The first issue this essay examines is the articulation of the cinema of the body, the feminine gestus, and the ‘political cinema’, which begins with the philosophical shout, ‘Give me a body, then!’ and ends with the ‘Third World Cinema’ as a cinema of memory. How is this Deleuzian concept in tension with the one proposed here of ‘missing body’? The second issue concerns the importance of the body for theory and practice within feminist film theory and queer theory. (...) The question of the body is introduced in-between these two lines in the context of a series of Latin American documentaries. The final problem is then how to see and show a body that is missing, like an outside of the body image, and of a certain regime of the visible and the audible that tends to be fixed in topics by the production of technologies of memory. (shrink)

Michael Haneke's film Hidden ( Caché, 2005) raises questions about responsibility and guilt in the context of post-colonial inequities that are profoundly discomfiting for the viewer, framing a meditation on identity, consciousness and responsibility that is at once visceral and intellectual. On the reading presented here, this film makes visible and palpable some of the effects of the ' strange suppositions' about personal responsibility and memory that were first articulated by a philosopher who also felt called upon to (...) justify colonialism: John Locke. The perspective provided by the film casts light both on the unpleasant emotional resonances of Locke's theory of personal identity and points to the likely source of its structure in his celebrated theory of private property. (shrink)

Post-communist East-Central Europe is witnessing a clash of memories focused on its recent past. Whereas Western memory is constructed around the “politics of regret” and responsibility-assumption vis-à-vis the Holocaust, Eastern memory focuses to a large extent on responsibility-attribution for the trauma of communist rule. These are comparable traumatic experiences, but due to different “cognitive mapping” and different mnemonic social frameworks, Eastern memory has produced a post-mnemonic framework that allows for a creeping justification of interwar Radical (...) Right ideologies; for the transmogrification some of their standard-bearers into anti-communist heroes and martyrs; and the obfuscation World War II history. In some countries, religion and its past representatives are used for the same purpose. (shrink)

The collective historical amnesia that reigns in contemporary Russia demands an explanation. In the first part of my article I will analyze the mechanisms that suppress historical memory. I will focus my attention on two historical representations of critical relevance for this matter. First, I will discuss the Western-oriented ideology of the post-Soviet intelligentsia. Second, I will analyze the functioning of the myth of the "Great Patriotic War." In the second part of my paper I will address the (...) influence of historical amnesia on contemporary Russian society. Deep distortions in moral judgments and social relations resulting from suppressed memory will be studied through an analysis of contemporary Russian fiction, especially fantasy. Finally, I will consider Russian Gothic society, which originates in historical amnesia. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that describing collective memory as a historical collective experience involving the sedimentation of experiences can help us understand the complexities in empirical cases. To demonstrate the explanatory power of this approach, I discuss actual cases of collective memory in post-Soviet European societies and communities, mainly in Estonia and among Ingrian Finns, using the concepts of collective experience and sedimentation. By combining these two concepts, I suggest that the same historical and contemporary political (...) objects may appear very differently to different societies and communities. Therefore, to understand the social and political landscape of our continent, we need to understand the unique experiential nature of collective memory. While phenomenology has allegedly had difficulties in addressing collective memory, rather focusing on individual memory and time consciousness, my analysis demonstrates its potential to clarify the experiential patterns of collective memory and its relevance to historical and political studies. (shrink)

This article examines European memory and memory politics. Taking as my starting point the deepening divisions between the “old” and “new” members of the European Union since the 2004 and 2007 enlargements, I investigate whether differences in official memory concerning World War II on the one hand and communism on the other should be regarded as permanent. Using examples from the development of West-European postwar memory-regimes and comparing them to the current state in postcommunist Europe I (...) suggest that with respect to historical memory the two parts of Europe underwent similar developments, crises and debates, thus making eventual convergence and consensus possible. However, there are various factors that complicate progress in this area: postcommunist countries have to contend not only with their wartime history but also with the experience of communism, which latter colours the assessment of the former. (shrink)

