CARNIVALIZING RECONCILIATION. Contemporary Australian and Canadian Literature and Film beyond the Victim Paradigm
Hanna Teichler
Volume 8, Worlds of Memory
Transitional justice and national inquiries may be the most established means for coming to terms with traumatic legacies, but it is in the more subtle social and cultural processes of “memory work” that the pitfalls and promises of reconciliation are laid bare. This book analyzes, within the realms of literature and film, recent Australian and Canadian attempts to reconcile with Indigenous populations in the wake of forced child removal. As Hanna Teichler demonstrates, their systematic emphasis on the subjectivity of the victim is problematic, reproducing simplistic narratives and identities defined by victimization. Such fictions of reconciliation venture beyond simplistic narratives and identities defined by victimization, offering new opportunities for confronting painful histories.
“Carnivalizing Reconciliation is an ambitious, detailed book with a compelling underlying theoretical premise: namely that reconciliation, thought through the Bakhtinian notion of carnival, is laid bare in all its pitfalls and promise.” • Michael Griffiths, University of Wollongong
Download the Introduction here.
Hardback 978-1-80073-172-1 ◦ $135.00/£99.00
eBook 978-1-80073-173-8 ◦ $34.95/£27.95
October 2021 ◦ 274 pages