In addition to proposing a survey and subsequent analysis of the French-Algerian War in French-language comics, also known as bandes dessinées, published in Algeria, France, and Belgium since the 1960s, my dissertation investigates the ways in which this medium re-appropriates textual and iconographic source materials. I argue that the integration or citation of various sources by artists functions to confer a measure of historical accuracy on their representation of history, to constitute a collective memory as well as personal postmemories of the war, and to re-contextualize problematic images so that they and the hegemonic discourses they reinforce may be deconstructed. Moreover, the bande dessinée mimics secondary schoolbook representations of the war in both Algeria and France in its recycling of problematic images such as Orientalist painting, colonial postcards, and iconic images of war. The recycling of textbook images has the double advantage of ensuring reader familiarity with these images and of inviting critical interpretations of them. By exploring how the bande dessinée reuses colonial images as well as critical histories in predominantly anti-colonialist narratives, I seek to explain how this popular medium uniquely problematizes questions of history, memory, and postcolonial identity related to French Algeria and its decolonization. It is my contention that, because historical bandes dessinées frequently include or reference authentic textual and iconographic source material documenting the repercussions of the French-Algerian war on various communities, they represent a valuable resource to middle and high school teachers looking to enrich the state-mandated history curriculum. By using the bande dessinée in this capacity, educators exploit this medium as both a historical document (whose objective is to transmit knowledge of the past) and a document of history (which allows scholars to retrace the evolution of public opinion).

During and after the Spanish Civil War, over 500,000 people left Spain; at least 200,000 would remain outside Spain for many years, some for the rest of their lives. They went to France, Mexico, Argentina, the USSR, and across the globe. These Spanish ‘republican’ refugees were also connected to those who had stayed within Spain, by familial and political ties or the bonds of friendship. In order to investigate this reality – a group of people from all kinds of political, social and economic backgrounds based in so many different geographic locations – this thesis foregrounds the role of the individual in both experiencing and constructing history, being defined and resisting definition from different entities. Consequently, it seeks to intervene in the historiography of the Spanish Civil War and republican exile by highlighting the ways in which individual experiences and narratives both strengthen and weaken categories such as: political, a-political, refugee and exile. This PhD brings together underused source materials stored in Spain and Mexico, as well as digital archives stored online; it is based on archived oral history interviews with refugees, additional oral history interviews undertaken by the author, several collections of letters, unpublished and published memoirs, and official documents. Each chapter considers a different aspect of the refugees’ experiences and how these experiences are represented in the source material: departure, separation and communication, return and home, and the memory of exile within families. How and why did people leave? How did they change their behaviour in order to adapt to or survive particular circumstances? How have the children and grandchildren of Spanish refugees reacted to family narratives and memories? Central to this analysis is the role played by factors such as gender, age, class, status, personality and political views in shaping peoples’ experiences, as well as an emphasis on ‘non-elite’ alongside ‘elite’ refugees’ experiences of displacement. The historiography of the Spanish Civil War and subsequent exile has been shaped by political and ideological debates, as well as the different national contexts refugees found themselves in. From the numbers of refugees recorded as having left Spain, to the idea that returning to Spain was a betrayal, to the memory of the exile within Spain, almost every aspect of the refugees’ experiences has been used to make or refute arguments surrounding the morality of the republican cause and the nature of the Francoist regime. At the same time, the different circumstances of refugees living in countries like France and Mexico meant that different narratives or collective memories regarding the role of refugees in their host countries are still being constructed and reconstructed. One of the central aims of this thesis is to show how these debates have obscured the richness of individual experiences; the thesis therefore argues that considering stories which do not “fit” or details which are difficult to synthesise ultimately leads us to a more profound understanding of history. Driven by an extensive use of a range of oral history interviews, the thesis will also explore how historical time is complicated by personal testimony. The events of one person’s life are carried into the present, as they continue to affect their character, state of mind and attitude to success and hardship. Personal memories and perspectives will provide a contrast to historical narratives which focus on the role of the state, military events, ideology or political parties; instead, the thesis will show how these entities and events affect people’s lives, and the lives of their children. The central argument of this thesis is that Spanish refugees were not ‘preordained’ by the ideological conflicts which were embedded in the Civil War or their displacement. Instead, refugees actively constructed their ‘self-hood’ in response to these circumstances, rather than being (wholly) defined by them.

