2015 / 20 Prospero. Rivista di letterature e culture straniere
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Parlati Marilena
La Manna Federica
Unverzeihlicher Antikonformismus: Die Schriften Hans Paasches in der Ära des deutschen Kolonialismus
Iannaccaro Giuliana
Whose Trauma? Discursive Practices in Saartjie Baartman’s Literary Afterlives
Agazzi Elena
Die Täter-Opfer-Debatte und die Schuldfrage: Eine (nicht nur) literarische Bilanz nach der Wende
Catone Antonella
Vallorani Nicoletta
Ashes. Words and Images in the Forms of Remembrance
Arias Rosario
Pich-Ponce Eva
Rhétoriques du trauma: le souvenir et l’oubli dans Le ciel de Bay City de Catherine Mavrikakis
Natale Aureliana
Lettera al carnefice: trauma e perdono in Incendiary di C. Cleave
Singh Ritika
Aouadi Leila
Bugeja Norbert
Hyper-Despotism of the Bullet: Post-Bardo Tunisia and its (Unforgiving) Memorial Communiqué
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- PublicationAdagio(EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste, 2016)Parlati, MarilenaThe current issue of “Prospero” offers a selection of works aimed at the exploration of the open wounds of the global body of modernity. The crucial aspect of the collection is the attempt to reflect, if possible, on the complexity of memory, of trauma, oblivion and forgiveness – or of the challenge experienced by those who do not want to, are not able to, or cannot (yet?) forgive. The issue is divided into three sections: “Coming to Terms with the Past(s)”, which proposes a perspective on traumas and past crimes, elaborated or still to be elaborated; “Voices from Beyond”, which concentrates on “memory ghosts”, on a phantasmagorical memory made of forgetfulness, voids and unheard voices; and “Restless Faultlines”, which gathers essays on the “extreme contemporary”.
655 673 - PublicationAshes. Words and Images in the Forms of Remembrance(2015-12-21)Vallorani, NicolettaThe issue of representing war has often been critically tackled by reflecting on the increasing exploitation of images often coexisting with their ambiguous quality (Franzini 2001, Mirzoeff 2005). In 1938, Woolf has no doubt about the interpretation of photographs as “a crude statement of fact addressed to the eye. But the eye is connected with the brain; the brain with the nervous system”. Yet, things have been changing from World War II to today and Woolf’s supposed total reliability of the visual documents of war has been gradually undermined, while the spectacular aspect of war has been given priority in the congregation of discursive tensions marking any recent representation, reflection and form of remembrance on world conflicts. My work here focusses on Tony Harrison’s film poem "The Shadow of Hiroshima" (1995), and tries to reflect on how the poetic word combines with the filmic image in trying to produce a convincing commemoration of one of the worst war tragedies of our Western history.
653 509 - Publication“Bist du Jugoslawe oder was? Ich bin das Oder Was”: Topographie der Traumata in Vladimir Vertlibs "Zwischenstationen"(EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste, 2015-12-21)Catone, AntonellaWar, migration and violence are all traumatic events that can trigger mental or physical trauma, especially in childhood and adolescence. There are many ways to overcome trauma. When writing down personal traumas some German authors have tried to bring their emotional and physical wounds on to paper as a method of coping with them. This way of "healing" was also chosen by the Austrian writer of Russian Jewish origin, Vladimir Vertlib, who tells of the odyssey of a Soviet-Jewish immigrant family on their way to the West in his book "Zwischenstationen". This paper discusses concepts of trauma research in literature, then moves to a broad outline of trauma in relation to contemporary German migration literature considered and their portrayal of cities as places of memory. The paper later focuses on the topics and motives readers find in Vertlib’s novels in order to demonstrate the relevance of his work for the portrayal of trauma, its relation with the city as a place of traumatic processes, and the healing power of writing for collective memory.
867 827 - PublicationDie Täter-Opfer-Debatte und die Schuldfrage: Eine (nicht nur) literarische Bilanz nach der Wende(EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste, 2015-12-21)Agazzi, ElenaThe present contribution is mainly aimed at retracing some pivotal elements of the debate on “German collective guilt” in the last two decades of Germany’s cultural history. The search for truth about the past has complex implications; yet it is thanks to historians and writers, such as Wehler and Frei, on the one hand, and Sebald, Kempowski, Walser and Grass, on the other, that the problem of “collective sufferings” could be brought into sharper focus, including the loss of civilians due to air bombings against German cities. Dagmar Barnouw, an eyewitness to the bombings of Dresden, has therefore called for a “renegotiation” of collective guilt, critically facing what she has defined the supra-historical status of Auschwitz crimes. The semantic field articulated by terms such as “Last”, “Scham”, “Schande” as synonyms for “Schuld” testifies to strong emotional distress on the part of the subject, but also to an ongoing attempt to consciously or unconsciously overcome the obsession with memory, setting the future free from the past. Forms of real guilt removal or guilt usage for propaganda purposes between East and West Germany in the aftermath of WW2 are taken into account in the second part of the essay. And this not only to show the twofold stance of moral issues at stake, but also to identify the milestones of historical reconstructions in cinema, literature and theatre at the time when the trauma of the war was still recent.
