Afterimages: Belated Witnessing in the Photographs of the Armenian Catastrophe
Journal
Journal of Literature and Trauma Studies
ISSN
2162-3627
ISSN-Digital
2045-4740
Type
journal article
Date Issued
2015
Author(s)
Abstract
In The Generation of Postmemory, Marianne Hirsch defines postmemory as the way in which some events preceding a subject’s own birth or consciousness may eventually come to affect the person’s life profoundly and—through the mediation of narrations, documents, or images from childhood—come to eventually constitute a memory of his or her own. Although the subject has never personally experienced these events, they profoundly shape his or her affective life. Postmemory’s connection “is thus actually mediated not by recall but by imaginative investment, projection, and creation”; sometimes these mediated images influence a personality even more than any seemingly immediate personal experience.1
The notion of postmemory can itself be considered the symptom of a shift that has taken place within memory studies and especially within studies on the memory of the twentieth century’s catastrophic events. If we take the memory of the Holocaust, one could argue that we find ourselves in a period of which Jan and Aleida Assmann have spoken in terms of a “floating gap”: on the one hand, the events remembered can still be situated within one’s own family history; on the other hand, they are already part of a written institution called history.2 While the religious wars of the early modern era are known to us mainly through history books, many catastrophic events of the twentieth century still seem to be part of [End Page 43] our own story, although we might never have witnessed them firsthand nor even have been told about them directly by anyone involved.
The notion of postmemory can itself be considered the symptom of a shift that has taken place within memory studies and especially within studies on the memory of the twentieth century’s catastrophic events. If we take the memory of the Holocaust, one could argue that we find ourselves in a period of which Jan and Aleida Assmann have spoken in terms of a “floating gap”: on the one hand, the events remembered can still be situated within one’s own family history; on the other hand, they are already part of a written institution called history.2 While the religious wars of the early modern era are known to us mainly through history books, many catastrophic events of the twentieth century still seem to be part of [End Page 43] our own story, although we might never have witnessed them firsthand nor even have been told about them directly by anyone involved.
Language
English
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
HSG Profile Area
SHSS - Kulturen, Institutionen, Maerkte (KIM)
Refereed
Yes
Publisher
University of Nebraska Pr.
Publisher place
Lincoln, Neb.
Volume
4
Number
1-2
Start page
43
End page
65
Official URL
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Eprints ID
248591