This masters thesis examines children of Holocaust survivors otherwise known as second-generation survivors. The aim is to research how memories from a traumatic past, which affected the survivor’s parents during the Holocaust, lives on and continues to affect the lives of those who were not there to experience them. The study examines the life stories presented by children of Holocaust survivors in Swedish journalist and author Bernt Hermele’s podcast Överlevarna –Andra generationen (English translation Survivors – Second-Generation). The study approaches the second-generation survivor’s life stories via a theoretical framework that combines Jörn Rüsens theory of historical narrative and Marianne Hirsch concept of postmemory. By using this new theoretical approach to children of survivor’s life stories the study manages to investigate how the past become and remain important for children of survivors. From the analysis several results surrounding how, the past remains relevant can be discerned. Firstly, that the second-generation survivors in Sweden exhibits a postmemory. This postmemory however should not always be interpreted as traumatic and does not over necessarily overshadow other joyful family memories. The children of survivors negotiate their identity as second-generation survivors and there is no uniform answer to what it actually means to be a second-generations survivor. The main identity discussed by the second-generation is their Jewish identity. However, their Jewish identity does not mainly come from religious beliefs but rather from their relationship to their parents and their parent’s behaviour during childhood. Due to their postmemory, some second-generation survivors show a continuous search for their parents and their parent’s stories. In lack of answers, they use experiences from the present that can be interpreted and applied on their parents for increased understanding of them. This phenomenon can be referred to as postmemory-continuity. Lastly the act of telling and retelling their own and their parent’s stories is presented as a meaningful act for second-generation survivors. This is due to the fact that telling becomes a way to resist and prevent antisemitism and racism and increase tolerance insociety in the future.

This dissertation centers on the realization that history evolves and is never complete because the past is elusive and perceptions sway as society changes. Throughout the turn to the twenty-first century, Spain has been moving from resistance to remembrance with regard to individual, cultural and governmental interest in the Civil War and dictatorship of the twentieth century. During the transition to democracy after General Francisco Franco’s death on November 20th, 1975, the reunified government opted to forget the divisive past with the unofficial Pacto de Olvido. Despite this impulse toward resistance, the urge for remembrance at a personal and social level evolved into a, nationwide debate. On December 26th, 2007, the incumbent Congress of Deputies enacted La Ley de Memoria Histórica, a law that mandates attention to previously denied history. In essence, this controversial ruling seeks to promote remembrance of both sides of the Civil War. Contemporary literature, media and film have long been involved in this deeply political and personal work. From the multitude of options, this project selected five renowned texts published between 1992 and 2005. The authors of Autobiografía del General Franco (1992), La voz dormida (2002), El lápiz del carpintero (1998), Enterrar a los muertos (2005), and Soldados de Salamina (2001) belong to what Marienne Hirsch defines as the postmemory generation, the one born following a national trauma. These writers do not have the privileged position of immediate contact with survivors, yet emotional and temporal distance from the events narrated empowers these Spanish authors to create nuanced, literary depictions of war and post-war experiences. In their texts, these writers challenge accepted history, poetically weave a collective memory based on testimonies, illuminate idealistic differences, counter-balance hope with horror, and narrate the transformative experience of historical research. By engaging with the past from the perspective of the present, their narrators articulate the tension between resistance and remembrance. The texts studied here offer five contrastive representations of ways in which versions of history are alternately censured or suppressed, and subsequently unearthed and refashioned in collective and official memory as political power and narrative agency are transformed in an ever-changing society. / text

