Remembering Transitions

Questions about how authoritarian regimes, state-sanctioned violence, and issues of transitional justice are remembered are central to memory studies. The essays in this volume offer critical perspectives on memories of the transitional period between the 1970s and 1990s across the globe. By doing so, they respond to the wealth of recent work produced in literature, film, theatre, and other media in different languages that rethinks the political transitions of those decades in light of present crises. The volume thus offers a comparative view of cultural memory practices across nations and language areas. Recent scholarship has paid much attention to modes of literary writing that evade the traumatic memories of mass terror and colonialism, or that try to represent the repetitive structure of traumatic experience. This volume, by contrast, sets out to explore memory practices that reach beyond commodification of affect, restorative nostalgia, and identity politics. It is a valuable resource for academics, students and general readers interested in exploring the dynamics of memory in post-authoritarian societies.