susannah radstone | University of Melbourne (original) (raw)
Uploads
Papers by susannah radstone
Part I - Believing the Body Part II - Propping the Subject Part III - What Memory Forgets: Models... more Part I - Believing the Body Part II - Propping the Subject Part III - What Memory Forgets: Models of the Mind Part IV - What History Forgets: Memory and Time Part V - Memory Beyond the Modern
Paragraph, 2007
This article discusses the current ‘popularity’ of trauma research in the Humanities and examines... more This article discusses the current ‘popularity’ of trauma research in the Humanities and examines the ethics and politics of trauma theory, as exemplified in the writings of Caruth and Felman and Laub.Written from a position informed by Laplanchian and object relations psychoanalytic theory, it begins by examining and offering a critique of trauma theory's model of subjectivity, and its relations with theories of referentiality and representation, history and testimony. Next, it proposes that although trauma theory's subject matter—the sufferings of others—makes critique difficult, the theory's politics, its exclusions and inclusions, and its unconscious drives and desires are as deserving of attention as those of any other theory. Arguing that the political and cultural contexts within which this theory has risen to prominence have remained largely unexamined, the article concludes by proposing that trauma theory needs to act as a brake against rather than as a vehicle ...
Memory Studies, 2008
This article examines the opportunities and risks afforded by the consolidation of memory researc... more This article examines the opportunities and risks afforded by the consolidation of memory research into the subject area of `memory studies'. Debates about memory culture outside the academy and within academic memory research have hinged on its perceived over-personalization of the political. However, memory research is often informed by a broader ethical turn that understands itself to be transforming politics. The article argues that this split results in part from the over-generalizations produced by the travelling concepts of a transdisciplinary memory studies. It concludes that the politics of memory culture and of memory research might be best analysed and practiced within the disciplines and by means of the research methods from which memory studies borrows.
Memory Studies, 2013
This special issue was first conceived of over dinner in a New Zealand cafe in London, on a warm ... more This special issue was first conceived of over dinner in a New Zealand cafe in London, on a warm summer night in July 2010. During that evening, it emerged that we’d both already been thinking about the issues we raise here for some time. Rosanne, a US citizen, and now Australian citizen, who has lived and worked in Australia since the 1990s, had co-edited a book on World Memory (Bennett and Kennedy, 2003). Susannah, at that point a UK citizen working in the United Kingdom and with a fellowship in Australia, was in the midst of running a project on memory in national contexts and had recently spoken on what she sees as the thorny politics driving both memory’s mobility and theories of transnational memory (Radstone, 2011). Later that evening, we were joined by another contributor to this issue, Felicity Collins, who arrived hot foot from a symposium in Dublin on disputed memory in Australia and Ireland (Holmes and Ward, 2011). Looking back, it’s hard not to notice how our coming together – even in the choice of a New Zealand cafe in London – condensed many of the issues that pulse through this special issue. We knew that our connections were through memory research and through Australia. But knowing that didn’t reveal what, if anything, might be denoted by the coupling of Australia with both memory and memory studies. There in London, in the context of theories of the transnational as they were bearing in on memory studies and as they were present – embodied, even – around our table, this special issue had its genesis. That evening, we began to make plans for a symposium,1 bringing together leading memory researchers from across Australia, and it was during that event that we made plans for this volume. The title of our special issue – Memory Studies in Australia – describes its contents more or less accurately, but aims to provoke, too. Our starting point – self-evidently – is our belief that there’s something significant to be learnt from bringing together this carefully commissioned collection of memory studies research in Australia. But what might that be? After all, general questions of the pertinence of the national notwithstanding, isn’t Australia generally regarded – as one of our contributors pithily put it – as just a ‘small’ country, situated beyond anywhere that matters? And isn’t it just plain retrograde, anachronistic or even overly nationalistic to talk about memory studies in
Cultural Values, 2001
Abstract This essay places the recent academic fascination with trauma and victimhood in a psycho... more Abstract This essay places the recent academic fascination with trauma and victimhood in a psycho‐social context within which identifications with pure victimhood hold sway. The essay takes as its starting point Freud's description, in Civilisation and its Discontents, of the formation of the super‐ego via the small child's negotiation of ambivalence towards its first authority figure. It is argued that this process lacks secondary re‐inforcement in western urban postmodernity, where authority has become diffuse, all‐pervasive and unavailable as a point of identification. In this context, aggression becomes harder to acknowledge and manage resulting in a tendency towards Manicheanism and the attenuation of ambivalence. Taking as its case‐study Marianne Hirsch's writings on the ethical aesthetics of postmemorial photography, the essay concludes that recent work on trauma and testimony fails to acknowledge that identifications may straddle victimhood and perpetration. This acknowledgement is only possible where some containment of aggression feels possible.
