Trauma and the Memory of Politics

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 284 pages
• Published by: Cambridge University Press August 25, 2003
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0521534208
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0521534208
• Book Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Weighs: 15.2 ounces

Product Review
"This is a path-breaking work. It moves the discussion of traumatic memory away from a concentration on paralysis and towards political action. It offers a theoretically sophisticated and powerful reading of the repercussions of traumatic events, as fields of force in which memories of catastrophe are rewritten as forms of resistance. Narratives which encircle terrible events like wars and terrorism can and do challenge political and social conventions in such a way as to create a space in which political commitments can be renegotiated and reconstructed. Essential reading for all students of history and memory." Jay Winter, Yale University

"Are you critical of established images of sovereignty but uncertain how they become reproduced so effectively? Then this is the book for you. Jenny Edkins is compelling as she explores intricate dissonances and intersections between linear time, trauma time, memorials, sovereignty, the nation and resistance to the nation. This is an admirable book that will repay close attention." William E. Connolly, Johns Hopkins University, author, Neuropolitics: Thinking, Culture, Speed

"Edkins has written a provocative book on how traumatic memory is mobilized through various strategies of recall, particularly memorial emplacement in national narratives of heroism, sacrifice, and redemption." - Edward T. Linenthal, University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh

Product Description
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.