Marianne Hirsch to speak at Washington University in St. Louis

The renowned memory scholar Marianne Hirsch will be speaking at Washington University in St. Louis on November 8 at 4 pm. The talk is free and open to the public. Marianne Hirsch's name is most often linked to her formulation of "postmemory" in the book Family Frames and in subsequent articles written individually and with her partner Leo Spitzer.

I read the news of Hirsch's visit to St. Louis with a mixture of excitement and disappointment, because just 3 years ago, I was a student at Wash U and the focus of my dissertation was postmemory in contemporary Spain.  While I will be attending a conference in St. Louis next week, I will unfortunately not be able to attend this talk. During my 6 years at Washington University, I was able to hear many exciting, renowned speakers from a variety of disciplines. Anyone in the St. Louis area that researches memory should make time to attend this important lecture!!

Examining the role of memory in reconstructing family history
Marianne Hirsch to deliver Holocaust Memorial Lecture for Assembly Series Nov. 8
October 21, 2010
By Barbara Rea

For many children of Holocaust survivors — collectively known as the “second generation” — there is a longing to understand pre-war life, culture and community experienced by their parents before the trauma of expulsion, incarceration and brutalization.

Marianne Hirsch, PhD, a member of this generation and a distinguished scholar on memory and cultural history, argues that post-Holocaust generations, with their profound need to vicariously participate in this bygone world, experience “postmemory” — a term Hirsch has coined to convey the ways generations born after the Holocaust access the experiences of the witnesses through mediation and imaginative reconstruction.

Hirsch will be on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis to explore these themes for the Holocaust Memorial Lecture, an Assembly Series program at 4 p.m. Monday, Nov. 8, in Graham Chapel. The lecture, titled “Rites of Return: The Afterlife of the Holocaust in Jewish Memory,” is free and open to the public.

“Postmemory refers to the ways in which generations born after a traumatic event access the experiences of the witnesses,” says Erin McGlothlin, PhD, associate professor of Germanic languages and literatures in Arts & Sciences and chair of the Holocaust Lecture Committee, “not through actual remembrance and recall, but through imaginative projection and re-creation.”

Images play an especially important role in this re-creation, she says.

McGlothlin also notes that, although postmemory as a concept was created to understand the Holocaust, it can be used to mine cultural memory for any traumatic event.

“In recent years, scholars have extended the concept of postmemory far beyond the particular context of the Holocaust to refer to the generational memory of disparate historical and cultural events,” McGlothlin says.

Thanks to the Internet and to several trips back to Czernowitz, Hirsch has reconstructed the once thriving center of Jewish life in Ukraine, where her parents lived.

With her husband, Leo Spitzer, she has produced a book called Ghosts of Home: The Afterlife of Czernowitz, which explores the city that before the war was an important center of Central European Jewish intellectual life. Reviewer Monica Szurmuk, of theworld.org, writes that “Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer’s monumental book Ghosts of Home is a stunning marriage of intellectual curiosity and personal search.”

Hirsch is the William Peterfield Trent Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. She also teaches at Columbia’s Institute for Research on Women and Gender and co-directs its Center for the Critical Analysis of Social Difference.

In addition to the Czernowitz publication, Hirsch has written many books, including Family Frames: Photography, Narrative, and Postmemory; The Familial Gaze; and Time and the Literary. She has edited or co-edited a number of volumes, including the indispensable MLA guide, Teaching the Representation of the Holocaust.

She is the recipient of a host of fellowships and has served as editor of the journal PMLA. She is on the advisory boards of two journals, Memory Studies and Contemporary Women’s Writing.

Hirsch earned bachelors, master’s and doctoral degrees from Brown University.

For more information on this and upcoming Assembly Series programs, visit assemblyseries.wustl.edu or call (314) 935-4620.

