cultural Close Reading, 2020
The Routledge Companion to Literature and Trauma, 2020
The increasing visibility of climate change and scientists’ alarming warnings about it are taking... more The increasing visibility of climate change and scientists’ alarming warnings about it are taking a toll on people’s mental well-being. This essay surveys the culturally resonant repertoire of new coinages that have emerged in recent years to name and communicate environmentally induced distress. It pays particular attention to the concept of pre-traumatic stress disorder, which has become the focus of a small but important body of humanistic scholarschip calling for an expanded trauma theory that would be future- as well as past-oriented. Noting trauma theory’s persistent human-centredness, the essay goes on to consider attempts that are being made to reconceptualize trauma in non-anthropocentric terms and to acknowledge the interconnectedness and entanglement of human and non-human traumas. It ends by predicting that cultural trauma research, which has so far shown relatively little interest in environmental issues in general and climate change in particular, will engage more fully with our dire environmental predicament in the years ahead.
Collateral: Online Journal for Cross-Cultural Close Reading, 2020
Collateral: Online Journal for Cross-Cultural Close Reading, 2020
Memory Studies Review, 2025
The scale, complexity, and urgency of the global ecological crisis challenge the human capacity t... more The scale, complexity, and urgency of the global ecological crisis challenge the human capacity to grasp it, particularly within the context of daily life. Mass extinction, climate catastrophe, rampant pollution-concepts and phenomena that should not be understood as acceptable-have become "normal." In its so-called fourth wave, memory studies has begun to remember the causes and effects of these characteristics of our new geological epoch, the Anthropocene-defined by the ascendant primacy of the human species in shaping the planet.
In confronting the Anthropocene, emergent scholarship and theoretically informed cultural practice (in the visual and plastic arts and museum exhibition curation) have drawn on memory studies’ existing repertoire of concepts of witnessing – given the ways witnessing has been theorized in relation to the complexity, extremity, and scale of events that defy representation. This special issue of Memory Studies Review explores how this normal abnormal of the Anthropocene might be witnessed in meaningful and transformative ways: to relate experience and observation to representation, knowledge, remembrance, and social action. More specifically, this issue asks how the climate crisis is or could be witnessed.
Confirmed keynote speakers: Professor Gabriele Dürbeck (University of Vechta) and Professor Kate ... more Confirmed keynote speakers: Professor Gabriele Dürbeck (University of Vechta) and Professor Kate Rigby (Bath Spa University)
Confirmed writers: Gisèle Bienne and Francesca Melandri
Since the 1980s, environmental issues have occupied an increasingly central place in contemporary fiction. While the relationship between humans and nature has always played an important role in Western literature, from Theocritus to Thoreau, the ecological awareness of threats to the balance of the biosphere is a relatively recent phenomenon that has penetrated society and the literary imagination alike. The notion of the Anthropocene, a new geological epoch characterized by the impact of human activities, has become established as a category of the literary imagination, while nature has come to the fore as an autonomous narrative force, no longer readable exclusively as a reflection of the subject’s emotions. In this regard, Lawrence Buell (1995), one of the founders of ecocriticism, writes that an environmental text is one where “the nonhuman environment is present not merely as a framing device but as a presence that begins to suggest that human history is implicated in natural history.” This implies a non-anthropocentric logic, one that is no longer preoccupied solely with human interests. The ethical dimension involved in this approach demands renewed attention to the referentiality of literature, and indeed to literary commitment, also in contexts—such as that of France—marked by self-reflexive formalist experimentalism in the postwar period (Schoentjes 2015).
The aim of this conference is to investigate the impact of ecological awareness on the literary imagination and the new connections it establishes in our individual and collective representations of what is commonly referred to as “nature” or “the environment.” A transnational mapping of environmental literatures—or ecological fictions, a name one could perhaps give to the most “committed” texts—that can account for their characteristics and objectives still largely remains to be carried out. All types of literary fiction in English, French, German, and Italian can be explored within a global perspective that is also attentive to the circulation of literary works. In the spirit of ecopoetics, particular attention will be afforded the study of formal elements used to narrativize these issues, and more generally to the literary specificity of this cultural trend (Scaffai 2017).
The literary studies stream takes up the theme of decolonization, which has attracted renewed att... more The literary studies stream takes up the theme of decolonization, which has attracted renewed attention in the wake of the Rhodes Must Fall movement in Cape Town and Oxford. Contestations over the legacies of European colonialism have begun to coalesce around calls to “decolonize” public spaces, institutions, curricula, and forms of knowledge. Decolonization is understood here as a process of challenging the cultural forces that had helped maintain the colonial system and that remain even after the formal end of colonial rule. English departments have been a frequent target of decolonization protests in recent years, with students at universities such as Cambridge and Yale urging faculty to diversify the English literature curriculum in highly-publicized campaigns. We invite papers that explore issues of decolonization in relation to (the teaching of) literatures in English, whether in terms of processes of canon (de)formation, the development of decolonizing reading practices, questions of diversity and equity addressed in specific literary texts, the contemporary resonance of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s seminal Decolonising the Mind and other key theoretical works, or the pedagogical implications of adopting a decolonizing stance in the literature classroom. Presenters are encouraged but not required to reflect on the significance and relevance of the Belgian historical and educational contexts in their papers.