Radical enactivism, an increasingly influential approach to cognition in general, has recently been applied to memory in particular, with Hutto and Peeters New directions in the philosophy of memory, Routledge, New York, 2018) providing the first systematic discussion of the implications of the approach for mainstream philosophical theories of memory. Hutto and Peeters argue that radical enactivism, which entails a conception of memory traces as contentless, is fundamentally at odds with current causal and postcausal theories, which (...) remain committed to a conception of traces as contentful: on their view, if radical enactivism is right, then the relevant theories are wrong. Partisans of the theories in question might respond to Hutto and Peeters’ argument in two ways. First, they might challenge radical enactivism itself. Second, they might challenge the conditional claim that, if radical enactivism is right, then their theories are wrong. In this paper, we develop the latter response, arguing that, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, radical enactivism in fact aligns neatly with an emerging tendency in the philosophy of memory: radical enactivists and causal and postcausal theorists of memory have begun to converge, for distinct but compatible reasons, on a contentless conception of memory traces. (shrink)

Commonly, a switch between networks mediating memory encoding and those mediating retrieval is observed. This may not only be due to differential involvement of neural resources due to distinct cognitive processes but could also reflect the formation of new memory traces and their dynamic change during consolidation. We used resting state fMRI to measure functional connectivity (FC) changes during post-encoding rest, hypothesizing that during this phase, new functional connections between encoding- and retrieval-related regions are created. Interfering and (...) reminding tasks served as experimental modulators to corroborate that the observed FC differences indeed reflect changes specific to post-encoding rest. The right inferior occipital and fusiform gyri (active during encoding) showed increased FC with the left inferior frontal gyrus and the left middle temporal gyrus (MTG) during post-encoding rest. Importantly, the left MTG subsequently also mediated successful retrieval. This finding might reflect the formation of functional connections between encoding- and retrieval-related regions during undisturbed post-encoding rest. These connections were vulnerable to experimental modulation: Cognitive interference disrupted FC changes during post-encoding rest resulting in poorer memory performance. The presentation of reminders also inhibited FC increases but without affecting memory performance. Our results contribute to a better understanding of the mechanisms by which post-encoding rest bridges the gap between encoding- and retrieval-related networks. (shrink)

ConclusionAlthough the paper points to many critical issues in the repressed memory debate, it does not adequately portray its full complexity. Focusing attention on the simplistic question of whether repressed memories exist or not deflects attention from the more promising issue of how traumatic memories are encoded and managed. Initial research indicates that encoding and managing traumatic memories may involve cognitive processes that are specific to traumatic experiences. Whilst recognising that repressed memory reports should not be accepted as (...) historically accurate recollections, there is a need to push ahead with rigorous research that extends our understanding of how traumatised people perceive and recall their unwanted experiences. (shrink)

This book explores the problematic relationship between reconciliation and the continuance of violence and oppression. Frankowski engages with contemporary issues in philosophy of race, African American philosophy, and critical race theory in connection with German idealism, psychoanalysis, critical theory, phenomenology, and post-structuralism.

Die Posttraumatische Belastungsstörung (PTBS) ist ein schwerwiegendes psychisches Krankheitsbild, das Betroffene nach dem Erleben traumatisierender Situationen entwickeln. Im Zusammenhang mit den Auslandseinsätzen der Bundeswehr ist die PTBS bei Soldaten in den letzten Jahren verstärkt in den Fokus der deutschen Öffentlichkeit gerückt. Auch zivile Traumata bergen ein großes PTBS-Risiko. Seit einigen Jahren werden Methoden zur medikamentösen Prävention der PTBS erforscht. Die beiden wichtigsten Ansätze, die Prävention mit zentralnervös wirkenden Betablockern und Glukokortikoiden, basieren auf der Idee, durch den Eingriff in neuroendokrine Stressachsen (...) Einfluss auf die Art und Weise zu nehmen, in der die Erinnerung im Gedächtnis konsolidiert wird. Durch eine Entemotionalisierung und Abschwächung entsprechender Gedächtnisspuren soll das spätere Auftreten einer PTBS verhindert werden. Beide Ansätze zeigen in Pilotstudien vielversprechende Ergebnisse. Angesichts der herausragenden Bedeutung des Gedächtnisses für Individuum und Gesellschaft sollten Ansätze zur medikamentösen Gedächtnismodifikation (MGM) unter neuroethischen Gesichtspunkten diskutiert und bewertet werden. Der Text beleuchtet die MGM zur PTBS-Prävention entlang von fünf Problemachsen: 1) der Einflussnahme von MGM auf den Prozess der normalen psychischen Verarbeitung traumatischer Erlebnisse, 2) der Gefahr einer Entkopplung von Erinnerung und Realität, 3) der Bedeutung von emotionaler Erinnerung für die Moral, 4) der sozialen, juristischen und historischen Relevanz einer wahrhaftigen Erinnerungskultur und 5) der potenziellen Förderung eines gesellschaftlichen Medikalisierungsprozesses. Trotz ernsthaft zu diskutierender ethischer Bedenken ist – vor dem Hintergrund der Schwere des Krankheitsbilds – aus unserer Sicht eine MGM zur PTBS-Prävention grundsätzlich begrüßenswert, sollte jedoch derzeit nur im Rahmen klinischer Studien erfolgen. Hierfür stellen wir acht forschungsethische Aspekte zur Diskussion, die bei solchen Studien zu berücksichtigen sind. (shrink)