On Chile

the Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda

 In 2000, I decided to go to Chile during my spring break. I made the decision as I always made travel decisions back then -- hmnnn, I think I'll go abroad for awhile. It wasn't a completely random choice. Chile had been on my mind for almost 10 years by then. In high school, my mother had given me my first Neruda book, a bilingual edition with translations by W.S. Merwin, Alastair Reid, Nathaniel Tarn and Anthony Kerrigan (for the record, of the four translators, I tend to prefer Merwin and Reid. But why read Neruda in translation if you don't have to?). I absolutely devoured this book, especially the love poems. But later I discovered simple things Neruda (the odes), Spanish Civil War Neruda (Spain in the Heart), the Neruda I read with friends. I found out about Isla Negra, and I wanted to see it. I decided to go to Chile to visit Neruda's three homes in Santiago, Valparaíso (where my college friend Luis lives) and Isla Negra. Because my friend is a geologist, and was going to be doing field work in the Punta Arenas area, I also made plans to go there.

Before I went to Chile, I had only visited Mexico and Spain. Being in Chile was a little like going to California when you have only been to the east coast (or vice-versa). Stepping off the plane, there is a distinct sense that you are. . . elsewhere. Part of it has to do with the change in seasons, but it's also just the "vibe" of the country. I only saw a fraction of the country, but it made a big impression on me to go from Santiago to Viña del Mar to Valparaíso to Isla Negra to Punta Arenas. The difference in temperatures, pace, amount of people and general landscape was pretty significant.

My visit was incredible. I left the end of winter and entered the end of summer. People swarmed the beach at Viña del Mar. My friend and I started in Valparaíso, with its inclines and sea-worn buildings. Now that I've been in San Francisco, I can say Valparaíso reminds me a bit of being there. Or the other way around. I love being near "the sea" and having that smell in the air. I would love to wake with a view of water -- who wouldn't? In Neruda's house, one of his rooms -- I can't recall which at the moment -- looked right out onto the water. No one was allowed to photograph anything inside the house, but one could be photographed with the view of the sea in the background. I tried to imagine Neruda writing with that backdrop, drinking wine with friends, reading. I tried to imagine the house totally ransacked, his rows of books in ruins on the floor, after the '73 coup, just days before his death.

Recently, like many other people, I've had Chile on my mind for reasons other than Neruda. The earthquake, the bicentennial, the ongoing news about the miners, and the fact that I haven't stopped listening to this CD for the last month, have all put Chile (phonetically, she lay, as my friend would say) back in my everyday thoughts.

Driving home from work last week, I was listening to a report on the rescue of the miners. Isabel Allende was talking. Shortly after Chile's independence day (September 18), she had visited the mine site and now she was reflecting on this emotional moment for the country as a whole. She never mentioned a word about Chile's military dictatorship, never said a thing about the disappeared, but in my own mind, I could not help associating these "disappeared" miners, now being "appeared" and released from the earth, with those who were disappeared and never returned. Strangely, the rescue gave Chile back its own sons in a way that has never been possible for those who vanished under Pinochet. The fact that Isabel Allende - whose father was Socialist Salvador Allende's first cousin -- was standing beside President Sebastián Piñera, a right-wing millionaire, was also quite a symbolic moment, I thought. Perhaps it doesn't mean anything, but the image of the two together seemed to bring the past to a scene that had been concentrating very much on the present, on the extremely delicate, day-to-day, minute-by-minute operations of bringing the miners to the earth's surface.

Isabel Allende beside President Sebastián Piñera (photo from here)

Lo and behold, just one day after I heard the interview with Isabel Allende, I read this article in the NYT, which reflects on the site of the mine rescue as a site of memory inextricably linked to the crimes of the Pinochet dictatorship: "In the predawn hours of Oct. 17, 1973 — 37 years before the mine rescue, almost to the day — military personnel murdered 16 men near here, including some who worked for Chile’s state mining company." These men, the article goes on to say, were 16 of 70 that the "Caravan of Death" murdered that month in Chile. One of the victim's sisters said that "The experience with the 33 miners made us relive every moment. . . Finding them alive and then rescuing them was like finding my brother again.”

The mine rescue, and the connection of the site with a previous traumatic history, illustrate the fact that sites of memory do not just remain stable representatives of the same story, but evolve over time, depending on historical and political circumstances. Although it is quite different, I am reminded of the Valle de los Caídos site in Spain, currently back in the news again as the Spanish government debates whether or not to make it into a "center for memory."

