Trauma and the Memory of Politics

by Jenny Edkins

• ISBN13: 9780521534208
• ISBN10: 0521534208
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-08-25
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Jenny Edkins explores how we remember traumatic events such as wars, famines, genocides and terrorism. She argues that remembrance does not have to be nationalistic but can instead challenge the political systems that produced the violence. Using examples from the World Wars, Vietnam, the Holocaust, Kosovo and September 11th, Edkins analyzes the practices of memory rituals through memorials, museums and remembrance ceremonies. This wide-ranging study embraces literature, history, politics and international relations, in an original contribution to the study of memory.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	xi
Preface	xiii
1. Introduction: trauma, violence and political community	1	(19)
The traumatic dimension of the political	9	(7)
Practices of trauma	16	(4)
2. Survivor memories and the diagnosis of trauma: the Great War and Vietnam	20	(37)
Survivor memories 1914-1918	25	(4)
Memory and trauma time	29	(13)
The diagnosis of trauma	42	(4)
Forgetting Vietnam	46	(5)
Disciplined memories	51	(3)
Conclusion	54	(3)
3. War memorials and remembrance: the London Cenotaph and the Vietnam Wall	57	(54)
The Cenotaph	60	(7)
Flowers and wreath-laying	67	(6)
The Vietnam Wall	73	(11)
The 'things'	84	(7)
Sacrificial memory - bodies of state	91	(17)
Conclusion	108	(3)
4. Concentration camp memorials and museums: Dachau and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum	111	(64)
'Holocaust' memorials	127	(8)
Dachau concentration camp memorial	135	(14)
Relics at Auschwitz	149	(4)
Narrative museums	153	(12)
Commercialisation, denial and truth	165	(6)
Conclusion	171	(4)
5. Testimony and sovereign power after Auschwitz: Holocaust witness and Kosovo refugees	175	(40)
Biopolitics of the camp	178	(5)
The camp and the witness	183	(6)
Practices of testimony	189	(6)
Kosovo and the camp	195	(10)
Kosovo and testimony	205	(6)
Conclusion	211	(4)
6. Conclusion: the return of the political - the memory of politics	215	(19)
Landscapes of memory - sites of resistance	217	(7)
September 11, New York and Washington	224	(5)
Conclusion	229	(5)
Bibliography	234	(16)
Index	250