Committing the Future to Memory

Sarah Clift

ISBN 10: 0823254216 / ISBN 13: 9780823254217

Published by Fordham University Press, US, 2013

About this Item

Whereas historical determinacy conceives the past as a complex and unstable network of causalities, this book asks how history can be related to a more radical future. To pose that question, it does not reject determinacy outright but rather seeks to explore how it works. In examining what it means to be "determined" by history, it also asks what kind of openings there might be in our encounters with history for interruptions, re-readings, and re-writings. Engaging texts spanning multiple genres and several centuries-from John Locke to Maurice Blanchot, from Hegel to Benjamin-Clift looks at experiences of time that exceed the historical narration of experiences said to have occurred in time. She focuses on the co-existence of multiple temporalities and opens up the quintessentially modern notion of historical succession to other possibilities. The alternatives she draws out include the mediations of language and narration, temporal leaps, oscillations and blockages, and the role played by contingency in representation. She argues that such alternatives compel us to reassess the ways we understand history and identity in a traumatic, or indeed in a post-traumatic, age.

Seller Inventory # LU-9780823254217

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Committing the Future to Memory
• Publisher: Fordham University Press, US
• Publication Date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0823254216
• ISBN 13: 9780823254217
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Whereas historical determinacy conceives the past as a complex and unstable network of causalities, this book asks how history can be related to a more radical future. To pose that question, it does not reject determinacy outright but rather seeks to explore how it works. In examining what it means to be “determined” by history, it also asks what kind of openings there might be in our encounters with history for interruptions, re-readings, and re-writings.

Engaging texts spanning multiple genres and several centuries―from John Locke to Maurice Blanchot, from Hegel to Benjamin―Clift looks at experiences of time that exceed the historical narration of experiences said to have occurred in time. She focuses on the co-existence of multiple temporalities and opens up the quintessentially modern notion of historical succession to other possibilities. The alternatives she draws out include the mediations of language and narration, temporal leaps, oscillations and blockages, and the role played by contingency in representation. She argues that such alternatives compel us to reassess the ways we understand history and identity in a traumatic, or indeed in a post-traumatic, age.

About the Author

Sarah Clift is Assistant Professor of Contemporary Studies at the University of King's College, Halifax.