The most striking symbol of Valle de los Caídos is the gigantic cross that marks its location. The site is visited largely by tourists, but also used to be where the ultra right gathered every November 20 (the anniversary of Franco's death), until the 2007 Law of Historical Memory made that illegal. Many people don't realize that Valle was built by slave labor under Franco in the 50s. Many also don't know that, buried on the altar (!) of the church inside are Franco himself and José Antonio Primo de Rivera, the founder of the Spanish fascist party, Falange. In addition to Franco, many of the Civil War dead are also buried in the walls of what some have called Spain's largest "mass grave." What to do with this enormous structure, which still houses a Benedictine monastery, remains unclear. However, one thing is certain -- the site's identity has undergone a series of revisions over the past several years. In my view, these revisions are necessary, and transforming the site into a Center for Memory would give Spain what is still lacks almost 35 years since Franco's death.

"Revising" a site of memory like the area of the mine rescue or the Valle de los Caídos site should not mean eclipsing its past history. Ideally -- and it sounds cliché -- we could use the past struggles there to inform the present use of the site. In 1973, miners were murdered where in 2010, they were rescued. What does this mean? Is it just a coincidence? Or can the rescue ultimately allow healing of other kinds?

I'll be writing a bit more about Chile here soon. I have a post planned about the rapper Ana Tijoux. For now,  I'll just say that if you haven't been to this magnificent country, I highly recommend it. One day, I hope to return for a longer visit. In some ways, I know only an "imagined Chile" informed by Neruda and the folksinger Víctor Jara. What is the everyday Chile? It still seems a bit mysterious to me. So much is informed by what lies below ground -- fault lines, the disappeared, miners descending to the earth's pit. What is it to live with the knowledge of unstable tierra, the possibility of tremors and aftershocks? Surely, this awareness comes with its own kind of memory.

Seminar: Cosmpolitan Memory and Trauma

CFP: Cosmopolitan Memory and Travelling Trauma (ACLA March 31-April 3, 2011)

Terri Tomsky, University of Alberta; Jennifer Bowering Delisle, McMaster University
contact email:
tomsky@ualberta.ca

When a collective memory of trauma transcends its directly affected community to be taken up by others, it can be said to be “cosmopolitan” (Levy and Sznaider) or “multidirectional” (Rothberg). The concept of a travelling or a genuinely “cosmopolitan” memory is compelling. Indeed, how a memory of trauma travels across cultures, and develops in time as a shared or borrowed memory is a topic that necessitates further discussion. Like Edward Said’s notion of “travelling theory,” the transition of a memory from a specific context into a new setting or across a transnational space has significant theoretical and pragmatic consequences. Questions must be asked about how traumatic experiences, especially of political violence, are mediated across space and time; how might a transported memory of trauma sharpen consciousness and shape cross-cultural communities? Equally, how might it enable selective commemoration, and risk reification or domestication?

This seminar invites scholars across the fields of trauma, postcolonial, and memory studies to critically examine the movement of traumatic memories across cultures. We are interested in proposals that address the productive transcultural circulation of trauma – what Michael Rothberg has called “multidirectional memory” – as a politically significant source for oppressed communities. Additionally, we seek proposals that engage the travel of traumatic memory in relation to audience, affect, capital, and cultural and economic imperialisms.

The deadline for 250 word paper proposals is NOVEMBER 1, 2010. Proposals should be submitted through the ACLA website: http://www.acla.org/submit/index.php?override=xyzzy

Memory Conference: "The Art of Public Memory"

CALL FOR PAPERS, WORKSHOPS, PERFORMANCES, LECTURE PERFORMANCES

THE ART OF PUBLIC MEMORY

An international, interdisciplinary conference exploring intersections of the arts, memory, and history