O objeto da pesquisa é o cinema documental contemporâneo ligado aos descendentes de militantes de esquerda vítimas das ditaduras do Cone Sul. Desde fins dos anos 1990, ganha relevo na região a produção de documentários dirigidos ou protagonizados por filho(a)s, sobrinho(a)s ou neto(a)s daqueles que se opuseram aos regimes autoritários vigentes entre as décadas de 1960 e 1980. Nessa filmografia, as histórias de resistência e repressão vividas pela geração anterior são revistas pelas gerações mais jovens pelo enfoque familiar e íntimo. A tendência se manifesta na Argentina, no Chile, no Brasil, no Uruguai e no Paraguai, no âmbito de um fenômeno de memória intergeracional mais vasto, que abrange outras expressões artísticas além de outras conjunturas traumáticas. Quatro títulos compõem o corpus principal do trabalho: Diário de uma busca (Flavia Castro, Brasil / França, 2010); Los rubios (Albertina Carri, Argentina, 2003); Mi vida con Carlos (Germán Berger-Hertz, Chile / Espanha, 2009); Os dias com ele (Maria Clara Escobar, Brasil / Portugal, 2013). Metodologicamente, a argumentação confronta a análise dessas obras específicas com um corpus fílmico expandido e outros materiais externos, construindo uma abordagem global e nuançada sobre as expressões da memória intergeracional nesse documentarismo. Quatro objetivos centrais guiam as reflexões, desdobrando aspectos salientes nos títulos do corpus principal. Respectivamente: descrever a formação dessa filmografia ao longo dos anos, examinando as dinâmicas transnacionais e temporais em jogo, bem como os influxos exercidos pelos festivais de cinema e pela escrita acadêmica nesse processo; ampliar o debate sobre o circuito de interações entre as gerações, destacando o papel ativo dos descendentes e abarcando vetores de memória que extrapolam a transmissão de um legado traumático; delinear o repertório de formas cinematográficas e narrativas dessa produção, rastreando paralelismos, matizes, contradições estéticas e lugares de enunciação da primeira pessoa; interpretar aquilo que a representação audiovisual testemunha sobre o peso do passado e sua ancoragem em um presente ainda marcado pelo autoritarismo. A investigação indaga as balizas conceituais desse campo de estudos para descortinar um fenômeno denso em sua historicidade, com imagens carregadas de conexões transnacionais, transferências culturais, tensões formais e nexos referenciais. O resultado final é um quadro multifacetado do documentarismo intergeracional do Cone Sul, com perspectivas renovadas pelo prisma da subjetividade e dos afetos, mas no qual também se plasmam novas fórmulas da memória. / The subject of this research is the documentary filmmaking related to descendants of leftist militants who were victims of Southern Cone dictatorships. Since the late 1990s, there has been a significant production of documentaries directed by or focused on children, nephews, nieces or grandchildren of those who opposed authoritarian regimes in the region from the 1960s to the 1980s. In this filmography, histories of repression and resistance experienced by the previous generation are revisited by the younger generations from a familiar and intimate point of view. Nonfiction works of this type have been released in Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay, inside a broader cultural framework of intergenerational remembrances that reaches out other forms of artistic expressions besides other traumatic historical contexts. The main corpus of this investigation includes four documentaries: Diary, letters, revolutions (Flavia Castro, Brazil / France, 2010); The blonds (Albertina Carri, Argentina, 2003); My life with Carlos (Germán Berger-Hertz, Chile / Spain, 2009); The days with him (Maria Clara Escobar, Brazil / Portugal, 2013). Methodologically, the argumentation contrasts the analysis of these specific works with an expanded filmic corpus and other external materials, constructing a global and nuanced overview of the intergenerational memory expressions in this documentary production. Four key objectives are pursued, developing central aspects identified in each title of the main corpus. Respectively: to describe the formation of this filmography over the years, considering the transnational and temporal dynamics at stake, as well as the role of both film festivals and academic writing in this process; to broaden discussions about the interactions circuit between the generations, emphasizing the descendants agency and embracing memory vectors far beyond the transmission of a traumatic burden; to outline the range of cinematographic and narrative forms used in the films, scrutinizing aesthetics parallels, variations and contradictions, along with the locus of enunciation of the first person; to decipher what audiovisual representation testifies about the weight of the past and its concrete links with a present still marked by authoritarian legacies. The research inquires the conceptual assumptions of this field of studies in order to bring to light the historicity of a dense phenomenon, whose images are full of transnational connections, cultural transfers, formal tensions, and referential grounds. The outcome is a multiform portrait of the intergenerational documentary made in the Southern Cone, with renewed perspectives derived from the subjective and affective viewpoint, but in which new memory patterns also start to get shaped.

