Planetary Memory in Contemporary American Fiction

Planetary Memory in Contemporary American Fiction
Author: Lucy Bond
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2019-10-23
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 135102616X

This book considers the ways in which contemporary American fiction seeks to imagine a mode of ‘planetary memory’ able to address the scalar and systemic complexities of the Anthropocene – the epoch in which the combined activity of the human species has become a geological force in its own right. Authors examine the recent emergence of a literary and cultural imaginary of planetary memory, an imaginary which attempts to give form to the complex interrelations between human and non-human worlds, between local, national, and global concerns, and, perhaps most importantly, between historical and geological pasts, presents and futures. Chapters highlight distinct regions and landscapes of the US - from the Appalachians, to the South West, the Rust Belt, New York City, Alaska, New Orleans and the Rocky Mountains – in order to examine how the ecological, economic and historical specificity of these environments is underpinned by their implication on networks of planetary significance and scope. Overall, the collection aims to study, develop, and recognise new models of cultural memory and anxious anticipation as they emerge and evolve, thus opening new conversations about practices of remembering and remembrance on an increasingly fragile planet. This book was originally published as a special issue of Textual Practice.

The Rescue Turn and the Politics of Holocaust Memory

The Rescue Turn and the Politics of Holocaust Memory
Author: Natalia Aleksiun
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2024-03-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 081434951X

While many of the essays focus on recent developments, they shed light on the evolution of this phenomenon since 1945.

Critical Memory Studies

Critical Memory Studies
Author: Brett Ashley Kaplan
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2023-04-06
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 135023012X

Bringing together a diverse array of new and established scholars and creative writers in the rapidly expanding field of memory studies, this collection creatively delves into the multiple aspects of this wide-ranging field. Contributors explore race-ing memory; environmental studies and memory; digital memory; monuments, memorials, and museums; and memory and trauma. Organised around 7 sections, this book examines memory in a global context, from Kashmir and Chile to the US and UK. Featuring contributions on topics such as the Black Lives Matter movement; the AIDS crisis; and memory and the anthropocene, this book traces and consolidates the field while analysing and charting some of the most current and cutting-edge work, as well as new directions that could be taken.

Affective World-Making

Affective World-Making
Author: Simi Malhotra
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2023-12-05
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1003800823

This volume fosters a re-imagination of the planet where it is seen not only as a resource, but also as an entity that must not be excluded from the political imperative of care and kinship. The authors go beyond the normative understanding of space by recognizing the potency of touch, where they look at somatic experiences that invite the intensity of affect. This book questions the dominance of the capitalocene through the existence of social aesthetic and records the affective encounters that facilitate the creation of planetary identity, affinity, and entanglements. With discussions on architecture, poetry, rap music, romantic literature, performance art, digital fashion, Instagram, Netflix shows, YouTube videos, moving image practices, eco-sexual movements, and graphic narratives, the chapters in this volume initiate a conversation on what it means to inhabit the world today. An important contribution, this book will be of interest to students and researchers of environmental humanities, planetary humanities, affect studies, digital humanities, and media studies, besides also being of interest to those studying interdisciplinary critical/cultural theory, Television and film studies, philosophy, and architectural theory.

The Routledge Companion to Literature and Trauma

The Routledge Companion to Literature and Trauma
Author: Colin Davis
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 599
Release: 2020-05-11
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1351025201

Literary trauma studies is a rapidly developing field which examines how literature deals with the personal and cultural aspects of trauma and engages with such historical and current phenomena as the Holocaust and other genocides, 9/11, climate catastrophe or the still unsettled legacy of colonialism. The Routledge Companion to Literature and Trauma is a comprehensive guide to the history and theory of trauma studies, including key concepts, consideration of critical perspectives and discussion of future developments. It also explores different genres and media, such as poetry, life-writing, graphic narratives, photography and post-apocalyptic fiction, and analyses how literature engages with particular traumatic situations and events, such as the Holocaust, the Occupation of France, the Rwandan genocide, Hurricane Katrina and transgenerational nuclear trauma. Forty essays from top thinkers in the field demonstrate the range and vitality of trauma studies as it has been used to further the understanding of literature and other cultural forms across the world. Chapter 2 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Anticipatory Environmental (Hi)Stories from Antiquity to the Anthropocene

Anticipatory Environmental (Hi)Stories from Antiquity to the Anthropocene
Author: Christopher Schliephake
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 339
Release: 2023-02-06
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1666921157

Anticipatory Environmental (Hi)Stories from Antiquity to the Anthropocene studies the interplay of environmental perception and the way societies throughout history have imagined the future state of “nature” and the environments in which coming generations would live. What sorts of knowledge were and are involved in outlining future environments? What kinds of texts and narrative strategies were and are developed and modified over time? How did and do scenarios and narratives of the past shape (hi)stories of the future? This book answers these questions from a diachronic as well as a cross-cultural perspective. By looking at a diverse range of historical evidence that transcends stereotypical utopian and dystopian visions and allows for nuanced insights beyond the dichotomous reservoir of pastoral motifs and apocalyptic narratives, the contributors illustrate the multifaceted character of environmental anticipation across the ages.