History Workshop Journal, 2005
This essay puts the case for memory studies to attend to memory's mediation and articulation... more This essay puts the case for memory studies to attend to memory's mediation and articulation across and within the public sphere. The essay begins by defining the key terms of mediation and articulation, before mobilizing them to argue that they can aid in differentiating ...
Trauma and life stories: international perspectives, 1999
14 REVIEW ARTICLE Epidemics of our time: trauma or fantasy? Susannah Radstone Elaine Showalter, H... more 14 REVIEW ARTICLE Epidemics of our time: trauma or fantasy? Susannah Radstone Elaine Showalter, Hysterics: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Media (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997) British Publication: Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Culture ( ...
The Women's Companion to International Film Edited by Annette Kuhn with Susannah Radstone 1 ... more The Women's Companion to International Film Edited by Annette Kuhn with Susannah Radstone 1 W m^ JP HI M *B*' W* HI {] "i-w* II I >T«J ^H^B R^fcA. BK « [r^, ** 1 If' ^ J* ^^Hl vr ^ ^pi II (i ***' fi B ■ 1 (J **. W* ^^^H BPH *^B. ji^K\ ■ fc*l »^L., i^V\x> H r ^*m^i F ^m W .^a^^H ...
Trauma at home: after 9/11, 2003
The War of the Fathers: Trauma, Fantasy, and September n Susannah Radstone In designating experie... more The War of the Fathers: Trauma, Fantasy, and September n Susannah Radstone In designating experiences" traumatic," the meanings of those experiences are understood to be elusive or impossible to grasp. According to current understandings of trauma, it is the" anomalous" ...
The Sexual Politics of Time Looking at a diverse range of texts including Marilyn French's T... more The Sexual Politics of Time Looking at a diverse range of texts including Marilyn French's The Women's Room, Philip Roth's Patrimony, the theoretical writings of Walter Benjamin and Fredric Jameson, and films such as Cinema Paradiso, Susannah Radstone argues that though ...
Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies, 2019
How do migrants make themselves at home—or not—in new worlds and what sorts of work are involved ... more How do migrants make themselves at home—or not—in new worlds and what sorts of work are involved in this process? This chapter’s opening premise is that of an inextricable connection between the material, physical worlds of place and location and the psychical and experiential worlds of memory and the unconscious. Using as a case study my own experience of migrating from London to Melbourne, this chapter draws on Laplanchian psychoanalytic theory to explore the role of memory in the process of making a home in a new place.
Psychoanalysis and Cultural Theory: Thresholds, 1991
Part I - Believing the Body Part II - Propping the Subject Part III - What Memory Forgets: Models... more Part I - Believing the Body Part II - Propping the Subject Part III - What Memory Forgets: Models of the Mind Part IV - What History Forgets: Memory and Time Part V - Memory Beyond the Modern
Paragraph, 2007
This article discusses the current ‘popularity’ of trauma research in the Humanities and examines... more This article discusses the current ‘popularity’ of trauma research in the Humanities and examines the ethics and politics of trauma theory, as exemplified in the writings of Caruth and Felman and Laub.Written from a position informed by Laplanchian and object relations psychoanalytic theory, it begins by examining and offering a critique of trauma theory's model of subjectivity, and its relations with theories of referentiality and representation, history and testimony. Next, it proposes that although trauma theory's subject matter—the sufferings of others—makes critique difficult, the theory's politics, its exclusions and inclusions, and its unconscious drives and desires are as deserving of attention as those of any other theory. Arguing that the political and cultural contexts within which this theory has risen to prominence have remained largely unexamined, the article concludes by proposing that trauma theory needs to act as a brake against rather than as a vehicle ...
Memory Studies, 2008
This article examines the opportunities and risks afforded by the consolidation of memory researc... more This article examines the opportunities and risks afforded by the consolidation of memory research into the subject area of `memory studies'. Debates about memory culture outside the academy and within academic memory research have hinged on its perceived over-personalization of the political. However, memory research is often informed by a broader ethical turn that understands itself to be transforming politics. The article argues that this split results in part from the over-generalizations produced by the travelling concepts of a transdisciplinary memory studies. It concludes that the politics of memory culture and of memory research might be best analysed and practiced within the disciplines and by means of the research methods from which memory studies borrows.
