Trauma, discourse and communicative limits (original) (raw)
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Thinking of memory and postmemory narratives in vulnerable times
Revista Letras Raras, 2020
ABSTRACT: Based on an inventory of the contributions from theorists who thought about memory and the complex representation of the past, we aim to discuss the role of narration and fiction as mediators in the interpretation of the lived experience. The reliability of the reconstruction of the past is called into question, leading us to reflect on the notion of testimony and the issue of truth inherent to it. To compare official memory and individual narratives is necessary in order to oppose authoritarian metanarrative discourses to a more polyphonic history, which seeks to achieve the understanding and overcoming of traumas. We will also see how the theoretical reflection concerning the intergenerational transmission of traumatic memories offers some tools for the interpretation of the so-called postmemory generation works. Based on these considerations, and given the global health crisis that places us in the position of vulnerable witnesses of a catastrophe, we are led to reflect over the future from a retrospective look into the trauma. KEYWORDS: memory; postmemory; literary narrative; writing of trauma; testimony. Translated by Rafael de Arruda Sobral.
Trauma and Cultural Memory Studies
Routledge Companion to Literature and Trauma, 2020
There are many ways of approaching the topic of trauma and cultural memory studies, not least because the “and” serves as an invitation to bring together two distinctive fields of scholarship, with their own histories, trajectories and methods, and consider how they inform the study of literature. Trauma theory, as it has come to be known, and cultural memory studies emerged – in their current form as interdisciplinary fields that are important for literary studies – in the final decades of the last century, as critics were seeking ways to bring the insights of poststructuralism into “real world” contexts. In this chapter, I survey some of the key developments in these fields over the past thirty years, and show how the concepts of trauma and cultural memory offer a productive lens for analysing contemporary literature and film. I consider some newer developments in the field, and challenges ahead.
Trauma, Memory and Identity Crisis: Reimagining and Rewriting the Past
Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing , 2022
By dealing with various traumatic events, this volume shows the impact of trauma on the victims’ memory and identity on both individual and collective levels. Bringing together scholars from varying social, cultural, ethnic and political backgrounds, it foregrounds the suffering of the marginalised, thus giving them a narrative, a voice. The book shows the way in which the victims of trauma confront the past, instead of running away from it, share their stories with others, and thus (re)assert their shattered identity. It also highlights the way in which (trauma) narratives can enable the traumatised to challenge official history and to come up with an alternative version of it. Put another way, trauma narratives provide the victims and survivors the opportunity to reimagine, to reinvent and to rewrite the past in order to secure a peaceful future, and help them find a place in history.
During the past decade there has been a rapid growth in literature on traumatic experience, but what remains missing from the expanding field of commentary is any sustained consideration of how those who are outsiders to the experience deal with the challenge of its presence in their world. Related to this are some fundamental questions about how traumatic events are acknowledged in the public domain and come to form part of the fabric of public memory. The contributing writers to this collection are primarily from humanities and cultural history, though there are also essays from specialists in psychology and the social sciences, and interviews with professionals who have a primary involvement with traumatic events. Contributions focus on key traumatic media events of the last decade as well as those during the twentieth century in countries such as the USA, Europe, Japan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Indonesia, Cuba and Australia.
Memory and Trauma. Philosophical Perspectives
Revista de Humanidades de Valparaíso , 2024
Michelle Maiese: Trauma, dissociation, and relational authenticity Caroline Christoff: Performative trauma narratives: Imperfect memories and epistemic harms Aisha Qadoos: Ambiguous loss: A loved one's trauma Alberto Guerrero Velazquez: El trauma está en la respuesta. Hacia una visión post-causal en la definición de trauma psicológico Clarita Bonamino, Sophie Boudrias, and Melanie Rosen: Dreams, trauma, and prediction errors Gabriel Corda: Memoria episódica y trastorno de estrés postraumático en animales no humanos: una propuesta metodológica María López Ríos, Christopher Jude McCarroll, and Paloma Muñoz Gómez: Memory, mourning, and the Chilean constitution Sergio Daniel Rojas-Sierra, and Tito Hernando Pérez Pérez: Subjetividades rememorantes, marcas narrativas y trauma cultural en la construcción de memoria de desmovilizados de las FARC-EP en el AETCR Pondores Germán Bonanni: Y después de la guerra... ¿Qué?
Traumatic Memory and Its Production in Political Life: A Survey of Approaches and a Case Study
Recent works on memory in International Studies highlight the relationship between memory (especially traumatic memory) and power, thus revealing the crucial importance of memory in political life. These works raise questions about the production of memory, understood (following Jenny Edkins) as a social performative practice with political and social implications. How does the process of memory production take place? Who takes part in this process, where, when and how? Drawing on political studies, and on anthropological, sociological and psychological perspectives, the goal of this paper is to survey the body of literature addressing the political processes associated with memory production in international relations and within states. One of the main assertions in this body of literature is that because of their intensity and emotional appeal, traumatic memory and its invocation are especially important in power relations, both at the international and domestic levels. Therefore, it becomes important to identify memory entrepreneurs-political actors who invoke memories for political gainand understand their strategies, especially in constructing traumatic memory.
“I can Almost Remember it Now”: Between Personal and Collective Memories of Massive Social Trauma
Journal of Adult Development, 2014
This article explores the psycho-social space between autobiographical and collective memory concerning massive social traumas. It is conceptualized that there is a third type of memory image, termed ''my-their.'' Individuals appear to ''remember'' autobiographical memories of elder family members, even though they could not, either because they were born after the trauma happened or because the autobiographers were extremely young at the time of the experience. These emotional ''memories'' furthermore connect to collective memories of social traumas of ethnic/national groups. Examples from memories of the Holocaust and al Naqba are examined. Furthermore, the roles that ''my-their'' memory images can play in peace building and reconciliation are discussed.
TRAUMA, HISTORY, MEMORY, IDENTITY: WHAT REMAINS
History & Theory, 2016
Despite the considerable amount of work already devoted to the topic, the nexus of trauma, history, memory, and identity is still of widespread interest, and much remains to be investigated on both empirical and theoretical levels. The ongoing challenge is to approach the topic without opposing history and memory in a binary fashion but instead by inquiring into more complex and challenging relations between them, including the role of trauma and its effects. This account attempts to set out a research agenda that is multifaceted but with components that are conceptually interrelated and that call for further research and thought. In a necessarily selective manner that does not downplay the value and importance of archival research, it treats both the role of traumatic memory and memory (or memory work) that counteracts post-traumatic effects and supplements, at times serving as a corrective to, written sources. It argues for the relevance to history of a critical but nondismissive approach to the study of trauma, memory, and identity-formation, discussing significant new work as well as indicating the continued pertinence of somewhat older work in the field. One of the under-investigated issues it addresses is the role of the so-called transgenerational transmission of trauma to descendants and intimates of both survivors and perpetrators. It concludes by making explicit an issue that is fundamental to the problem of identity and identity-formation and concerning which a great deal remains to be done: the issue of critical animal studies and its historical and ethical significance. Addressing this issue would require extending one's purview beyond humans and attending to the importance of the relations between humans and other animals. A version of the essay appears in the book UNDERSTANDING OTHERS: PEOPLES, ANIMALS, PASTS (Cornell UP, 2018).