World Memory: Personal Trajectories in Global Time

(Hardback)

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How do we account for experiences of trauma and memory in multicultural and 'globalized' societies "World Memory" blends the study of trauma and memory with perspectives from postcolonial theory to explore a range of traumatic personal and socio historical experiences: September 11, the Holocaust, Stolen Generations, Apartheid, racism, sexual abuse, migration and diaspora. From diverse disciplinary bases, the writers examine psychoanalytic, artistic, literary and vernacular accounts of trauma, collectively revealing what happens when languages of memory traverse boundaries of culture, space and time.

Reviews

'An excellent, deeply absorbing volume.' - Professor Stephen Frosh, Birkbeck College, University of London

'A significant affirmation and expansion of the new field of trauma and memory studies, World Memory inscribes local cases into global contexts. Its rich theoretical essays draw on psychoanalysis, postcolonial theory, personal testimony and aesthetic and critical discourses to make convincing claims for the broad applicability and explanatory power of the notion of world memory. Readers will find that this book's impressive comparative scope yields surprising insights into the possibilities and the limits of identification and empathy.' - Marianne Hirsch, Dartmouth College, USA

Author Bio

JILL BENNETT is a Senior Lecturer in Art Theory at the University of New South Wales. She has published widely on all aspects of visual culture including contemporary art, medieval pornography, theories of body and affect and trauma representation. She has curated a number of exhibitions including Telling Tales (Sydney, 1998; Graz, 1999) which addressed trauma and memory. She is currently completing a book on contemporary art, trauma and conflict. - ROSANNE KENNEDY teaches gender and cultural studies in the School of Humanities at Australian National University. She has published several articles on trauma and testimony in relation to the Stolen Generations, and is currently writing a book on trauma, memory and Australian Aboriginal historiography. She has also published widely in the field of law and cultural studies, and is editor (with Katherine T. Bartlett) of Feminist Legal Theory: Readings in Law and Gender.