Alexandre Dessingué – författare

Beyond Memory: Silence and the Aesthetics of Remembrance analyses the intricate connections between silence, acts of remembrance and acts of forgetting, and relates the topic of silence to the international research field of Cultural Memory Studies. It engages with the most recent work in the field by viewing silence as a remedy to the traditionally binary approach to our understanding of remembering and forgetting.

The international team of contributors examine case studies from colonialism, war, politics and slavery from across the globe, as well as drawing examples from literature, philosophy and sites of memory to draw three main conclusions. Firstly, that the relationship between remembering and forgetting is relational rather than ‘hermetic’, and the space between the two is often occupied by silence. Secondly, silence is a force in itself, capable of stimulating more or less remembrance. Finally, that silence is a necessary and key element in the interaction between the human mind and the ‘outer world’, and enables people to challenge their understanding of art, music, literature, history and memory.

With an introduction by the editors discussing Memory Studies, and concluding remarks by Astrid Erll, this collection demonstrates that acceptance and consideration of silence as having both a performative and aesthetic dimension is an essential component of history and memory studies.

Beyond Memory: Silence and the Aesthetics of Remembrance analyses the intricate connections between silence, acts of remembrance and acts of forgetting, and relates the topic of silence to the international research field of Cultural Memory Studies. It engages with the most recent work in the field by viewing silence as a remedy to the traditionally binary approach to our understanding of remembering and forgetting.

The international team of contributors examine case studies from colonialism, war, politics and slavery from across the globe, as well as drawing examples from literature, philosophy and sites of memory to draw three main conclusions. Firstly, that the relationship between remembering and forgetting is relational rather than ‘hermetic’, and the space between the two is often occupied by silence. Secondly, silence is a force in itself, capable of stimulating more or less remembrance. Finally, that silence is a necessary and key element in the interaction between the human mind and the ‘outer world’, and enables people to challenge their understanding of art, music, literature, history and memory.

With an introduction by the editors discussing Memory Studies, and concluding remarks by Astrid Erll, this collection demonstrates that acceptance and consideration of silence as having both a performative and aesthetic dimension is an essential component of history and memory studies.

This edited collection examines the intersection between the developing fields of terrorism and cultural memory studies through a detailed study of the 2011 terrorist attack in Norway. It examines how the work of remembrance has been established through arts such as theatre and fiction, and also architecture, heritage and education. It traces the politics of the remembrance processes and explores the shifting meanings in public memories that change over the thirteen years since the attack, and are constantly being negotiated in response to present circumstances. It also charts general trends in memorialisation: the globalising and digitalising of memory practices, the speed of memorial initiatives, the role of testimony, and the importance of diverse narratives emerging through newer modes of communication.

Chapters 10, 13 and 16 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com