Memory, Trauma, Asia: Recall, Affect, and Orientalism in Contemporary Narratives

This book re-examines established insights of memory and trauma theory with diverse Asian texts, examining how the East/West binary delimits horizons of trauma and how Asian texts and cultural producers are viewed through biased lenses. It explores the complex intersections of literature, history, ethics, affect, and social justice across East, South, and Southeast Asia and on Asian diasporas in Australia and the USA, drawing on Orientalism and Area Studies.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 182 pages
Publication date: 31 May 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Rewritten text:

The contributors to this volume challenge established notions of memory and trauma theory and enrich those studies with diverse Asian texts, critically analyzing literary and cultural representations of Asia and its global diasporas. They broaden the scope of memory and trauma studies by examining how the East/West binary limits the horizons of trauma by excluding Asian texts.

Are memory and trauma always reliable registers of the past that translate across cultures and nations? Are supposedly universal experiences of suffering disproportionately colored by Eurocentric structures of region, reason, race, or religion? How are Asian texts and cultural producers still viewed through biased lenses? How might recent approaches and perspectives generated by Asian literary and cultural texts hold purchase in the 21st century? Critically meditating on such questions, and whether existing concepts of memory and trauma accurately address the histories, present states, and futures of the non-Occidental world, this volume unites perspectives on both dominant and marginalized sites of the broader Asian continent. Contributors explore the complex intersections of literature, history, ethics, affect, and social justice across East, South, and Southeast Asia, and on Asian diasporas in Australia and the USA. They draw on yet diverge from Orientalism and Area Studies, given today's need for nuanced analytical methodologies in an era defined by the COVID-19 global pandemic.

This book will be of great interest to students and scholars invested in memory and trauma studies, comparative Asian studies, diaspora and postcolonial studies, global studies, and social justice around contemporary identities and 20th and 21st-century Asia.

Weight: 453g
Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780367645014