SYMPOSIUM: Postmemory and Displacement: Latin American and Eastern European Creative Perspectives on Exile and Remembrance

SYMPOSIUM

Postmemory and Displacement: Latin American and Eastern European  Creative Perspectives on Exile and Remembrance

In memoriam Cara Levey

This is a joint event of the Transitions & Social Justice group (Rudolf Agricola School for Sustainable Development) and Eastern European Cultures & Heritage (Groningen Research Institute for the Study of Culture)

Organised by: Ksenia Robbe (RUG), Camilla Sutherland (RUG), Helena Buffery (University College Cork), Kylie Thomas (University College Cork), and Helena Crusats Padrós (intern RUG and Memory Studies Association)

As a result of displacement, including different forms of migration and exile, similar remembrance experiences can surface in the social domain and shape the subsequent generations. The relationship that the second generation has with the traumatic experiences of their predecessors is known as postmemory, which refers to the different ways in which children inherit, embrace, and disavow the memory of the trauma lived by their parents. As defined by Marianne Hirsch, postmemory’s connection to the past is mediated not by direct recall but by imaginative investment, projection, and creation. Consequently, postmemory and its creative practices evidence multiple ways of engaging with hegemonic forms of commemorating the past by generating supplementary remembrance frameworks. In some cases, these alternative forms of mnemonic resistance also intersect with and encourage other political struggles, such as feminist or postcolonial. 

Within that framework, the symposium will address how the experience of exile and other forms of displacement are creatively represented through different forms of remembrance conducted by women, bringing together Latin American and Eastern European contexts. It will, therefore, center on creative performances and will include a film screening and a theatre performance, along with a conversation with the makers and an academic panel. In this way, we aim to highlight the potential of creative representations as powerful forms of (post)memory and dissent. 

The symposium is organized in memory of Cara Levey, who was a Senior Lecturer in Latin American Studies at University College Cork until her untimely death on the 11th of September 2024. Cara was a much-loved friend and colleague, and this event is in honour of her brilliant scholarship on human rights, memory and justice in the Southern Cone.    

For the programme see the poster below. All sessions are open to the public.