Performances of Memory: Testimonial, Reconstructive and Counterfactual Strategies in Literature and Performative Arts of the 20th and 21st Centuries

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Magdalena Marszalek
• Subject Area: European and American Literary and Cultural Studies ; Theatre and Media Studies
• Term: from 2015 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 277067947

The aim of the Polish-German research project perform_mem is a critical discussion and re-conceptualisation of theories of literary and artistic testimonial, reconstructive and counterfactual practices which refer back to the formative historical experiences of the 20th century. Its main subject is Polish literature and arts in the European comparative perspective. The project is situated within the interdisciplinary field of performance and memory studies whose methodology draws from analytic tools of literary theories and practices, as well as media and performative arts in order to put into question traditional theoretical dichotomies. Our starting point is a search for a new definition of relationships between literature and other arts and historical experiences. This goal has political, epistemological and aesthetic aspects and it is much needed because of the recent growth of popularity of both documentary and mockdocumentary genres as well as of counterfactual narratives. In order to investigate the problem of historical experiences in literature and performative arts it is necessary to connect three theoretical perspectives which embrace three interconnected aspects of experiencing, testifying and re/presenting history. On the one hand, testimonial, reconstructive as well as counterfactual strategies take up the problem of the contingency of history, cultural memory and oblivion, and medial virtuality of culture; on the other hand, each of these strategies does it in a different manner. Both testimonial and reconstructive strategies employ the body/corporeality as a main source of (ethical, epistemological) resistance to the contingency, cultural forgetting and medial virtuality. Counterfactual strategies, on the contrary, address contingency, oblivion and medial simulacra referring to imagination and the technical means of manipulating the message, thus subverting documentary practices and aesthetics. The research on testimonial strategies focuses on a) testimonial strategies in Polish literature of the interwar period, b) performativity and intermediality of testimony and post-testimony in post-memorial culture. The research on reconstructive strategies includes: a) performative repetitions of (images) of history in art and social life; b) corporeal practices and corporeal memories and its material manifestations -- focusing on the history of the Polish workers movement and its performative practices. In the field of counterfactual strategies, the most significant task is to work out methodological tools to analyze the performative aspect of self-reflexive artworks and artistic phenomena, particularly: a) novels, films and computer games which offer an alternative version of history; b) films, television shows and biographies that use paradocumentary and mockdocumentary conventions.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Poland
• Cooperation Partner: Professorin Dr. Malgorzata Sugiera