Spaces of memory and trauma: a cultural semiotic perspective
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Patrizia Violi
Abstract
Over the last twenty years memory and trauma have been the object of fast growing attention in the Humanities and have been investigated within the perspectives of Cultural Studies and Critical Theory. This paper aims to discuss how a culturally oriented semiotic approach is more adequate in terms of reframing in a more insightful way some fundamental issues of this field. With reference to my recent research regarding memorials and museums, I will analyse the relationship between space and memory and the key role that a number of specific places play in the cultural memorisation of traumatic events, demonstrating how a semiotic methodology may serve to clarify a number of theoretical and methodological impasses. In particular I will discuss the notion of trauma, as it has been defined within the field of Trauma Studies, and also the notion of trauma sites, a category of ‘places of memory’ that exhibit a very specific type of semiotic functioning. The notions of trace, authenticity and indexicality will be presented and further analyzed in terms of their usefulness within this broader perspective.
Abstract
Over the last twenty years memory and trauma have been the object of fast growing attention in the Humanities and have been investigated within the perspectives of Cultural Studies and Critical Theory. This paper aims to discuss how a culturally oriented semiotic approach is more adequate in terms of reframing in a more insightful way some fundamental issues of this field. With reference to my recent research regarding memorials and museums, I will analyse the relationship between space and memory and the key role that a number of specific places play in the cultural memorisation of traumatic events, demonstrating how a semiotic methodology may serve to clarify a number of theoretical and methodological impasses. In particular I will discuss the notion of trauma, as it has been defined within the field of Trauma Studies, and also the notion of trauma sites, a category of ‘places of memory’ that exhibit a very specific type of semiotic functioning. The notions of trace, authenticity and indexicality will be presented and further analyzed in terms of their usefulness within this broader perspective.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter i
- Table of contents v
- Preface ix
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Section 1: Semiotics in the world and academia
- What the humanities are for – a semiotic perspective 3
- Semioethics as a vocation of semiotics. In the wake of Welby, Morris, Sebeok, Rossi- Landi 25
- “General semiotics” as the all-round interdisciplinary organizer – general semiotics (GS) vs. philosophical fundamentalism 45
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Section 2: Semiotics, experimental science and maths
- Semiotics as a metalanguage for the sciences 61
- Mastering phenomenological semiotics with Husserl and Peirce 83
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Section 3: Society, text and social semiotics
- Farewell to representation: text and society 105
- Social semiotics: Towards a sociologically grounded semiotics 121
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Section 4: Semiotics and media
- What relationship to time do the media promise us? 149
- Semiotics and interstitial mediatizations 169
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Section 5: Semiotics for moral questions
- Spaces of memory and trauma: a cultural semiotic perspective 185
- Media coverage of the voices of Colombia’s victims of dispossession 205
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Section 6: Questioning the logic of semiotics
- Sense beyond communication 225
- Semiotic paradoxes: Antinomies and ironies in a transmodern world 239
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Section 7: Manifestoes for semiotics
- Semiosis and human understanding 257
- Culture and transcendence – the concept of transcendence through the ages 293
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Section 8: Masters on past masters
- From Peirce’s pragmatic maxim to Wittgenstein’s language-games 327
- Semiotics as a critical discourse: Roland Barthes’ Mythologies 353
- Ricoeur, a disciple of Greimas? A case of paradoxical maïeutic 363
- Index 377
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter i
- Table of contents v
- Preface ix
-
Section 1: Semiotics in the world and academia
- What the humanities are for – a semiotic perspective 3
- Semioethics as a vocation of semiotics. In the wake of Welby, Morris, Sebeok, Rossi- Landi 25
- “General semiotics” as the all-round interdisciplinary organizer – general semiotics (GS) vs. philosophical fundamentalism 45
-
Section 2: Semiotics, experimental science and maths
- Semiotics as a metalanguage for the sciences 61
- Mastering phenomenological semiotics with Husserl and Peirce 83
-
Section 3: Society, text and social semiotics
- Farewell to representation: text and society 105
- Social semiotics: Towards a sociologically grounded semiotics 121
-
Section 4: Semiotics and media
- What relationship to time do the media promise us? 149
- Semiotics and interstitial mediatizations 169
-
Section 5: Semiotics for moral questions
- Spaces of memory and trauma: a cultural semiotic perspective 185
- Media coverage of the voices of Colombia’s victims of dispossession 205
-
Section 6: Questioning the logic of semiotics
- Sense beyond communication 225
- Semiotic paradoxes: Antinomies and ironies in a transmodern world 239
-
Section 7: Manifestoes for semiotics
- Semiosis and human understanding 257
- Culture and transcendence – the concept of transcendence through the ages 293
-
Section 8: Masters on past masters
- From Peirce’s pragmatic maxim to Wittgenstein’s language-games 327
- Semiotics as a critical discourse: Roland Barthes’ Mythologies 353
- Ricoeur, a disciple of Greimas? A case of paradoxical maïeutic 363
- Index 377
