ACLA-Panel 2024: Temporalities of Memory, Montreal

Temporalities of Memory

Organizer: Michael McGillen (Dartmouth College)

A key challenge facing memory studies, despite its central role in interdisciplinary humanities work over the past 30 years, is how the field can survive in the face of a contemporary culture whose “regime of presentism,” in François Hartog’s words, appears to obliterate distinctions between past, present, and future. Building on the work of scholars such as Aleida Assmann (Is Time out of Joint?, 2020), Anne Fuchs (Precarious Times, 2019), and Andreas Huyssen (Present Pasts, 2003), this seminar seeks contributions that explore how literature and other forms of cultural expression depict the rich and complex relationship of past and present in works of memory. In what ways can literature and the arts preserve historical consciousness—even in the wake of trauma—and push back against the tendency to subordinate the past to the imperatives of present concerns?

Conceived as a series of investigations into the “temporalities of memory,” the seminar’s contributions will examine the unique capacities of literature and the arts to display “polychronic temporalities” (Gamper and Huhn, 2014)—that is, multiple experiences of time that are singular, heterogeneous, and often out of sync. In a comparative framework, we will assess how the notion of polychronic time can provide insights into how memory is represented in literary and cultural forms. Among the questions that we will consider are: How do writers and artists picture the relationship of past and present in works of memory? What techniques are available for depicting the collision of different layers of time? In what ways can ideas of latency and belatedness help us understand the unique qualities of temporalities of memory?

• Temporalities of traumatic memory (via Caruth, Luckhurst)
• Philosophical and psychoanalytic approaches to memory
• Spatial configurations of memoryscapes and their relation to polychronic time
• The spectral return of memories; memory as repetition
• Forms and genres of literatures of memory (memoire/autobiography, testimony/documentary forms, the novel as form, poetry, etc.)

The seminar will take place at the American Comparative Literature Association’s Annual Conference in Montreal from March 14–17, 2024. The seminar is open to scholars from all career stages, including both faculty and graduate students.

Please submit an abstract and brief speaker bio via the ACLA website no later than September 30: https://www.acla.org/temporalities-memory  The ACLA’s submission portal allows for an abstract to contain as many as 1500 characters including spaces.

In you have any questions, please contact the seminar organizer Michael McGillen (michael.j.mcgillen@dartmouth.edu)

Contact Information

Michael McGillen, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of German Studies
Associated Faculty Member in Comparative Literature 
Dartmouth College
6084 Dartmouth Hall, Room 209C
Hanover, New Hampshire
03755-3511

 

Contact Email

michael.j.mcgillen@dartmouth.edu