Oct 29, 2016 | 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM | LOFT 1

Dr. Camille Isaacs, PhD

Memory Written on the Body: The Case of Migrating Traumatic Memory in the Work of David Chariandy and Tessa McWatt

In Chariandy’s Soucouyant, the characters conform unknowingly to Pierre Nora’s concept of the lieux de memoire: the notion of memory tied to place; hence, when they migrate, they feel they can be “free from their past.” The mother’s aging and dementia complicate this further, and the selective memory which this illness enables is both blessing and curse. The characters ultimately come to the realization that memory is carried on the body, often through trauma. The mother’s burn scars and the son’s odd knee click are physical reminders of a past that is embodied. This conforms with notion of the “migration of memory through embodiment” (Creet).           

In contrast, Victoria Layne, of McWatt’s This Body, migrates fully knowing that she carries the memory of her lover, Kola, on her body; and she travels to London, England, with the hopes of uniting this embodied memory with the man himself. In migrating from Guyana via Toronto, Victoria thinks she can selectively choose which memories she leaves behind. But the death of her sister, and the concomitant adoption of her nephew, Derek, force various repressed truths to the surface. In order to reach Derek, she must return to her past through various Guyanese recipes, showing food’s purpose as a receptacle of memory. And Derek’s unknown parentage (he has been conceived through a sperm bank) raises questions of unremembered memories. His birthmark is thought to be a genetic marker of a father of whom no one has knowledge. Hence, he, too, embodies a memory, but one of an unremembered father.         

This paper will examine how memory is manufactured in the diaspora by two Canadian authors of Caribbean descent. Although both authors come to the conclusion that memory is embodied, they raise the idea of the body as migrating monument: the body as a reminder of significant events, but also as a “monument to grief.” If a monument functions, “to commemorate, to mark a place, to represent the past to the present and future, to emphasize one narrative of the past at the expense of others” (Nelson et al.), what occurs when that monument is a migrating body?

Dr. Kristin Hissong, PhD

Remembering and Forgetting in Peace-building projects

The role of memory in identity and nation building is paramount; narrative, the bridge that connects the individual to the collective among and between generations, cannot be formed, internalised, nor maintained without memory. Like identity, memory can be manipulated to reshape past events and be commissioned for future agendas. Therefore, the ethics of memory is important to human rights and the concept of well-being. This research designs memory capability, using Amartya Sen’s capability approach, as a powerful opportunity for bridging diverse communities of belonging and constructing narrative for peace-building. Indeed, because memory is flexible and transformative, memory can play a key role in transitions toward peace and the maintenance of well-being. This paper moves beyond the theoretical claims that remembering and forgetting can be an important bridge to peace-building and uses past and current case studies to test memory capability in action.

Biographies

Dr. Camille Isaacs

Camille Isaacs is an Assistant Professor of English at OCAD University in Toronto, specializing in postcolonial, Caribbean, and black diasporic literatures. Her edited volume, Austin Clarke: Essays on His Works, was published by Guernica Editions in 2013. Her current research considers aging and memory in Caribbean literature.

Publications “Mediating Women’s Globalized Existence through Social Media in the Work of Adiche and Bulawayo” (special issue to be published in Safundi May 2016) “History Turned ‘Upside Dung’:  The English as Underdog in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth.” The Arts Journal 2:1 (September 2005): 42-53. “Joyce Palmer.” Routledge Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English. 2nd edition, Vol. 3. London: Routledge, 2004. 1197-98. Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia, edited by Gabriella Gutierrez y Muhs, Yolanda Flores Niemann, Carmen G. Gonzalez, and Angela P. Harris. CAUT Bulletin 60:8 (October 2013): A6-A7. Odysseys Home: Mapping African-Canadian Literature by George Elliott Clarke. Canadian Ethnic Studies 36: 2 (2004): 137-38. I Know Who I Am: A Caribbean Woman’s Identity in Canada by Yvonne Bobb-Smith. Canadian Ethnic Studies 36:1 (2004). After Race: Imaging Political Culture Beyond the Color Line, by Paul Gilroy. ARIEL 33:2 (2004): 125-26.

Dr. Kristin Hissong

Kristin completed her PhD with the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies at King’s College London. Her research interests include nationalism and ethnicity studies, comparative religious studies, gender and sexuality, and anti- and post-colonialism studies in the MENA region. Her current project focuses on the diversity of Muslim identity with particular attention to homosexuality and Islam and Muslim LGBTQ identity.

Publications: Dynamic Belonging: Jewish Identity in French Protectorate Morocco, The Journal of the Middle East and Africa, 6.3, September- December 2015.