This article invites the view that the Europeanization of an antitotalitarian “collective memory” of communism reveals the emergence of a field of anticommunism. This transnational field is inextricably tied to the proliferation of state-sponsored and anticommunist memory institutes across Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), but cannot be treated as epiphenomenal to their propagation. The diffusion of bodies tasked with establishing the “true” history of communism reflects, first and foremost, a shift in the region’s approach to its past, one (...) driven by the right’s frustration over an allegedly pervasive influence of former communist cliques. Memory institutes spread as the CEE right progressively perceives their emphasis on research and public education as a safer alternative to botched lustration processes. However, the field of anticommunism extends beyond diffusion by seeking to leverage the European Union institutional apparatus to generate previously unavailable forms of symbolic capital for anticommunist narratives. This results in an entirely different challenge, which requires reconciling of disparate ideological and national interests. In this article, I illustrate some of these nationally diverse, but internationally converging, trajectories of communist extrication from the vantage point of its main exponents: theanticommunist memory entrepreneurs, who are invariably found at the helm of memory institutes.Inhabiting the space around the political, historiographic, and Eurocratic fields, anticommunist entrepreneurs weave a complex web of alliances that ultimately help produce an autonomous field of anticommunism. (shrink)

Spontaneous intrusive recollections follow traumatic events in clinical and non-clinical populations. To determine whether any relationship exists between SIRs and enhanced memory for emotional events, participants viewed emotional or neutral films, had their memory for the films tested two days later, and estimated the number of SIRs they experienced for each film. SIR frequency related positively to memory strength, an effect more pronounced in the emotional condition. These findings represent the first demonstration of a relationship between SIRs (...) occurring after an emotional experience and subsequent memory strength for that experience. The results are consistent with the possibility that emotional arousal leads both to elevated SIR frequency and better memory, and that the covert rehearsal associated with SIRs enhances memory for emotional relative to neutral stimuli. Additional evidence of menstrual cycle influences on SIR incidence in female participants appears to merit consideration in future work. (shrink)

The article is aimed at building a theoretical framework for an empirical analysis of the politics of memory in a new post-Soviet democracy. We elaborate on the concept of new democracy and highlight that in late post-Soviet countries it might be defined through three interrelated variables of trustworthy institution building, promotion of civil rights, and consistent foreign policy. We refine the concept of the politics of memory underlining the electoral origins of public policies addressing the painful (...) issues of the past. To find out how the politics of memory evolves in the new post-Soviet democracy, we distinguish three memory issues of highly contentious nature: lustration, ban on public display of Soviet symbols, and compensation from Russia for Soviet occupation. (shrink)

Henry et al. (2007) claim they are concerned with the overmedicalization of bad memories and its subsequent exploitation by the pharmaceutical industry. However, they downplay the contributing role...

