In this introduction to our edited volume, Material Afterlives, we specify the interventions and arguments of our collection as a whole. To begin, we reflect on the recent proliferation of “afterlives” as a concept and metaphor within the social sciences and humanities, a development that we describe as the “new hauntology.” As we argue, this new hauntology favors the subjective rather than objective aspects of afterlives and consequently neglects questions of materiality. The overarching goal of Material Afterlives is to remedy this neglect. Following this, we examine the contributions and limitations of the concepts of ruin/ruination and waste to the investigation of material afterlives. While the concepts of ruin and waste presuppose a decrease in value in the face of time and change of function, material afterlives, by contrast, accentuate the proliferation of enhanced and unanticipated material values. We then enumerate the implications of our consideration of material afterlives for Memory Studies broadly, with particular emphasis on how material afterlives unsettle the orienting role of trauma in the discipline. Finally, we briefly outline the five specific contributions that constitute our volume.
What happens to the notion of commemoration when its object is not fixed in time? Intervening in scholarly discussions on the contested nature of public remembering, this ethnographic research analyses how the afterlives of genocidal violence, of people and of mythical characters, are intermingled in divergent temporalities of public memorials. Through the case of the statue commemorating a locally known holy-madman, Şeywuşen (1930–1994), inaugurated in 1995 in Dersim (Tunceli), Turkey, it examines the possibilities and limitations of the statue's aesthetic form in representing madness and holiness both of which lie beyond the bounded character of rationality in its normative form. The article first juxtaposes the fluctuating temporality generated by the statue of Şeywuşen with that of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938), representing the official memory regime of nationalism. Secondly, it contrasts the temporal multiplicity enabled by the statue of Şeywuşen with the statue of Seyyid Rıza (1863–1937), which commemorates the officially denied Dersim Genocide (1937–1938) and represents collective trauma. By putting it into conversation with monumental and counter-monumental aesthetic representations, the article illustrates that the statue of Şeywuşen paradoxically memorializes what is uncontainable within the political order and temporality of the nation-state. It argues that this case presents the possibility of joining different communities of loss by generating space for open-ended mourning for multiple injuries resulting from state violence.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.