Memory Studies, 2013
This special issue was first conceived of over dinner in a New Zealand cafe in London, on a warm ... more This special issue was first conceived of over dinner in a New Zealand cafe in London, on a warm summer night in July 2010. During that evening, it emerged that we’d both already been thinking about the issues we raise here for some time. Rosanne, a US citizen, and now Australian citizen, who has lived and worked in Australia since the 1990s, had co-edited a book on World Memory (Bennett and Kennedy, 2003). Susannah, at that point a UK citizen working in the United Kingdom and with a fellowship in Australia, was in the midst of running a project on memory in national contexts and had recently spoken on what she sees as the thorny politics driving both memory’s mobility and theories of transnational memory (Radstone, 2011). Later that evening, we were joined by another contributor to this issue, Felicity Collins, who arrived hot foot from a symposium in Dublin on disputed memory in Australia and Ireland (Holmes and Ward, 2011). Looking back, it’s hard not to notice how our coming together – even in the choice of a New Zealand cafe in London – condensed many of the issues that pulse through this special issue. We knew that our connections were through memory research and through Australia. But knowing that didn’t reveal what, if anything, might be denoted by the coupling of Australia with both memory and memory studies. There in London, in the context of theories of the transnational as they were bearing in on memory studies and as they were present – embodied, even – around our table, this special issue had its genesis. That evening, we began to make plans for a symposium,1 bringing together leading memory researchers from across Australia, and it was during that event that we made plans for this volume. The title of our special issue – Memory Studies in Australia – describes its contents more or less accurately, but aims to provoke, too. Our starting point – self-evidently – is our belief that there’s something significant to be learnt from bringing together this carefully commissioned collection of memory studies research in Australia. But what might that be? After all, general questions of the pertinence of the national notwithstanding, isn’t Australia generally regarded – as one of our contributors pithily put it – as just a ‘small’ country, situated beyond anywhere that matters? And isn’t it just plain retrograde, anachronistic or even overly nationalistic to talk about memory studies in
Cultural Values, 2001
Abstract This essay places the recent academic fascination with trauma and victimhood in a psycho... more Abstract This essay places the recent academic fascination with trauma and victimhood in a psycho‐social context within which identifications with pure victimhood hold sway. The essay takes as its starting point Freud's description, in Civilisation and its Discontents, of the formation of the super‐ego via the small child's negotiation of ambivalence towards its first authority figure. It is argued that this process lacks secondary re‐inforcement in western urban postmodernity, where authority has become diffuse, all‐pervasive and unavailable as a point of identification. In this context, aggression becomes harder to acknowledge and manage resulting in a tendency towards Manicheanism and the attenuation of ambivalence. Taking as its case‐study Marianne Hirsch's writings on the ethical aesthetics of postmemorial photography, the essay concludes that recent work on trauma and testimony fails to acknowledge that identifications may straddle victimhood and perpetration. This acknowledgement is only possible where some containment of aggression feels possible.
History Workshop Journal, 2005
This essay puts the case for memory studies to attend to memory's mediation and articulation... more This essay puts the case for memory studies to attend to memory's mediation and articulation across and within the public sphere. The essay begins by defining the key terms of mediation and articulation, before mobilizing them to argue that they can aid in differentiating ...
Trauma and life stories: international perspectives, 1999
14 REVIEW ARTICLE Epidemics of our time: trauma or fantasy? Susannah Radstone Elaine Showalter, H... more 14 REVIEW ARTICLE Epidemics of our time: trauma or fantasy? Susannah Radstone Elaine Showalter, Hysterics: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Media (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997) British Publication: Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Culture ( ...
The Women's Companion to International Film Edited by Annette Kuhn with Susannah Radstone 1 ... more The Women's Companion to International Film Edited by Annette Kuhn with Susannah Radstone 1 W m^ JP HI M *B*' W* HI {] "i-w* II I >T«J ^H^B R^fcA. BK « [r^, ** 1 If' ^ J* ^^Hl vr ^ ^pi II (i ***' fi B ■ 1 (J **. W* ^^^H BPH *^B. ji^K\ ■ fc*l »^L., i^V\x> H r ^*m^i F ^m W .^a^^H ...
Trauma at home: after 9/11, 2003
The War of the Fathers: Trauma, Fantasy, and September n Susannah Radstone In designating experie... more The War of the Fathers: Trauma, Fantasy, and September n Susannah Radstone In designating experiences" traumatic," the meanings of those experiences are understood to be elusive or impossible to grasp. According to current understandings of trauma, it is the" anomalous" ...
The Sexual Politics of Time Looking at a diverse range of texts including Marilyn French's T... more The Sexual Politics of Time Looking at a diverse range of texts including Marilyn French's The Women's Room, Philip Roth's Patrimony, the theoretical writings of Walter Benjamin and Fredric Jameson, and films such as Cinema Paradiso, Susannah Radstone argues that though ...
Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies, 2019
How do migrants make themselves at home—or not—in new worlds and what sorts of work are involved ... more How do migrants make themselves at home—or not—in new worlds and what sorts of work are involved in this process? This chapter’s opening premise is that of an inextricable connection between the material, physical worlds of place and location and the psychical and experiential worlds of memory and the unconscious. Using as a case study my own experience of migrating from London to Melbourne, this chapter draws on Laplanchian psychoanalytic theory to explore the role of memory in the process of making a home in a new place.
Psychoanalysis and Cultural Theory: Thresholds, 1991