The National Institute of Mental Health (Bethesda, MD) reports that approximately 5.2 million Americans experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) each year. PTSD can be severely debilitating and diminish quality of life for patients and those who care for them. Studies have indicated that propranolol, a beta-blocker, reduces consolidation of emotional memory. When administered immediately after a psychic trauma, it is efficacious as a prophylactic for PTSD. Use of such memory-altering drugs raises important ethical concerns, including some futuristic (...) dystopias put forth by the President's Council on Bioethics. We think that adequate informed consent should facilitate ethical research using propranolol and, if it proves efficacious, routine treatment. Clinical evidence from studies should certainly continue to evaluate realistic concerns about possible ill effects of diminishing memory. If memory-attenuating drugs prove effective, we believe that the most immediate social concern is the over-medicalization of bad memories, and its subsequent exploitation by the pharmaceutical industry. (shrink)

The human mind strives to maintain equilibrium between memory and oblivion and rejects irrelevant or disruptive memories. However, extensive amounts of stress hormones released at the time of a traumatic event can give rise to such powerful memory formation that traumatic memories cannot be rejected and do not vanish or diminish with time: Post-traumatic stress disorder may then develop. Recent scientific studies suggest that beta-blockers stopping the action of these stress hormones may reduce the emotional impact of (...) disturbing memories or prevent their consolidation. Using such an intervention could, in principle, help people who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, but the idea of doing so is controversial. I shall here discuss memory manipulation in this perspective. (shrink)

Engaging philosophy with history, literature, film and testimony, this book examines the critical relationship between white Australian identity and the cultural priority of childhood in Australia.

This article asks whether there were, in post-dictatorship Chile, limitations of the autonomy of cultural and artistic production addressing the memory of traumatic events. In particular, the article analyzes the content and history of the production of some relevant sections of the mural painting Memoria Visual de una Nación by the Chilean artist Mario Toral. The article demonstrates that public art was an arena of struggle for the meaning of democracy during the postdictatorship period. To do this, he (...) uses concepts from post-structuralist political theory, cultural studies, the philosophy of memory, and memory studies. The article also offers an interpretation of cultural production as an open and contingent process. It concludes that the transition via transaction in Chile had a negative influence on the field of artistic production, reducing its autonomy and divergence from the dominant political discourse in the period. (shrink)

The National Institute of Mental Health reports that approximately 5.2 million Americans experience post-traumatic stress disorder each year. PTSD can be severely debilitating and diminish quality of life for patients and those who care for them. Studies have indicated that propranolol, a beta-blocker, reduces consolidation of emotional memory. When administered immediately after a psychic trauma, it is efficacious as a prophylactic for PTSD. Use of such memory-altering drugs raises important ethical concerns, including some futuristic dystopias put forth (...) by the President's Council on Bioethics. We think that adequate informed consent should facilitate ethical research using propranolol and, if it proves efficacious, routine treatment. Clinical evidence from studies should certainly continue to evaluate realistic concerns about possible ill effects of diminishing memory. If memory-attenuating drugs prove effective, we believe that the most immediate social concern is the over-medicalization of bad memories, and its subsequent exploitation by the pharmaceutical industry. (shrink)

