In Disturbing Remains, ten scholars focus on the remembrance and representation of traumatic historical events in the twentieth century.

The volume opens with essays by David William Cohen, Veena Das, and Philip Gourevitch. Their reflections on the narratives framing Robert Ouko's death in Kenya, Sikh-Hindu violence in India around the time of Indira Gandhi's assassination, and the 1994 genocide of Tutsis by Hutus in Rwanda offer fresh insights into the genesis and aftermath of these tragedies. The next four essays explore the expression of societal disaster in works of art and ritual. Lenin's image, Pablo Picasso's Guernica, balsa figurines of whites made by the Kuna of Panama, and Chinese fertility statuettes after Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward are the subjects taken up by Leah Dickerman, Carlo Ginzburg, Carlo Severi, and Jun Jing. Disturbing Remains closes with three essays about the influence of the dead on the construction of shared identity. István Rév looks at how Hungarians have dealt with the 1956 revolution and its executed leader, and Jörn Rüsen and Saul Friedländer contemplate the public memory of the Holocaust in Germany and worldwide.

Individually and together, the essays in Disturbing Remains not only broaden the debate about the interplay of official history with private recollection but also deepen our understanding of the resources and limitations of collective memory.

Michael S. Roth is president of California College of Arts and Crafts. His recent publications include The Ironist's Cage: Memory, Trauma, and the Construction of History and Irresistible Decay: Ruins Reclaimed. Charles G. Salas is senior project associate for the Research and Education Program at the Getty Research Institute. Together Salas and Roth edited the forthcoming volume Looking for Los Angeles.

Series: Issues & Debates

See: Contents

Price: $40.00