874 1224 - PublicationHyper-Despotism of the Bullet: Post-Bardo Tunisia and its (Unforgiving) Memorial Communiqué(EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste, 2015-12-21)Bugeja, NorbertThis paper is occasioned by my personal experience of the Bardo National Museum in Tunis immediately after the 18th March 2015 attacks that claimed twenty-four lives, dealt a blow to the burgeoning political morale of post-revolutionary Tunisia, and etched an unprecedented mark in the memory of Tunisians of all persuasions. The bullet holes and fractured vitrines in and around the famed Salle de Carthage, where this country’s fabled antiquity meets its effort to bring about a cultural and political modernity, invite reflection on what Fredric Jameson has termed the ‘irrevocable’ function of historical trauma – and especially its modes of inheritability and transmission in a socius that is itself at a delicate crossroads of political transition. In such a fraught context, Lyotard’s ‘immemoriality’ must be read in light of what Jean Laplanche characterises as the ‘enigma’ that structures the retrospective quest: the ‘enigmatic’ retains itself as such since it always already embodies the noumenal essence of historical violence as a ceaseless question: “What does the dead person want? What does he want of me? What did he want to say to me?” (Laplanche). Reflecting on the fractured vitrine (and bullet-dented statue) of the infant Bacchus at the Bardo, and drawing on W. Benjamin’s and P. Ricoeur’s thought, this paper recalls the notion that time itself, as the fabric of retrospective or memorial passage, necessarily registers as the tension that obtains between an object and its accidents (G. Harman). This tension is what occasions the moment at which the ethical imperative of cultural rhetoricity – including the literary itself – becomes that of returning the representational principle to the materiality of history. Finally, I read Tunisian poet Moncef Ghachem’s poem "Cent Mille Oiseaux" (“A Hundred Thousand Birds”) in this light – as a poem whose “internal motor schema” (A. Lingis) is intended to subvert the poem’s own overt rhetoricity, hence making possible the installation of the communal memorial trauma as its ontological kernel.
966 1163 - PublicationLettera al carnefice: trauma e perdono in "Incendiary" di C. Cleave(EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste, 2015-12-21)Natale, AurelianaTrauma Studies have been marked by an intensified traffic between disciplinary, artistic and media languages. Cultural theory, sociology, anthropology, psychoanalysis, psychology, on the one hand, and literature, drama, the visual, land and body arts, as well as cinema, television and even the net, on the other hand, have each contributed to render the concept of post-traumatic experience not only familiar but altogether extremely popular (Buelens, Durrant, Eaglestone 3). Traumatic forms of narrativization can be considered a sort of thematic topos central to our cultural and psychological imaginary and its contribution to a new process of identity formation (Luckhust 209). The aim of my paper is to try to understand how traumatic images and their proliferation through media have haunted, and inspired, the literary production post-9/11 and in particular the novel "Incendiary" (2005) by the British journalist Chris Cleave. "Incendiary" was written just a few months before the terroristic attack in London, on July the 7th 2005, and, to some extent, it seemed to foresee it. The incipit of the novel “Dear Osama, they want you dead or alive so the terror will stop” introduces the reader into a story of loss, terror, trauma and addiction in which one of the most significant absence the protagonist has to face is the impossible chance of mourning her loss through forgiving.
908 915 - PublicationRemember, Recover: Trauma and Transgenerational Negotiations with the Indian Partition in "This Side, That Side" and the "1947 Partition Archive"(EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste, 2015-12-21)Singh, RitikaThe hauntings of the Indian Partition continue to be expressed via newer mediums as two or three generations negotiate its impact. This paper looks at role and function of the "1947 Partition Archive" that records oral testimonies of first-generation witnesses. It also examines an anthology of graphic narratives – "This Side, That Side" – that illustrates second-generation accounts of trying to understand the Partition, as it is passed down through stories and memories. Through an analysis of both, trans-generational negotiations with traumatic memories of the Indian Partition can be studied along with examining how newer channels open newer opportunities of representing its trauma. I argue that such mediums not only fulfil a therapeutic need but also highlight the trans-generational quality of forgiveness in light of collective traumas.
1476 2120 - PublicationRhétoriques du trauma: le souvenir et l’oubli dans "Le ciel de Bay City" de Catherine Mavrikakis(EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste, 2015-12-21)Pich-Ponce, EvaContemporary subjects must construct their own identities while inheriting and assimilating their ancestors’ past. The tragedies of the 20th Century have shown humanity what the end of the world could look like. Therefore, the heir lives permanently in a complex position, obsessed with the past and afraid of a future that may be characterised by ecologic and nuclear disasters. In her novels, Catherine Mavrikakis highlights the paradoxes that surround the notion of memory. Her characters are torn between remembrance as a duty towards past generations, and oblivion, which they find necessary to build their future. This study aims to analyse the importance of memory and trauma in Mavrikakis’ novel "Le Ciel de Bay City" (2008). It will particularly consider the dialectics between memory and oblivion, resentment and remorse, inheritance and survival.