This dissertation intends to study the haunting power of the past¡Xthe legacy of slavery and the trauma of racism¡Xon the lives of African Americans in Toni Morrison fiction. In this dissertation, I attempt to examine how the aftermaths of historical and individual trauma affect the formation of ethnic identity and black subjectivity, how the traumatic history is haunting across generations, how the memory of the traumatic past is mediated and imaginatively portrayed through fictional characters and in what ways those characters respond to racism and imposed shame. Based on the theories of trauma, I view African American history as a prolonged history of trauma which haunts generations of blacks. The impact of the past is always present in a variety of ways. Among Morrison¡¦s fiction, I will only choose four of her novels as my major concern to elaborate the fundamental issues that Morrison consistently highlights. The first chapter attempts to investigate aesthetics, ethics and black female subjectivity in Morrison¡¦s The Bluest Eye and Beloved. In the novels, Morrison discloses the racist biases of white aesthetics, as well as its damaging impacts on reshaping the subjectivity of black women. For Morrison, the aesthetic judgment is inseparable from ethics. The second chapter tackles the problematic of racial haunting and the possibilities of working through historical trauma in Beloved. The writing of Beloved not only serves as a reminder as well as a symptom of historical trauma but also offers a way to heal collectively historical trauma. The third chapter is concerned with the issue of postmemory and the crisis of fatherhood in Song of Solomon. The main protagonist, Milkman, still has to work through the multi-ethnic past of his family which, though not directly his, yet haunts him nonetheless. Morrison emphasizes the need for African Americans to forge productive links between past and present. Unless Milkman confronts his past, both personal and collective, he will not know how to appreciate the beauty and power of African-American cultural heritage. The fourth chapter engages with the problematic of black manhood and black nationalism in Paradise. In this chapter, I endeavor to explore how the wounded black manhood is formed in response and in reaction to the historical oppressions of black men as a whole. Set in the sixties and seventies of America, Paradise is a critique to the biased gender politics of black nationalism at that time. It reveals Morrison¡¦s persistent concern with the plight of black men and the continuous victimization of black women.

O objeto da pesquisa é o cinema documental contemporâneo ligado aos descendentes de militantes de esquerda vítimas das ditaduras do Cone Sul. Desde fins dos anos 1990, ganha relevo na região a produção de documentários dirigidos ou protagonizados por filho(a)s, sobrinho(a)s ou neto(a)s daqueles que se opuseram aos regimes autoritários vigentes entre as décadas de 1960 e 1980. Nessa filmografia, as histórias de resistência e repressão vividas pela geração anterior são revistas pelas gerações mais jovens pelo enfoque familiar e íntimo. A tendência se manifesta na Argentina, no Chile, no Brasil, no Uruguai e no Paraguai, no âmbito de um fenômeno de memória intergeracional mais vasto, que abrange outras expressões artísticas além de outras conjunturas traumáticas. Quatro títulos compõem o corpus principal do trabalho: Diário de uma busca (Flavia Castro, Brasil / França, 2010); Los rubios (Albertina Carri, Argentina, 2003); Mi vida con Carlos (Germán Berger-Hertz, Chile / Espanha, 2009); Os dias com ele (Maria Clara Escobar, Brasil / Portugal, 2013). Metodologicamente, a argumentação confronta a análise dessas obras específicas com um corpus fílmico expandido e outros materiais externos, construindo uma abordagem global e nuançada sobre as expressões da memória intergeracional nesse documentarismo. Quatro objetivos centrais guiam as reflexões, desdobrando aspectos salientes nos títulos do corpus principal. Respectivamente: descrever a formação dessa filmografia ao longo dos anos, examinando as dinâmicas transnacionais e temporais em jogo, bem como os influxos exercidos pelos festivais de cinema e pela escrita acadêmica nesse processo; ampliar o debate sobre o circuito de interações entre as gerações, destacando o papel ativo dos descendentes e abarcando vetores de memória que extrapolam a transmissão de um legado traumático; delinear o repertório de formas cinematográficas e narrativas dessa produção, rastreando paralelismos, matizes, contradições estéticas e lugares de enunciação da primeira pessoa; interpretar aquilo que a representação audiovisual testemunha sobre o peso do passado e sua ancoragem em um presente ainda marcado pelo autoritarismo. A investigação indaga as balizas conceituais desse campo de estudos para descortinar um fenômeno denso em sua historicidade, com imagens carregadas de conexões transnacionais, transferências culturais, tensões formais e nexos referenciais. O resultado final é um quadro multifacetado do documentarismo intergeracional