Corporeal Legacies in the US South

Corporeal Legacies in the US South
Author: Christopher Lloyd
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2018-08-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3319962051

This book examines the ways in which the histories of racial violence, from slavery onwards, are manifest in representations of the body in twenty-first-century culture set in the US South. Christopher Lloyd focuses on corporeality in literature and film to detail the workings of cultural memory in the present. Drawing on the fields of Southern Studies, Memory Studies and Black Studies, the book also engages psychoanalysis, Animal Studies and posthumanism to revitalize questions of the racialized body. Lloyd traces corporeal legacies in the US South through novels by Jesmyn Ward, Kathryn Stockett and others, alongside film and television such as Beasts of the Southern Wild and The Walking Dead. In all, the book explores the ways in which bodies in contemporary southern culture bear the traces of racial regulation and injury.

Translating Memories of Violent Pasts

Translating Memories of Violent Pasts
Author: Claudia Jünke
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2023-08-31
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1000921697

This collection brings together work from Memory Studies and Translation Studies to explore the role of interlingual and intercultural translation for unpacking transcultural memory dynamics, focusing on memories of violent pasts across different literary genres. The book explores the potential of a research agenda that links narrower definitions of translation with broader notions of transfer, transmission, and relocation across temporal and cultural borders, investigating the nuanced theoretical and conceptual dimensions at the intersection of memory and translation. The volume explores memories of violent pasts – legacies of war, genocide, dictatorship, and exile across different genres and media, including testimony, autobiography, novels, and graphic novels. The collection engages in central questions at the interface of Memory Studies and Translation Studies, including whether traumatic historical experiences that resist representation can be translated, what happens when texts that negotiate such memories are translated into other languages and cultures, and what role translation strategies, translators, and agents of translations play in memory across borders. The volume will be of particular interest to students and scholars in Translation Studies, Memory Studies, and Comparative Literature.

Representing Poverty and Precarity in a Postcolonial World

Representing Poverty and Precarity in a Postcolonial World
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2022-02-22
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9004466398

Poverty and precarity are among the most pressing social issues of today and have become a significant thematic focus and analytical tool in the humanities in the last two decades. This volume brings together an international group of scholars who investigate conceptualisations of poverty and precarity from the perspective of literary and cultural studies as well as linguistics. Analysing literature, visual arts and news media from across the postcolonial world, they aim at exploring the frameworks of representation that impact affective and ethical responses to disenfranchised groups and precarious subjects. Case studies focus on intersections between precarity and race, class, and gender, institutional frameworks of publishing, environmental precarity, and the framing of refugees and migrants as precarious subjects. Contributors: Clelia Clini, Geoffrey V. Davis, Dorothee Klein, Sue Kossew, Maryam Mirza, Anna Lienen, Julia Hoydis, Susan Nalugwa Kiguli, Sule Emmanuel Egya, Malcolm Sen, Jan Rupp, J.U. Jacobs, Julian Wacker, Andreas Musolff, Janet M. Wilson

Contemporary Auschwitz/Oświęcim

Contemporary Auschwitz/Oświęcim
Author: Thomas Van de Putte
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 204
Release: 2021-09-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1000455963

This book presents an innovative theoretical and empirical approach to the present attributions of meaning to the past. Based on the author’s fieldwork in the contemporary Polish town of Oświęcim – Auschwitz, in German – it observes the manner in which residents remember and narrate the past of their town, drawing on theoretical perspectives from the work of figures such as George Herbert Mead and Erving Goffman. With attention to narratives concerning pre-war Catholic–Jewish coexistence, wartime Nazi occupation, the Holocaust and post-war Communist Poland, the author explores the complementary, fluid and contradictory nature of meaning-making processes in various contemporary interactional contexts, both online and offline. As such, it will appeal to social scientists with interests in memory studies, the Holocaust and interactional sociology.