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Annihilation and Integration in Collective Posttraumatic Monuments, Testimonies, and Literary Texts

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The Art and Science of Trauma and the Autobiographical

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Life Writing ((PSLW))

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Abstract

Jensen offers a unique comparison of collaborative memory projects: contemporary expressions of public suffering (such as the Monument Against Fascism in Hamburg, Germany) and collective literary and testimonial representations of group or generational traumatic history (like those generated by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa). Such forms of witness arise, Jensen demonstrates, from identifiable biological and psychological conditions in posttraumatic communities, which elicit specific cognitive affects. Examining memorial projects such as the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, alongside collective testimonies from survivors of the Rwandan genocide, the Holocaust, the repression of indigenous peoples in Guatemala among others, Jensen highlights the ways that each of these memorial projects, whether verbal or material, create interactive, aesthetically interesting, interrogative and performative spaces in which stories can be shared through a rhetorically-distanced witness that enables the development of collective traumatic identity while simultaneously supporting traumatized communities.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kingston University, Kingston upon Thames, UK

    Meg Jensen

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  1. Meg Jensen
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Correspondence to Meg Jensen .

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Jensen, M. (2019). Annihilation and Integration in Collective Posttraumatic Monuments, Testimonies, and Literary Texts. In: The Art and Science of Trauma and the Autobiographical. Palgrave Studies in Life Writing. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-06106-7_6

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