Among the most used expressions in scholarly articles concerning collective memory, is “dealing with the past”, or its more specific alternative, “dealing with the traumatic past”. This is a rather inexact formulation, because what scholars, artist, curators deal with is not the past in itself but the manner in which it is narrated and represented, or remembered, reconstructed. A series of questions are triggered by this statement: who “remembers”, for what purpose, with what consequences? The scope of this yearbook (...) is to present two different ways of approaching the construction of collective remembrance: the authoritarian one and the post-authoritarian one. Th e articles discuss case studies of collective memory and identity building in Communist Romania, comparative studies of participative art in post-authoritarian regimes in Central and Eastern Europe, or intricate artistic approaches of traumatic collective memories. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to say something about the continuing impact of the Holocaust as an historical event through the application of aspects of Arendt's political thought and, at the same time, to say something about Arendt's distinctive understanding of the problems of post-Holocaust culture. An aim of this sort carries the intrinsic danger that the event in question becomes simply an illustration or grist to a particularinterpretative mill, an outcome that would be particularly undesirable here if (...) it afforded the Nazi Holocaust merely exemplary status. However, the danger may be easier to avoid in this case than in many due to a particular aspect of Arendt's thought itself. She places consistent emphasis upon the importance of the unprecedented event, the eventthat even with hindsight carries a sense of complete improbability and which changes the world and how we think about it. Arendt usually has in mind here ''positive'' political events such as acts of foundation but I want to suggest that implicitly her thought can also accommodate the notion of the Holocaust as an unprecedented ''negative''; an event that persists in its impact not because, like foundational acts, it establishes a self-reproducing arena of action and judgment, but because it insinuates a self-reproducing form of ruin. Arendt would have been sympathetic, I think, to Yehuda Bauer's description of the Holocaust as an ''upside-down miracle.''1 Undoubtedly, she regarded the Holocaust as having a symbolic significance, representing the apotheosis of the experience of modernity. The destruction of the personality in its juridical, moral and political forms enacted as a principle the superfluousness of mankind already present in the experience of modern mass society, where the vital distinction between freedom and necessity is obscured as social life fallsincreasingly under the rule of impersonal processes.2 This symbolic rendering aside, however, implicit in Arendt's thoughts on the political conditions of cognition, is an available sense of a continuing, more than symbolic significance attaching to the Holocaust as an unprecedented negative occurrence which changed things for good. Equally, and by the same token, bringing Arendt's thought to bear here will reveal an acute sense of the irreversible novelty of the contemporary, post-Holocaust situation and of the unprecedented cultural and political predicament it involves: the internal relation she posits between human plurality and cognitive certification illuminates the sense in which events involving the emasculation of plurality, and a consequent erosion of the basis of cognition, create problematic legacies for the historical imagination and in turn pose a continuing threat to freedom. I will suggest that Arendt's political thought is self-consciously located within, and structured by, this situation. It has been argued that the Holocaust represents an ''unmasterable'' episode; that it resists proper comprehension or analysis. There may be good reasons for thinking that in some sense this is true. Some critics of this view have taken it to imply that we cannot learn anything from the Holocaust as an historical event.3 In fact, I will argue, Arendt's approach delivers a sense in which this ''unmasterable'' event may carry a particular kind of significance and establishes a particular kind of point to attempts at Holocaust remembrance. At issue throughout will be the Arendtian conception of judgment. I shall suggest that what is at stake is the possibility of judgment and that this implicates the possibility of culture. I will begin by looking at some symptoms of what I take to be the problem of the Holocaust as an historical event, as an object for historical memory, and at how these may be generalised in a way which invites an Arendtian commentary. (shrink)

This article considers why institutionalized commemoration of the Holocaust in the United Kingdom developed in the 1990s. It finds that the answer may have less to do with Jewish lobbies, or the influence of a “Holocaust Industry” and much, more to do with state political objectives in the ebb of the Cold War. It argues that by repackaging and ritualizing the Holocaust into a “sacred” event in which Western states themselves were absolved of responsibility but also sought to come to (...) Jewish rescue, it became an invaluable prop with which to promulgate Western values while at the same time acting as a moral alibi for interventions against anti-Western regimes. By focusing on the example of specifically British relations with Iraq, it is demonstrated that the moral high ground which Western states have attempted to milk from a Holocaust association is meretricious cant.Appalling and inhuman acts of genocide changed the course of history in the twentieth century. Millions of people perished or had their lives hideously damaged. This is an opportunity for us to recognize and act upon the lessons of the past. Our aim in the twenty-first century must be to work towards a tolerant and diverse, society which is based upon the notions of universal dignity and equal rights and responsibilities for all citizens. The Holocaust Memorial Day is a symbol of this. (shrink)

Situated in the larger collection of Psalms 51-72, also known as the second Davidic Psalter, the smaller group of Psalms 65-68 is found. This smaller collection of psalms can be classified mostly as psalms of praise and thanksgiving. The relation and compositional work in this cluster of psalms become apparent on many points in the pious expressions between groups and persons at prayer, especially in the universal praise of God, and in the imagery referring to the exodus, the Jerusalem cult (...) and blessing. Such piety becomes most discernible in the imagery and expressions in Psalm 66. The psalm's two main sections may be described as praise, with verses 1-12 being praise by the group or the 'we', and verses 13-20 being praise by the individual or the 'I'. Personal or individual piety and private piety are expressed by the desire of the 'we' and the 'I', and the experienced immediacy to God by transposing the past into the present through the memory of the exodus narrative, the Jerusalem cultic imagery and the use of body imagery. In this research article, an understanding of piety in Psalm 66 in terms of the memory of past events and body imagery is discussed from a perspective of space and appropriated for a time of pandemic where normal or traditional ecclesiological formal practices cannot take place. CONTRIBUTION: This article makes an interdisciplinary contribution based on knowledge from the Psalms in the Old Testament, social anthropology, literary spatial theories and practical theological perspectives on the church in order to contribute to the relevance and practice of theology today, during a time of turmoil and a global pandemic. (shrink)