do Cone Sul, com perspectivas renovadas pelo prisma da subjetividade e dos afetos, mas no qual também se plasmam novas fórmulas da memória. / The subject of this research is the documentary filmmaking related to descendants of leftist militants who were victims of Southern Cone dictatorships. Since the late 1990s, there has been a significant production of documentaries directed by or focused on children, nephews, nieces or grandchildren of those who opposed authoritarian regimes in the region from the 1960s to the 1980s. In this filmography, histories of repression and resistance experienced by the previous generation are revisited by the younger generations from a familiar and intimate point of view. Nonfiction works of this type have been released in Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay, inside a broader cultural framework of intergenerational remembrances that reaches out other forms of artistic expressions besides other traumatic historical contexts. The main corpus of this investigation includes four documentaries: Diary, letters, revolutions (Flavia Castro, Brazil / France, 2010); The blonds (Albertina Carri, Argentina, 2003); My life with Carlos (Germán Berger-Hertz, Chile / Spain, 2009); The days with him (Maria Clara Escobar, Brazil / Portugal, 2013). Methodologically, the argumentation contrasts the analysis of these specific works with an expanded filmic corpus and other external materials, constructing a global and nuanced overview of the intergenerational memory expressions in this documentary production. Four key objectives are pursued, developing central aspects identified in each title of the main corpus. Respectively: to describe the formation of this filmography over the years, considering the transnational and temporal dynamics at stake, as well as the role of both film festivals and academic writing in this process; to broaden discussions about the interactions circuit between the generations, emphasizing the descendants agency and embracing memory vectors far beyond the transmission of a traumatic burden; to outline the range of cinematographic and narrative forms used in the films, scrutinizing aesthetics parallels, variations and contradictions, along with the locus of enunciation of the first person; to decipher what audiovisual representation testifies about the weight of the past and its concrete links with a present still marked by authoritarian legacies. The research inquires the conceptual assumptions of this field of studies in order to bring to light the historicity of a dense phenomenon, whose images are full of transnational connections, cultural transfers, formal tensions, and referential grounds. The outcome is a multiform portrait of the intergenerational documentary made in the Southern Cone, with renewed perspectives derived from the subjective and affective viewpoint, but in which new memory patterns also start to get shaped.

This thesis is a photographic essay that examines the work of memory in Argentina related to the dictatorship of 1976 and its aftermath. In it, I examine various sites of memory that can be broadly defined as archival, performative and pedagogic and attempt to relate these sites to the scene of contemporary memory. An estimated 30,000 people were disappeared during “El Proceso” from 1976-1983 and these absent visages continue to haunt the nation. Officials from the outgoing regime remained protected from prosecution for 20 years after the formation of the constitutional government. Over time and without access to juridical redress, Argentine human rights groups have resorted to assorted means to recuperate the memories of the disappeared and the excesses of the regime. Groups like Las Madres de Plaza Mayor, HIJOS, and Grupo Etcetera developed performative practices – from the sanguine march to the carnavalesque protest. Neighborhood associations attempted to mark and recuperate former clandestine detention centers as public sites. Student activists mark sites with elaborate murals narrating the cityscape’s connection to its political ghosts. Municipal and provincial organizations emerged to catalogue, film, record, archive and listen. Lastly, with the election of center-left president Nestor Kirchner (2003-2007) and his commitment to this memory work, along with his support of the legal prosecution of former regime officials, there emerged more monumental projects such as the creation the Parque de la Memoria and the memory museum at the largest detention and torture center in Argentina during the dictatorship, ESMA. This study enters into these sites of memory and attempts to narrate their affect and grammar in relation to the politics of memory that Argentines continue to struggle with to this day. / text

