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Painting Pasts and Futures: Transitional Justice, Museums, and Aesthetic Interruptions

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Painting Pasts and Futures: Transitional Justice, Museums, and Aesthetic Interruptions Painting Pasts and Futures: Transitional Justice, Museums, and Aesthetic Interruptions by Tiffany MacLellan A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Law and Legal Studies Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario ©2017 Tiffany MacLellan Abstract Stories about political transformation often suggest that a political community must acKnowledge and grapple with its difficult past in order to move on to a sunnier future. This thesis explores the problems and possibilities of this narrative as projected in both transitional justice theory and museums. Several theorists in the field of transitional justice, liKe Ruti Teitel, Mark Osiel, and Kathryn SiKKinK, organize moments of mass atrocity, transition, and the future into finite, bounded moments. By neatly confining “violence” to the past and “peace” to the future, these narratives conceptualize political communities on a clean trajectory of evolution towards democracy. As such, these theorists position criminal prosecutions, a central transitional justice mechanism, as a means through which a political community can return to, grapple with, and over-come a violent past. Here, post-war trials are figured as devices that deliver political community to a democratic order. Political and cultural theorist, Walter Benjamin, describes discursive projections premised on notions of progress as a system that restrains, disciplines, and guides political transformation. Benjamin and Jacques Derrida claim that the violence of law’s imposition and conservation is obscured by these very notions of sequential temporality which establish law as the means to projected and affective ends. I taKe inspiration from these thinKers and argue that transitional justice theory’s “ends-oriented” rhetoric permits political communities and correlative state institutions to narrate themselves away from legacies of violence, and responsibility. Further, they attempt to foreclose the notion that political transformation is infinitely on-going. Aesthetics sites, liKe the museum, may reaffirm the worlds crafted through transitional justice theory’s organization of bounded time. As such, I examine three museum exhibitions in order to show how museums similarly organize time in a manner that confines periods of violence, transition, and democracy into bounded temporalities: “Memorium Nuremberg Trials” (Nuremberg, Germany); “The Nuremberg Trials: What is Justice?” The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (Washington DC, US), and; “On Trial: Auschwitz/MajdaneK,” Jewish Museum (Berlin, Germany). Yet the time of transitional justice projected in these exhibitions is not totalizing, and is infinitely vulnerable to spatial, material, and aesthetic disruption. ii Acknowledgments While my PhD dissertation is merely a modest suggestion to thinK transitional justice theory otherwise, and while I contend with (as many of us do) the feeling that my writing self is always somehow lagging behind my thinKing self (as if they could be so easily separated), I would still like to take advantage of this space to thank folks who have enriched my life whilst a PhD student. Work-shops, writing retreats, and the Graduate Student HandbooK told me how to tacKle oral examinations, hone healthy writing habits, and ensure that I had satisfied the program’s language requirements. While “milestones” marKed moments on the imagined linear trajectory of PhD life, “annual reviews” disclosed where I might have come-up short. While these pastoral tactics were deployed in an effort to support me through the PhD process, the most important aid I received over the last six years was from Dr. Stacy Douglas. Under her rigorous, creative, and clear supervision, I was afforded the space to purse my project on my own terms—and at a pace—that felt right for me. While her sophisticated challenges always centered on my academic worK, they also challenged my way of being beyond the walls of the University, leaving deep traces on my intellectual, political, and ethical frameworKs. She helped me find my voice not only as a graduate student, but as a person. ThanK-you, Stacy. I am humbled and privileged to have brilliant faculty populate my broader committee. Whether articulated in guest lectures, on the margins of my chapters, or at academic social events, Dr. Kamari M. ClarKe’s encouraging affirmations and insights consistently provoke me to reflect on my worK in new and exciting ways. Dr. Jennifer V. Evans’ rigor and diligence has also challenged me to rise and push my analysis further. I am grateful that Peter Swan agreed to join my committee at a critical juncture, and for supplying me with support through-out the process. Dr. James R. Martel and Dr. Ruth Phillips were wonderful examiners. I count myself as lucKy to have been afforded the opportunity to field their thoughtful and generative questions and challenges. I would liKe to acKnowledge the hard worK of ranK and file members from the following unions that administer and maintain the University: CUPE 2424, CUPE 910, CUPE 3778. Without their constant labor, I would not have had a clean, warm, and comfortable space to thinK about the problems outlined in this dissertation. I would also liKe to thanK CUPE 4600 for their constant efforts to show how working conditions are inextricably linked to learning conditions. Importantly, I would liKe to acKnowledge CUASA members who perform so much emotional labor (especially for graduate students). This under acknowledged, un-paid, but crucial worK is often performed by woman identified, racialized, and queer faculty. I am grateful to have had access to so many kind ears, and so much care. In particular, I’d liKe to thanK Ummni Khan for reminding me that it is possible to enjoy the PhD process, and that I have the agency required to maKe this academic iii commitment a stimulating, challenging, and fun endeavor. Dr. Jane Dickson was also an extremely important figure through-out my PhD. ThanK-you for championing me and supplying me with an abundance of support over the years. Several friends have helped me Keep my Keel even enough to see this project through to the end. I’d liKe to extend my gratitude to Nicolas Bouchet, who supplied me with a daily dose of excitement and silly political satire that made the first year in the program so much fun. Tatiana Rother also played a critical role in the early years of my PhD studies by opening up her home and heart to me. Ingo Eigen: now Angelus Novus marKs us both. Darren Pacione and Lisa Wright, my dearest friends in the program, have served as wonderful sounding boards and comrades over the past six years. Thank-you Christopher Dalton for your care and commitment while I weathered the writing-storm. ThanKs mom and dad for championing me as I dash to the finish line. Deniz Güvenç: thank-you for helping me find different tactics every day to battle—on my own terms, for myself—the myriad phantasmagorias that strive to organize who I am and where I am going. ThanK-you for honoring the movements of my life, and for affirming the possibility of loving in ambiguity. iv Table of Contents ________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................. II ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .............................................................................................................. III IMAGES ................................................................................................................................. VII INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................ 1 EXHIBITIONS, AND THE MAKING OF THE MODERN POLITICAL TRANSITION .................................................... 12 TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE AND AESTHETICS ............................................................................................... 19 METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................................................. 27 Data Collection .......................................................................................................................... 30 Theoretical Framework ............................................................................................................. 34 CHAPTERS TO COME ........................................................................................................................... 38 CHAPTER ONE: RHETORIC OF ENDS ........................................................................................ 42 MEANS/ENDS POLITICS, AND THE GOVERNANCE OF POLITICAL TRANSFORMATION ...................................... 49 Benjamin’s politics of means/ends ........................................................................................... 50 Benjamin’s phantasmagoria ..................................................................................................... 57 TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE’S RHETORIC OF ENDS ......................................................................................... 65 Trials, and collective memory ................................................................................................... 68 Trials, and democracy ............................................................................................................... 75 Trials, peace, and human rights ..............................................................................................
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