Title: Performing European memories : trauma, ethics, politics /
Authors: Gluhovic, Milija, 1971-
Year: 2013
Subjects: Theater Europe History; European drama History and criticism.; Collective memory in literature; Psychic trauma in literature.; Politics in literature.; Collective memory in literature.; European drama; PERFORMING ARTS Theater History & Criticism.; Politics in literature.; Psychic trauma in literature.; Theater
Abstract: "Performing European Memories: Trauma, Ethics, Politics" explores the intersections between contemporary European theatre and performance, the interdisciplinary field of memory studies, and current preoccupations with the politics of memory in Europe. Asking whether a genuinely shared European memory is possible while addressing the dangers of a single homogenised European memory, this important book examines the contradictions, specificities, continuities and discontinuities in the European shared and unshared pasts as represented in the works of Harold Pinter, Tadeusz Kantor, and Heiner Muller, Andrzej Wajda, Artur Zmijewski and other European artists. Gluhovic shows different ways in which these artists engage with the traumatic experiences of the Holocaust, the Stalinist Gulags, colonialism, and imperialism, challenge their audiences' historical imagination, and renew their affective engagement with Europe's past.
Contents: Introduction: theorising Europe and recollection -- History, memory, and trauma in Heiner Müller's theatre -- Contested pasts and the ethics of remembrance in Tadeusz Kantor's "theatre of death" -- Postmemory, vulnerability, affect -- Conclusion: European memories and the margins of Europe: Sarajevo theatre tragedy and Three prayers for one wish.