Forensic Memory Literature after Testimony

This book describes and analyses a particular literary mode that challenges the aesthetics of testimony by approaching the past through detection, analysis, and ‘archaeological’ digging. How does forensic literature narrate the past in terms of plot, lang

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Johanne Helbo Bøndergaard

Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies Series Editors Andrew Hoskins University of Glasgow Glasgow, UK John Sutton Department of Cognitive Science Macquarie University Macquarie, Australia “Bøndergaard’s work breaks new ground by drawing attention to the emergence of ‘forensic memory’ in literature after testimony. The study astutely tackles the complex interplay between materiality, law, science and subjectivity in ways that are illuminating and original.” —Anna Reading, Kings College, University of London, UK “Forensic Memory is a major contribution to the field of literary memory studies. It offers a compelling new way of understanding memory literature beyond the aesthetics of testimony. Bøndergaard discusses the recent forensic turn in cultural memory and draws our attention to the ‘forensic mode’ in literature: works that approach the past through detection, analysis, and archaeology. She shows how, at the same time, such literature can uncover the paradoxes inherent in forensics. Forensic Memory is a fascinating read, a timely and very welcome broadening of our perspective on memory and literature – recommended to anyone interested in recent developments in memory culture and memory studies.” —Astrid Erll, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany

The nascent field of Memory Studies emerges from contemporary trends that include a shift from concern with historical knowledge of events to that of memory, from ‘what we know’ to ‘how we remember it’; changes in generational memory; the rapid advance of technologies of memory; panics over declining powers of memory, which mirror our fascination with the possibilities of memory enhancement; and the development of trauma narratives in reshaping the past. These factors have contributed to an intensification of public discourses on our past over the last thirty years. Technological, political, interpersonal, social and cultural shifts affect what, how and why people and societies remember and forget. This groundbreaking new series tackles questions such as: What is ‘memory’ under these conditions? What are its prospects, and also the prospects for its interdisciplinary and systematic study? What are the ­conceptual, theoretical and methodological tools for its investigation and illumination? More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/14682

Johanne Helbo Bøndergaard

Forensic Memory Literature after Testimony

Johanne Helbo Bøndergaard Aarhus University Aarhus, Denmark

Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies ISBN 978-3-319-51765-0 ISBN 978-3-319-51766-7  (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-51766-7 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017939114 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or info