Deleuze and Memorial Culture: Desire, Singular Memory and the Politics of Trauma

209 Pages·2008·0.78 MB·English

by  Adrian Parr

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DELEUZE AND E
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MEMORIAL CULTURE
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Z DELEUZE AND
Desire, Singular Memory and the Politics of Trauma
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MEMORIAL CULTURE
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Adrian Parr
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Deleuze and Memorial Culture is a detailed study of contemporary forms of
public remembrance. Adrian Parr considers the different character traumatic
M Desire, Singular Memory and the Politics of Trauma
memory takes throughout the sphere of cultural production and argues that
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contemporary memorial culture has the power to put traumatic memory
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to work in a positive way. Drawing on the conceptual apparatus of Gilles
Deleuze, she outlines the relevance of his thought to cultural studies and O
the wider phenomenon of traumatic theory and public remembrance. This R
approach is interdisciplinary, drawing on media criticism, psychoanalysis, I
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cultural studies, urbanism, continental philosophy and political economy.
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A number of case studies are examined including the holocaust, the Vietnam C
Veterans Memorial in Washington DC, 9/11, the Amish shootings in Pennsylvania U
USA, the documentation and dissemination of US military abuses at Abu
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Ghraib prison, as well as the consumption and reification of trauma. T
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This book offers a revision of trauma theory that presents trauma not
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simply as a definitive experience and implicitly negative, but an experience
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that can foster a sense of hope and optimism for the future.
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Adrian Parr teaches in the College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning
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at the University of Cincinnati. She is the editor of The Deleuze Dictionary,
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and co-editor with Ian Buchanan of Deleuze and the Contemporary a
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World. She is also the author of Exploring the Work of Leonardo da Vinci

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within the Context of Contemporary Philosophical Thought and Art.
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Front cover image: Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Berlin
Photograph by Michael Zaretsky
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Jacket design: Cathy Sprent
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Edinburgh University Press i
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22 George Square b
Edinburgh EH8 9LF u
www.eup.ed.ac.uk rg Adrian Parr
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ISBN 978 0 7486 2754 7
M1098 PARR PRE M/UP.qxd:GRAHAM Q7.3 29/1/08 11:30 Page i
Deleuze and Memorial Culture
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To Michael Zaretsky
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Deleuze and Memorial
Culture
Desire, Singular Memory and the Politics of Trauma
Adrian Parr
EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS
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© Adrian Parr, 2008
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
22 George Square, Edinburgh
Typeset in 11/13pt Adobe Sabon
by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Manchester, and
printed and bound in Great Britain by
Biddles Ltd, King’s Lynn, Norfolk
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7486 2754 7 (hardback)
The right of Adrian Parr
to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction 1
1 Desire is Social 15
2 Utopian Memory 34
3 The Vietnam Veterans Memorial 54
4 9/11 News Coverage 76
5 US Military Abuses at Abu Ghraib 94
6 The Amish Shootings 112
7 Ground Zero 128
8 Berlin and the Holocaust 143
9 Trauma and Consumption 166
Conclusion 181
Bibliography 190
Index 198
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Acknowledgements
The research and writing of this book received assistance from many
people in different ways. I would especially like to thank Ronald
Bogue, Ian Buchanan, Claire Colebrook, Felicity Colman, Tom Conley,
Verena Conley and Carol MacDonald for their support. Eli Zaretsky
provided me with academic advice for references in the area of psy-
choanalysis that I am most grateful for. An earlier version of Chapter
7 appeared in the journal Angelaki, Volume 2 (2006) http://www.
informaworld.com, while a shorter version of Chapter 8 was published
as part of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture 2007
conference proceedings. I would like to thank both the journal editors
and the ACSA committee for their permission to reprint this material.
Lastly, a Presidential Fellowship from the Savannah College of Art and
Design provided me with financial assistance to conduct research in
preparation for the writing of this book and I would especially like to
thank President Paula Wallace for her support.
I would also like to thank my son Lucien, daughter Shoshana and
Margaret Sabolik for their patience during my long periods of
absence. My Hungarian grandmother, Rosa, and her experiences
during World War Two and the memories of her mother provided me
with inspiration to write on traumatic memory and public remem-
brance. Finally, my husband Michael Zaretsky has not only given
over his time to proofread, comment and discuss every last corner and
detail of this project, but he has continually provided me with critical
suggestions for improvement, unconditional encouragement and
unwavering confidence without which I can honestly say this book
would never have come to fruition.
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Introduction
How we remember also affirms how we live our lives today and
tomorrow: defensively or joyfully. Memory is dynamic and its move-
ment is largely ungraspable. It can open new linguistic, economic, his-
torical, and energetic combinations that either normalize or reinvent
how the social field organizes itself. Yet the movement of memory
cannot be clearly situated within space and time. Memory, unlike
remembrance itself, is not in space and time, although it can be said
to produce space-times. Memory does not happen to a body, it sub-
sists throughout it. A body doesn’t remember a defined slice of time,
for memory is in excess of the chronological compartmentalizing of
discrete temporal units. So, where do we start when we begin to think
about memorial culture? How do we collectively grapple with trauma
as it gnaws its way through the social field? Perhaps with a mixture
of aggression, tears, outrage, overwhelming sorrow, and silence. How
does culture answer to the memories that linger on in the wake of a
trauma collectively experienced and the feeling that a community has
been pushed to what seems like the end of the world? Questions such
as these underpin a now commonly quoted statement Theodor W.
Adorno made in 1949 that after the holocaust to write poetry is
simply barbaric. This challenge has been met by the blossoming
industry of memorialization – holocaust museums and memorials,
holocaust remembrance day and so on. Actually, the building of
memorials has become an entirely independent genre in contempo-
rary art and architecture. So, what might Adorno think of this?
Perhaps we need to respond to him through an exercise of our imag-
ination by considering the quality and affect of the time through
which he spoke.
The essence of history framed by a teleological principle of
progress that Karl Marx predicted would culminate in the end of
History once the class society was overthrown was quickly suspended
post World War Two. For if history has a goal or meaning then it can
also be measured in terms of consequences, yet the consequence of the