April 7th to 10th, 2011, University of North Carolina, Greensboro

The conference is, in part, inspired by the performance of Bill T. Jones's Serenade/ The Proposition, at UNCG on Friday, April 8. A contemporary dance about the legacy of Abraham Lincoln and a rumination on the nature of history, Jones’s dance suggests examination of other works involving Lincoln such as the current off Broadway play Abraham Lincoln's Big Gay Dance Party Review and Suzan-Lori Park's 1994 The America Play, and portraits of Lincoln by composers such as Charles Ives and Roy Harris. It also calls for a broader examination of the arts, memory and history. Potential questions include: How and in what ways do memories acquire a public character and through what means are they preserved, archived, and negotiated in everyday life? In what ways do expressions of public memory create, sustain, and de-stabilize the work(ings) of power? How are ideas of gender, sexuality, race, class, and nation re-inscribed or contested through performances, especially performances of history? In what ways do the body, bodily action, and bodily experience enter into public memory?

We invite proposals of academic papers, panels, workshops, lecture performances, and performances from scholars and artists in the arts, education, the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. The conference is sponsored by, and celebrates, the new School of Music, Theatre and Dance at UNCG, and is co-sponsored by UNCG's Program in Women's and Gender Studies.

Proposals must be received by December 1, 2010
Notification of acceptance by January 31, 2011

Send your submission through email to: womens_studies@uncg.edu.

Please include your last name and ART OF PUBLIC MEMORY in the Subject Heading of the e-mail. The text should be attached and pasted in the body of the e-mail to assure access. Please send documents in .doc or .docx formats.

Receipt of all submissions will be confirmed electronically.

REQUIREMENTS

Individual papers should not exceed 20 minutes for presentation. Submit a 500 word abstract.

Panels consisting of three individual presenters may be proposed. Submit a 250 word discussion of the ideas and issues important to the panel in addition to individual paper proposals of 500 words each for the presenters. Please send all documents together.

Performances (solo performance, staged readings, dance, music, installations): We hope to include a limited number of performances, especially performances that can be accomplished in alternate spaces, studios, classrooms, or in shared evenings of music, theatre, and dance. Submit a 500 word abstract describing the event and its organization.

Lecture-Demonstrations, Lecture-Performances, or Workshops may run from 30-45 minutes. Submit a 500 word abstract describing the topic and organization of the session.

For all proposals, include:

• name
• affiliation (if applicable),
• contact information,
• 150 word biography of presenter,
• presentation title,
• presentation format (individual paper, panel, workshop, performance, etc),
• space needs,
• technology needs.

Queries about proposals may be addressed by e-mail to Ann Dils at ahdils@uncg.edu.

New book on Trauma - Haunting Legacies

From: Columbia University Press

About the book:

From mass murder to genocide, slavery to colonial suppression, acts of atrocity have lives that extend far beyond the horrific moment. They engender trauma that echoes for generations, in the experiences of those on both sides of the act. Gabriele Schwab reads these legacies in a number of narratives, primarily through the writing of postwar Germans and the descendents of Holocaust survivors. She connects their work to earlier histories of slavery and colonialism and to more recent events, such as South African Apartheid, the practice of torture after 9/11, and the "disappearances" that occurred during South American dictatorships.

Schwab's texts include memoirs, such as Ruth Kluger's Still Alive and Marguerite Duras's La Douleur; second-generation accounts by the children of Holocaust survivors, such as Georges Perec's W, Art Spiegelman's Maus, and Philippe Grimbert's Secret; and second-generation recollections by Germans, such as W. G. Sebald's Austerlitz, Sabine Reichel's What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?, and Ursula Duba's Tales from a Child of the Enemy. She also incorporates her own reminiscences of growing up in postwar Germany, mapping interlaced memories and histories as they interact in psychic life and cultural memory.

Table of Contents:

Preface

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction

2. Writing Against Memory and Forgetting

3. Haunting Legacies: Trauma in Children of Perpetrators

4. Identity Trouble: Guilt, Shame, and Idealization

5. Replacement Children: The Transgenerational Transmission of Traumatic Loss

6. Deadly Intimacy: The Politics and Psychic Life of Torture

Bibliography

About the author: Gabriele Schwab is Chancellor's Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine. Her books in English include Derrida, Deleuze, Psychoanalysis; Accelerating Possessions: Global Futures of Property and Personhood; and The Mirror and the Killer-Queen: Otherness in Literary Language.