This special issue aims to explore the myriad ways in which environmental change wreaks havoc on ... more This special issue aims to explore the myriad ways in which environmental change wreaks havoc on the human psyche by bringing together essays on a wide range of psychological and affective responses to our dire environmental predicament. We welcome contributions from a variety of disciplines on the manifold theorizations, manifestations, and representations of ecological grief and cognate emotions pervading contemporary culture, as well as on attempts to counter, overcome, or cope with these feelings, or to leverage them for positive action on behalf of the environment. Contributors are asked to be attentive to the role played by issues of race, gender, class, and geopolitical location in determining how ecological grief is experienced, expressed, and managed.
Proposals should include a title, an abstract of 250-300 words, and a short author bio describing previous and current research that relates to the special issue theme. Please submit your proposal as a single Microsoft Word file to stef.craps@ugent.be by 1 January 2019. Full essays are due by 1 September 2019, and the special issue will come out in winter 2019. Manuscripts must be prepared according to the author guidelines posted on the journal’s website. For inquiries, please contact stef.craps@ugent.be.
The seventh Mnemonics: Network for Memory Studies summer school will be hosted by the Flemish Mem... more The seventh Mnemonics: Network for Memory Studies summer school will be hosted by the Flemish Memory Studies Network (a collaboration of the Cultural Memory Studies Initiative at Ghent University and KU Leuven’s Literary Studies Research Unit) from 22 to 24 August 2018 at the Irish College in Leuven. Confirmed keynote speakers are Rick Crownshaw (Goldsmiths, University of London), Andrew Hoskins (University of Glasgow), and Gabriele Schwab (UC Irvine).
Studies in the Novel is currently seeking submissions for a special issue on "The Rising Tide of ... more Studies in the Novel is currently seeking submissions for a special issue on "The Rising Tide of Climate Change Fiction," guest-edited by Stef Craps (Ghent University) and Rick Crownshaw (Goldsmiths, University of London), which will be published in spring 2018 as part of the journal's 50th anniversary volume.
Applications are invited for a fully-funded PhD scholarship in the Department of Literary Studies... more Applications are invited for a fully-funded PhD scholarship in the Department of Literary Studies at Ghent University, Belgium, tenable for a period of up to four years. The successful candidate will participate in the research project “Literature, Nature, and Ecology: An Ecopoetic Approach to Contemporary Narrative Prose in English, French, German, and Italian,” supported by a GOA grant from Ghent University’s research council and directed by Professors Benjamin Biebuyck, Stef Craps, Pierre Schoentjes, and Sabine Verhulst.
The project, which will employ four PhD students and one postdoctoral research fellow, will explore the role of the literary imagination, with a special focus on textual complexity and the tension between the global nature of ecological problems and culturally specific issues. Adopting a cross-cultural and cross-linguistic comparative perspective, it aims to examine the ways in which the literary imagination is deployed to forge new cultural connections with nature and the environment in a world in which ecological awareness occupies an increasingly prominent place.
Working under the primary supervision of Prof. Stef Craps, the PhD student to be hired will mainly research contemporary environmental fiction in English within the remit of the project, which will address topics such as questions of literary form, representations of the other-than-human, conceptualizations of housing, perambulatory environmental experiences, ecological disruption, and the narrativization of scientific knowledge. Candidates are welcome to propose a project of their own that falls within this broad scope.
Applications are invited for a fully-funded PhD scholarship in the Department of Literary Studies... more Applications are invited for a fully-funded PhD scholarship in the Department of Literary Studies at Ghent University, Belgium, tenable for a period of up to four years. The successful candidate will participate in the research project “Imagining Climate Change: Fiction, Memory, and the Anthropocene,” sponsored by a grant from the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO-Vlaanderen) and directed by Prof. Stef Craps. S/he will research Anglophone climate change fiction within the context of the project’s three interrelated strands. The first, formalist strand explores the literary innovations demanded by climate change, a phenomenon whose magnitude and complexity challenge conventional modes of representation. The second, historicist strand links climate change fiction to literary responses to earlier crises that radically altered humanity’s relationship to the past, present, and future: the discovery of geological time in the early nineteenth century and the Cold War threat of nuclear annihilation. The third, postcolonial strand investigates to what extent and in what ways climate change fiction addresses inequalities in the global distribution of responsibility for and vulnerability to climate change, which the developing Anthropocene narrative risks obscuring.