Seminar Organizer(s):

Natalie Strobach (University of California, Davis)
Michael Graziano (University of California, Davis)

Building off of this year’s ACLA theme of “Collapse/Catastrophe/Change,” this panel seeks to explore the space left in the wake of these three Cs. What remnants or remainders are left in their afterness? How do we mark the time of these events or the coming of these events? This panel will take as its starting point the act of mourning which is called to recognize these events, as well as the naming of the events. We will also call into question the act of remembering as binding. How is writing the space of afterness; can writing stitch together what remains of a collapse? Does the mere recording of the event eternalize it or memorialize it? How does catastrophe call us to bind together the spaces that surround and make them anew?

Take as an example the writing we have seen after disaster, from Japanese intellectuals responding to the Great Kanto Earthquake—called to reimagine Tokyo, to the Frankfurt School theorists attempting to reconceptualize humanity after World War II. We are looking for papers that respond to either the attempt to recreate continuity in a discontinuous world, or to those precise portraits of temporality and the triumphs and travails over the catastrophic atemporal and discontinuous space. This panel looks to take into consideration work on trauma studies, spatiality, and area studies of any region.

Topics may include:
Afterlife
Memory
Book Binding
Mapping
Topography
The Book
Formal Experimentation
Post-Humanism

Submissions must be made through the ACLA website, but please feel free to contact nstrobach@ucdavis.edu with any questions!