Rites of Return: Diaspora Poetics and the Politics of Memory(Gender and Culture Series)

The first decade of the twenty-first century witnessed a passionate engagement with the losses of the past. Rites of Return examines the effects of this legacy of historical injustice and documented suffering on the politics of the present. Twenty-four writers, historians, literary and cultural critics, anthropologists and sociologists, visual artists, legal scholars, and curators grapple with our contemporary ethical endeavor to redress enduring inequities and retrieve lost histories. Mapping bold and broad-based responses to past injury across Eastern Europe, Africa, Latin America, Australia, the Middle East, and the United States, Rites of Return examines new technologies of genetic and genealogical research, memoirs about lost family histories, the popularity of roots-seeking journeys, organized trauma tourism at sites of atrocity and new Museums of Conscience, and profound connections between social rites and political and legal rights of return. Contributors include: Lila Abu-Lughod, Columbia University; Nadia Abu El-Haj, Barnard College; Elazar Barkan, Columbia University; Svetlana Boym, Harvard University; Saidiya Hartman, Columbia University; Amira Hass, journalist; Jarrod Hayes, University of Michigan; Marianne Hirsch, Columbia University; Eva Hoffman, writer; Margaret Homans, Yale University; Rosanne Kennedy, Australian National University; Daniel Mendelsohn, writer; Susan Meiselas, photographer; Nancy K. Miller, CUNY Graduate Center; Alondra Nelson, Columbia University; Jay Prosser, University of Leeds; Liz Sevchenko, Coalition of Museums of Conscience; Leo Spitzer, Dartmouth College; Marita Sturken New York University; Diana Taylor, New York University; Patricia J. Williams, Columbia University

Table of Contents:
Preface Introduction Marianne Hirsch and Nancy K. Miller 1 Tangled Roots and New Genealogies 1. The Factness of Diaspora: The Social Sources of Genetic Genealogy Alondra Nelson 2. Jews-Lost and Found: Genetic History and the Evidentiary Terrain of Recognition Nadia Abu El-Haj 3. The Web and The Reunion: http://czernowitz.ehpes.com Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer 4. Queering Roots, Queering Diaspora Jarrod Hayes 5. Indigenous Australian Arts of Return: Mediating Perverse Archives Rosanne Kennedy 2 Genres of Return 6. Memoirs of Return Saidiya Hartman, Eva Hoffman, Daniel Mendelsohn in Conversation with Nancy K. Miller 7. Return to Half-Ruins: Fathers and Daughters, Memory and History in Palestine Lila Abu-Lughod 8. Singing with the Taxi Driver: From Bollywood to Babylon Jay Prosser 9. Off-Modern Homecoming in Art and Theory Svetlana Boym 10. Return to Nicaragua: The Aftermath of Hope Susan Meiselas 3 Rights of Return 11. Between Two Returns Amira Hass 12. Adoption and Return: Transnational Genealogies, Maternal Legacies Margaret Homans 13. Foreign Correspondence Sonali Thakkar 14. "O Give Me a Home" Patricia J. Williams, with Images by Keith Calhoun and Chandra McCormick 15. The Politics of Return: When Rights Become Rites Elazar Barkan 4 Sites of Return and the New Tourism of Witness 16. Sites of Conscience: Lighting Up Dark Tourism Liz Sev?enko 17. Kishinev Redux: Pogrom, Purim, Patrimony Nancy K. Miller 18. Trauma as Durational Performance: A Return to Dark Sites Diana Taylor 19. Pilgrimages, Reenactment, and Souvenirs: Modes of Memory Tourism Marita Sturken Contributors Index

About the Author :
Marianne Hirsch is William Peterfield Trent Professor of English and Comparative Literature and Gender Studies at Columbia University. Her most recent books are Ghosts of Home: The Afterlife of Czernowitz in Jewish Memory, written with Leo Spitzer, and The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust. Nancy K. Miller is Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Her most recent books are But Enough About Me: Why We Read Other People's Lives and the family memoir, What They Saved: Pieces of a Jewish Past.

Review :
This broad-ranging collection brings into focus a set of approaches--techno-scientific, personal, and global-that add to the ever-compelling topics of identity, rootedness, mobility, and return. With its fascinating new perspectives, this book demonstrates the importance of memory studies for a better understanding of the future. -- Francoise Lionnet, University of California, Los Angeles