The effect of emotion on memory often leads to the trade-off: enhanced memory for emotional items comes at the cost of memory for background information. Although this effect is usually attributed...

Michelle Maiese: Trauma, dissociation, and relational authenticity; Caroline Christoff: Performative trauma narratives: Imperfect memories and epistemic harms; Aisha Qadoos: Ambiguous loss: A loved one's trauma; Alberto Guerrero Velázquez: El trauma está en la respuesta. Hacia una visión post-causal en la definición de trauma psicológico; Clarita Bonamino, Sophie Boudrias, and Melanie Rosen: Dreams, trauma, and prediction errors; Gabriel Corda: Memoria episódica y trastorno de estrés postraumático en animales no humanos: una propuesta metodológica; María López Ríos, Christopher Jude McCarroll, and Paloma (...) Muñoz Gómez: Memory, mourning, and the Chilean constitution; Sergio Daniel Rojas-Sierra, and Tito Hernando Pérez Pérez: Subjetividades rememorantes, marcas narrativas y trauma cultural en la construcción de memoria de desmovilizados de las FARC-EP en el AETCR Pondores; Germán Bonanni: Y después de la guerra... ¿Qué? (shrink)

In this article, a discussion about memory in exile is presented that takes up the thesis that exile is a condition of post-existence and afterness. The main claim is that exile is not only existence after a cut and separation but is an existing as afterness, in a “present tension” of being with the without and without a with. It reveals a sense of the present and of presence as multi-directed movements, as clusters of echoes and delayings. In (...) exile, memories are not the continuous simultaneity of double images but are rather “photisms,” shimmering between images, the coming and going between languages, experiences, a longing back and forth. Exilic memory is the experience that bears witness to the present as the movement of presencing, of appearing while sliding away. (shrink)

(Post)apartheid Conditions: Psychoanalysis and Social Formation advances a series of psychoanalytic perspectives on contemporary South Africa, exploring key psychosocial topics such as space-identity, social fantasy, the body, whiteness, memory and nostalgia.

Two decades ago, East European state socialism met with a paradoxical fate. Between 1989 and 1991, communist party hegemony was abolished, leaving the very idea of socialism permanently discredited—or so it seemed. Yet in the decade that followed, “socialistic” principles and practices would retain—or perhaps acquire—a surprising degree of popular appeal. Was this a cultural legacy of systematic indoctrination? A strategic response to material insecurities? Perhaps a combination of both? In this article, it is argued that many previous efforts to (...) unravel the paradox are inadequate because they ignore both the “strategic” dimensions of culture and the cultural dimensions of instrumental reason. Using life-history data on the former East Germany, it is shown that apparently discredited ideologies can acquire renewed salience in the wake of regime change if they (1) remain culturally available as strategies of action that (2) provided material opportunities or symbolic privileges in the past, and (3) promise to ameliorate new problems engendered by alternative strategies. (shrink)

The main objective of this work is to contribute to the literature on memory in post-conflict societies by considering how the choice of an official language is entangled in memory politics. Particularly, in Timor-Leste, the choice of Portuguese as the official language reflects an effort to create a narrative of the heroism of the ‘Generation of 75’ whilst silencing the efforts and memories of the ‘Geração Foun’ (young generation)’ during the fight for independence. Therefore, in the constituency (...) of the new state, language plays a crucial role in post-conflict efforts to (re) establish political foundations for the state and define how individuals will be remembered. This paper analyses the case of Timor-Leste and disputes over the choice of an official language after the re-establishment of independence in 2002. (shrink)