עבודת מחקר זו עוסקת במצבי השכחה הטראומטית. הðחת המוצא היא ש השכחה, ממש כמו הזיכרון, היðה צורת מסירה של עדות; אך בשוðה ממעשה העדות על זיכרוðות טראומטיים, שפת השכחה היא שפה אילמת, חסרת ייצוג ולעיתים ...קיומה אף איðו ידוע לסובייקט. לכן, על-מðת להצליח לשמוע ולאפיין את מה שלא ðיתן לייצג במילים, בחרתי לחקור זאת במרחב הספרותי - דרך הרומן 'חמדת' של טוðי מוריסון (1987 (2019 . הבחירה להקשיב לשכחה דרך טקסט ספרותי ðובעת מהעובדה כי השפה הפואטית מאפשרת להיות במגע עם השכחה ועם הטראומה באופן ייחודי- יש בכוחה לגעת בגרעין הסמוי, זה שאיðו ðיתן לייצוג, ולאפשר לו להפציע - לאו דווקא כזיכרון, הלכוד בתוך עולם המסמðים הסימבולי, אלא כרגש, מוזיקליות, חוויה ואווירה ðפשית.באמצעות הדמויות בספר וההתמודדות שלהן עם הזיכרוðות והשכחות של אירועים טראומטיים בחייהן, ביקשתי להראות את ביטוייה השוðים של השכחה ואת האופðים השוðים בהם היא מתייצבת ביחס לזיכרון וביחס לסובייקט 'השוכח'.המחקר ðשען על ההמשגה התיאורטית שהציעה דðה אמיר בðוגע למודוסים של העדות הטראומטית (2015, 2018 (וכן על שלוש הרמות של השכחה שהציעה ריðה דודאי (2009 (כמו גם על ידע תיאורטי רב שðצבר בתחום המחקר על הזיכרון והשכחה הטראומטיים.מתוך המחקר הטקסטואלי חולצו ארבע אסטרטגיות פואטיות: הפואטיקה של החלק יות וההיעדר, הפואטיקה של האלביתיות, הפואטיקה של החושים ושל תחושות הגוף, והפואטיקה של הספק. אסטרטגיות פואטיות אלו הן ייצוג ל"שקעי העקבות" שמותירה השכחה כעדות לקיומה. תשומת לב והקשבה למבעים פואטיים אלו ולרגשות שהם מעוררים במאזין, מאפשרת, לטעðתי, חבירה עדיðה אל החלקים העמוקים והכמוסים של השכחה, וכך גם ביטוי למעשה העדות המבקש להתגלות.
Toni Morrison's ninth novel, A Mercy, has been received with much acclaim by both the critical and lay reading public. Hailed as her best novel after the award-winning Beloved, most critics to date ...have concentrated on its setting in the late seventeenth century, a time in which, according to the author herself, slavery was "pre-racial," a time before the "Terrible Transformation" irrevocably linked slavery to skin-color or "race." Though a slender, easy to read novel, A Mercy is in fact a richly-layered text, full of multiple meanings and possibilities, a work of art that has only just begun to be "mined" for its critical import. The present volume is the first to deal with these possibilities, presenting a variety of critical approaches that include narrative theory, the eco-critical, the geographical, the allegorical, the Miltonian, the feminist, the metaphorical, and the Lacanian. As such, not only is it conceived to enrich the work of Morrison scholars and students, but also to illuminate the use of critical theory in elucidating a complex literary text. A Mercy clamors for close reading and thoughtful interrogation and promises to reward the perceptive reader.
Exodus, as a powerful narrative of liberation, has been a central imaginative touchstone in the black American struggle against US racism. This book traces the concept in a number of pivotal black ...thinkers, and explores its signficance for contemporary America. The exodus story is a fitting allegory for the painful experience of exile that disproportionately afflicted African Americans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and it also provides compelling imagery for the triumphant election of Barack Obama in 2008. Building around these themes, Anna Hartnell traces the intellectual development of one of the defining narratives of black American thinking on social justice in the United States. In placing black America at the centre of the study of US culture, Rewriting Exodus suggests new ways of thinking about America's relationship with the Middle East and the wider postcolonial world. Hartnell's groundbreaking contribution marks a vital new chapter in American cultural and political history.
Traces Morrison’s theory of African American mothering as it is articulated in her novels, essays, speeches, and interviews.