Cette étude propose d’explorer les œuvres de Jonathan Safran Foer, Daniel Mendelsohn, et Art Spiegelman, à travers la notion de trace, principe fondateur de l’esthétique et de l’éthique des écritures de l’après-Shoah. L’expérience lacunaire de ces « générations d’après » implique la présence d’une « postmémoire », dont le caractère « différé » sollicite le travail de l’imagination et informe la démarche créatrice de ces artistes et écrivains de l’après, qui reconstruisent le passé de leurs familles. Ces récits de la hantise sont marqués par une « mémoire trouée », et découlent souvent d’une rupture de la filiation, donc d’une défaillance de la transmission. Engagés dans une quête de savoir, narrateurs et protagonistes interrogent l’événement à partir de traces matérielles, ainsi qu’au travers de retours, réels et imaginaires, sur les lieux de l’origine. Ces récits sont composés de matériaux hétérogènes qui créent des ruptures visuelles, et sont informés par divers dérèglements temporels : désordres, disruptions chronologiques, latence et répétition – tous symptomatiques de l’après-coup du trauma. Ces textes postmémoriels posent enfin la question de l’éthique de la représentation. Performativité de la langue, fictionnalisation de l’Histoire, et enjeux de la transmission sont au cœur de ces œuvres en devenir, et interrogent l’éthique de la responsabilité de leurs auteurs, entre passation et travail de deuil. / This study explores the works of Jonathan Safran Foer, Daniel Mendelsohn, and Art Spiegelman through the notion of trace, the founding principle of the aesthetics and ethics of post-Holocaust writing. The incomplete knowledge of these “post-Holocaust generations” implies the presence of a “postmemory”, the “deferred” nature of which requires the imagination to be put to work and informs the creative approach of these post-Holocaust artists and writers, reconstructing their family’s past. These haunting narratives are marked by a “memory shot through with holes” and are often the result of a break in the bond of filiation, and therefore a hiatus of transmission. Having embarked on a quest for knowledge, narrators and protagonists examine the event through material traces, as well as real or imaginary returns to their places of origin. These narratives are made up of heterogeneous elements which create visual ruptures and are informed by various temporal disruptions: disorders, chronological breaks, latency and repetition – all symptomatic of the deferred action of trauma. Finally, these postmemorial texts raise the issue of the ethics of representation. The performativity of language, the fictionalization of History, and the issue of transmission are at the heart of these works in the making, and ethically question their authors’ responsibility, between transfer and the work of mourning.

Mémoire en recherche-création / Ce mémoire est composé d’un essai et d’un roman. L’essai s’intéresse à la post-mémoire, concept développé pour traiter des traumatismes historiques, en tant que matériau mémoriel intime. La recherche opère un glissement entre le traumatisme historique et le traumatisme privé en fondant leur similarité sur leur nature événementielle. Le roman La femme qui fuit d’Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette permet de concevoir l’importance de la post- mémoire dans le cadre de traumatismes familiaux. Cette histoire, mise en fiction en s’appuyant sur les traces d’un passé disparu, illustre bien la mise en récit et la reconquête du sens perdu par la deuxième génération d’un événement traumatique. La partie création du mémoire se consacre au récit d’une narratrice hypocondriaque dont la mère est décédée du cancer du sein alors que la protagoniste était encore enfant. Le personnage tente de déplier ses souvenirs, mais ne réussit que par l’entremise de son imagination – seule la narratrice-enfant possède les véritables souvenirs maternels. Toutefois, comme la fillette n’existe plus au présent, la reconquête de l’ascendance achoppe. En tentant de recomposer sa mère, la narratrice découvre surtout ses propres fantômes et ceux de son père. La création propose l’expérience de la théorie post-mémorielle tout en questionnant ses limites. / This master’s thesis is subdivided in two components : an essay and a novel. The essay focuses on postmemory, a concept elaborated in relation to historical traumas, as intimate memorial structure. The research shifts from historical traumas to personal traumas by basing their similarity on their event nature. The novel Suzanne by Anaïs Barbeau- Lavalette underlines the importance of postmemory in familial trauma. This story, fictionalized by linking true artefacts, sheds light on postmemorial work and on the resignification of events orchestrated by the post-generation of a traumatic event. The creation section of this work tells the story of a hypochondriac narrator who suffered the loss of her mother to breast cancer in childhood. The main character seeks to recover the lost memories of her mother but can only remember her by means of her imagination – only the child narrator still possesses the true memories. However, as the young girl no longer exists in the present time, the quest stumbles. Through the search for her mother, the narrator mostly uncovers her father’s and her own ghosts. The creative work attempts to embody the postmemory theory while questioning its limits.