Prism: Understanding Non-Sites of Memory
Prism: Understanding Non-Sites of Memory
Author(s): Roma SendykaSubject(s): History, Anthropology, Social Sciences, Geography, Regional studies, Human Geography, Sociology, Social history, Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology, Human Ecology, Rural and urban sociology, Identity of Collectives
Published by: Instytut Badań Literackich Polskiej Akademii Nauk
Summary/Abstract: The text refers to “memory non-sites” scattered around Poland: empty plots of land, its past known only to locals. These are former concentration camps, mass graves, or kirkuts. History becomes a hypostasis here where palimpsest seems insufficient to describe their complicated nature. Detritus is also not an accurate notion. Recent developments in history may allow to see them as geological structures. Plaszow concentration camp will be a case study example. The author offers a metaphor borrowed from geology to describe its singularity: a prism. With this term she tries to analyse the nature of non-memory places as “refuse dumps” of “tectonic” forces of nature, history, politics, etc.
Journal: Teksty Drugie
- Issue Year: 2015
- Issue No: 2
- Page Range: 13-28
- Page Count: 16
- Language: English
- Content File-PDF