Mothering is a central issue for feminist theory, and motherhood is also a ...persistent presence in the work of Toni Morrison. Examining Morrison’s novels, essays, speeches, and interviews, Andrea O’Reilly illustrates how Morrison builds upon black women’s experiences of and perspectives on motherhood to develop a view of black motherhood that is, in terms of both maternal identity and role, radically different from motherhood as practiced and prescribed in the dominant culture. Motherhood, in Morrison’s view, is fundamentally and profoundly an act of resistance, essential and integral to black women’s fight against racism (and sexism) and their ability to achieve well-being for themselves and their culture. The power of motherhood and the empowerment of mothering are what make possible the better world we seek for ourselves and for our children. This, argues O’Reilly, is Morrison’s maternal theory—a politics of the heart.
“As an advocate of ‘a politics of the heart,’ O’Reilly has an acute insight into discerning any threat to the preservation and continuation of traditional African American womanhood and values … Above all, Toni Morrison and Motherhood, based on Andrea O’Reilly’s methodical research on Morrison’s works as well as feminist critical resources, proffers a useful basis for understanding Toni Morrison’s works. It certainly contributes to exploring in detail Morrison’s rich and complex works notable from the perspectives of nurturing and sustaining African American maternal tradition.” — African American Review
“O’Reilly boldly reconfigures hegemonic western notions of motherhood while maintaining dialogues across cultural differences.” — Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering
“Andrea O’Reilly examines Morrison’s complex presentations of, and theories about, motherhood with admirable rigor and a refusal to simplify, and the result is one of the most penetrating and insightful studies of Morrison yet to appear, a book that will prove invaluable to any scholar, teacher, or reader of Morrison.” — South Atlantic Review
“…it serves as a sort of annotated bibliography of nearly all the major theoretical work on motherhood and on Morrison as an author … anyone conducting serious study of either Toni Morrison or motherhood, not to mention the combination, should read this book ... O’Reilly’s exhaustive research, her facility with theories of Anglo-American and Black feminism, and her penetrating analyses of Morrison’s works result in a highly useful scholarly read.” — Literary Mama
“By tracing both the metaphor and literal practice of mothering in Morrison’s literary world, O’Reilly conveys Morrison’s vision of motherhood as an act of resistance.” — American Literature
“Motherhood is critically important as a recurring theme in Toni Morrison’s oeuvre and within black feminist and feminist scholarship. An in-depth analysis of this central concern is necessary in order to explore the complex disjunction between Morrison’s interviews, which praise black mothering, and the fiction, which presents mothers in various destructive and self-destructive modes. Kudos to Andrea O’Reilly for illuminating Morrison’s ‘maternal standpoint’ and helping readers and critics understand this difficult terrain. Toni Morrison and Motherhood is also valuable as a resource that addresses and synthesizes a huge body of secondary literature.” — Nancy Gerber, author of Portrait of the Mother-Artist: Class and Creativity in Contemporary American Fiction
“In addition to presenting a penetrating and original reading of Toni Morrison, O’Reilly integrates the evolving scholarship on motherhood in dominant and minority cultures in a review that is both a composite of commonalities and a clear representation of differences.” — Elizabeth Bourque Johnson, University of Minnesota
Andrea O’Reilly is Associate Professor in the School of Women’s Studies at York University and President of the Association for Research on Mothering. She is the author and editor of several books on mothering, including (with Sharon Abbey) Mothers and Daughters: Connection, Empowerment, and Transformation and Mothers and Sons: Feminism, Masculinity, and the Struggle to Raise Our Sons.
Rethinking Postmodernism(s) revisits three historical sites of American literary postmodernism: the early postmodernism of Thomas Pynchon's V. (1961), the emancipatory postmodernism of Toni ...Morrison's Beloved (1987), and the late or post-postmodernism of Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything Is Illuminated (2002). For the first time, it confronts these texts with the pragmatist philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce, staging a conceptual dialogue between pragmatism and postmodernism that historicizes and recontextualizes customary readings of postmodern fiction. The book is a must-read for all interested in current reassessments of literary postmodernism, in new critical dialogues between seminal postmodern texts, and in recent attempts to theorize the 'post-postmodern' moment.
Using the theoretical frameworks of Freud, Todorov, and Bahktin, this book explores how American writers of the late 20th century have translated the psychoanalytical concept of »the uncanny« into ...their novelistic discourses. The two texts under scrutiny - Paul Auster's »City of Glass« and Toni Morrison's »Jazz« - show that the uncanny has developed into a crucial trope to delineate personal and collective fears that are often grounded on the postmodern disruption of spatio-temporal continuities and coherences.
