The modern age presents multiple channels for public action, dialogue and discussion. Furthermore, social and political thought argues that these spaces multiply the opportunities for dialect and action and encourage the process of individual thought and reflection. Spaces of action become spaces of remembrance, which hold vast opportunity to contribute to the project of mending frailty in human affairs. Yet the process of memorialisation is difficult, for the formation of memory can only occur on behalf of. Memory by nature transcends normative boundaries of temporal and spatial analysis. It constantly risks the simplification of complex stories and narratives at the cost of omission. Therefore, spaces of remembrance have often become spaces
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Yet, both authors are stifled by memory – they are simultaneously unable to reconcile the foundations of memory within social and political thought, but are profoundly influenced by the past. Hannah Arendt describes memory in The Human Condition (1958) as originating in human action, spurred in the realm of the polis – the Ancient Greek city state – as a space of organized remembrance. Arendt suggests that the polis as a space of organized remembrance can help improve the frailty of human affairs – as it offers an opportunity for good words and deeds to be preserved by the historian and held up as something to be replicated, or possibly surpassed in the future. Gillian Rose discusses memory originating in individual reflection. In Mourning Becomes the Law (1996) Rose weaves two strands of thought: the Holocaust piety which highlights the ineffable trauma of war, and a melancholic, abberated mourning which highlights the impossibility of ‘working through’. Public forms of remembrance and mourning, Rose suggests, divert our attention from the difficult work of the middle. Instead, Rose encourages inaugurated mourning which highlights the possibility of ‘working through’ trauma, mending the brokenness of theory and actuality. Then, drawing our attention to the ‘third city’, the city in which we live, where no simple story can be …show more content…
Observing the elaboration of certain memories and the omission of others, I will suggest that ANZAC Day commemorations can demonstrate the one-sidedness of modern social and political thought which can only occur in the face of brokenness. Yet, I will come to suggest that organized remembrance in the unfettered sense –that is true to Arendt’s theory – can acknowledge trauma and highlight the possibility of working through the trauma of war. However, this is limited by the singularity of memories in spaces of organized remembrance which abolish the possibility of ‘working through’. The tomb of the Unknown Soldier is a site of mourning and remembrance which I will equate to Rose’s concept of a cyclical and unending abberated mourning characteristic of melancholic approach to trauma. Instead, Rose emphasizes the need to begin inaugurated mourning in an attempt to mend the brokenness of social and political thought and reconciling it with actuality. Turning to a discussion of Anna Akhmatovas’ poem Requiem, which was a poem committed to memory I will observe inaugurated mourning in the public realm, which cannot occur in Athens, but in New
Yet, both authors are stifled by memory – they are simultaneously unable to reconcile the foundations of memory within social and political thought, but are profoundly influenced by the past. Hannah Arendt describes memory in The Human Condition (1958) as originating in human action, spurred in the realm of the polis – the Ancient Greek city state – as a space of organized remembrance. Arendt suggests that the polis as a space of organized remembrance can help improve the frailty of human affairs – as it offers an opportunity for good words and deeds to be preserved by the historian and held up as something to be replicated, or possibly surpassed in the future. Gillian Rose discusses memory originating in individual reflection. In Mourning Becomes the Law (1996) Rose weaves two strands of thought: the Holocaust piety which highlights the ineffable trauma of war, and a melancholic, abberated mourning which highlights the impossibility of ‘working through’. Public forms of remembrance and mourning, Rose suggests, divert our attention from the difficult work of the middle. Instead, Rose encourages inaugurated mourning which highlights the possibility of ‘working through’ trauma, mending the brokenness of theory and actuality. Then, drawing our attention to the ‘third city’, the city in which we live, where no simple story can be …show more content…
Observing the elaboration of certain memories and the omission of others, I will suggest that ANZAC Day commemorations can demonstrate the one-sidedness of modern social and political thought which can only occur in the face of brokenness. Yet, I will come to suggest that organized remembrance in the unfettered sense –that is true to Arendt’s theory – can acknowledge trauma and highlight the possibility of working through the trauma of war. However, this is limited by the singularity of memories in spaces of organized remembrance which abolish the possibility of ‘working through’. The tomb of the Unknown Soldier is a site of mourning and remembrance which I will equate to Rose’s concept of a cyclical and unending abberated mourning characteristic of melancholic approach to trauma. Instead, Rose emphasizes the need to begin inaugurated mourning in an attempt to mend the brokenness of social and political thought and reconciling it with actuality. Turning to a discussion of Anna Akhmatovas’ poem Requiem, which was a poem committed to memory I will observe inaugurated mourning in the public realm, which cannot occur in Athens, but in New