705 828 - PublicationTelling Otherwise: Collective and Personal Remembering and Forgetting in Kate Atkinson’s "Life after Life"(EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste, 2015-12-21)Arias, RosarioThis paper aims at exploring collective and personal remembering, as well as the notion of forgetting as a kind of “‘rebeginning’ or finding the future by forgetting the past” (Galloway 3) in Kate Atkinson Costa prize-winning "Life after Life" (2013). In Atkinson’s novel Ursula Todd is born on February 11 1910, dies and is born again and again to undo the traumatic events that caused her previous death(s). The narrator’s retelling of Ursula’s life takes the reader through the two wars, and to different incarnations of Ursula’s life, which finally set things right for her and for her beloved ones. Following Paul Ricoeur’s "Memory, History, Forgetting" (2004) and Marc Augé’s "Oblivion" (2004), where they treat forgetting as being a positive figure, or “the reserve of forgetting” in Ricoeur’s terms, I will discuss the interlocked processes of remembering and forgetting, not only applied to individuals (like Ursula in "Life after Life"), but also to the community. Communal memory is particularly mobilised in the act of telling otherwise: “[t]hrough narrating one’s identity otherwise, a community can work through its past, have an acceptable understanding of itself, and to justice to others” (Leichter 124). Therefore, this paper will also look into the ways in which Atkinson’s novel engages with the concept of collective memory that, operating within an intersubjective model, underlines networks of individual and communal relations.
941 1298 - PublicationTrauma in Palestinian Women’s Autobiographies: Concrete Histories of Personal Loss and National Disintegration(EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste, 2015-12-21)Aouadi, LeilaThis article argues the significance of literature in bearing witness to trauma. It engages the theories of trauma and autobiographies to read Palestinian women’s autobiographies. In a comparative vein, this work demonstrates the relevance of contemporary literature in attesting to human suffering and alleviating the pain by listening/reading and so healing. Edward Said’s writings on orientalism and Palestine have served to frame the overall discussion of the article. The trauma of exile, dispersion, and “national disintegration” are narrated as a shared experience by many Palestinian diaspora. I shall be considering "In Search of Fatima: A Palestinian Story" (2002) in conjunction with trauma as it implicates history and memory in the process of writing and representing experiences of war, loss, and exile. I contend that the trauma of not belonging after 1948 is the ultimate articulation of belonging to Palestine in Palestinian women’s life narratives.
1091 1887 - PublicationUnverzeihlicher Antikonformismus: Die Schriften Hans Paasches in der Ära des deutschen Kolonialismus(EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste, 2015)La Manna, FedericaIn an entry of his 1916 journal, Hans Paasche (1881-1920) wrote a long reflection on metánoia, a concept indicating a radical shift in thinking. In fact, the whole life of Hans Paasche itself could be read as such a radical conversion. He was all that follows: officer in the repression of the Maji-Maji riots in the German colonies of Ostafrika, skilled hunter, volunteer in the Great War, and then vigorous pacifist, relentless opponent of alcohol abuse and fervent vegetarian, ironic writer and passionate political reformer. In a context in which attempts at change were seen as traitorous, his life shows that self-acknowledgement may lead to marginalisation and to murder. The absence of forgiveness and understanding in his case still continues and his work and thought have been almost totally removed from any public and literary discourse in Germany. This paper intends to analyze his thought through his works, mainly "Die Forschungsreise des Afrikaners Lukanga Mukara ins innerste Deutschland", highlighting how, in his later years, Paasche felt the need to communicate his traumatic experiences with the intent of avoiding their repetition.
907 1330 - PublicationWhose Trauma? Discursive Practices in Saartjie Baartman’s Literary Afterlives(EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste, 2015-12-21)Iannaccaro, GiulianaAfter a brief contextualization of the figure of Sartjie Baartman – the Khoisan woman displayed in London and Paris at the beginning of the nineteenth century as the “Hottentot Venus” – this contribution addresses the issue of contemporary discursive practices making use of Baartman’s icon. Starting from Thabo Mbeki’s speech at the ‘funeral’ of Saartjie Baartman as an introduction, the article focuses on the analysis of two very different novels, Zoë Wicomb’s "David’s Story" (2000) and Barbara Chase-Riboud’s "Hottentot Venus. A Novel" (2003). Their very dissimilarity can tell us much on the discursive practices concerning Baartman’s figure; yet, the two works permit comparison because they share the same wish to shed light on the relationship between past and present by means of an overall structural complexity. Both novels make use of the postmodern features of a multi-voiced and multi-layered narration, and avoid granting authority to a single version of history. Moreover, both "David’s Story" and "Hottentot Venus" engage in a narrative relating to individual and collective trauma; that is why the article briefly introduces the ongoing discussion focused on the application of Western trauma theories to the South African historical and political situation. The literary investigation provided here takes into consideration the aesthetic aspect of both books; I contend that Chase-Riboud’s narrative is unsatisfactory as a novel, and that its literary weakness diminishes the strength of its socio-political stances.
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