I Witnessing and the Renegotiation of Traumatic Memory in Contemporary
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Witnessing and the Renegotiation of Traumatic Memory in Contemporary Italian Literature Joshua Carter ORCID ID: 0000-0003-1472-0466 Submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 1 May 2018 School of Languages and Linguistics The University of Melbourne i Abstract This thesis is the first to draw on witnessing theories explore the renegotiation of traumatic memory in a representative corpus of recent Italian trauma novels. The novels I have selected for this study are Regina di fiori e di perle (2007) by Gabriella Ghermandi, Oltre Babilonia (2008) by Igiaba Scego, and Timira: romanzo meticcio (2012) by Antar Mohamed and Wu Ming 2. These works variously narrate the intergenerational traumas caused by Italian colonisation, dictatorship, and civil war in Somalia and Ethiopia. Intergenerational trauma denotes a collective emotional and psychological injury that goes unresolved across multiple generations. In particular, these works more than any other Italian novels expose readers to the traumatic events of colonialism, dictatorship, and civil war, and the way these events are expressed through symptoms of unresolved trauma. As indicated in the trauma novels considered in this project, the victims of Italian colonialism do not have the opportunity to heal, and for this reason they pass the symptoms of their trauma on to successive generations. In their role as either trauma victims or empathetic listeners, characters resort to witnessing. In all three trauma novels characters turn to witnessing either as trauma victims or as empathetic listeners. Witnessing refers to Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub’s work on trauma, according to which a trauma victim requires the presence of an empathetic listener to recall and narrate their trauma. My analysis of the selected trauma novels reveals witnessing occurring on three levels. First, the act of witnessing occurs between traumatised protagonists and characters who act as their empathetic listeners. Witnessing enables characters/listeners to gain new insight into their colonial past by briefly inhabiting the perspective of the trauma victim, a process I refer to as renegotiation. Second, witnessing also occurs at the level of writing: see for instance the collaborative writing process adopted by co-authors Wu Ming 2 and Antar Mohamed. ii Ghermandi, instead, wrote Regina di fiori e di perle so that the protagonist Mahlet realises her identity as the spokesperson for her community by acting as an empathetic listener to the victims of Italian colonialism. Third, witnessing is encouraged at the level of reading. By examining the stylistic strategies employed by authors in their texts, I show how Italian readers are invited to act as empathetic listeners themselves. iii Declaration This is to certify that: i. This thesis comprises only my original work towards the PhD, ii. Due acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other material used, iii. This thesis is fewer than 100 000 words in length, exclusive of tables, maps, bibliographies and appendices. Signed: iv Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisors, Dr Andrea Rizzi for doggedly pursuing me and always challenging me intellectually to broaden my ideas, and Dr Gregoria Manzin for her incredible kindness, patience, and vast knowledge of my topic. I also wish to thank Associate Professor Stephen Kolsky, who gave me a gentle nudge in the right direction on occasion, my close friends Anna (the wind beneath my wings), and Sam for our almost daily coffee dates over the years. I would also like the express my deep gratitude to the assessors for their encouraging and extensive feedback. I am grateful to Françoise Campbell for generously agreeing to translate an article from French into English, and I would like the express my gratitude to my mother for her unwavering support and encouragement. I would like to thank the Australasian Centre of Italian Studies (ACIS) for providing me with incredible opportunities to present my work at a domestic and international level. Finally, I would like to thank the Italian program and the School of Languages and Linguistics, as well as the University of Melbourne, which generously awarded me an Australian Government Research and Training Program Scholarship, without which my study would not have been possible. v Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................ ii Declaration ...................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................... v Table of Contents ............................................................................................................ vi Chapter 1- Introductory Chapter .................................................................................... 1 Selected authors and their texts ....................................................................................... 6 Igiaba Scego ..................................................................................................................... 6 Gabriella Ghermandi ....................................................................................................... 8 Antar Mohamed and Wu Ming 2 ................................................................................... 10 Literature Review .......................................................................................................... 12 From letteratura della migrazione to trauma novels ....................................................... 12 What now? Scholarship abandons letteratura della migrazione ..................................... 20 Trauma novels in Italian Literature .............................................................................. 30 Trauma novels: Distinct features ................................................................................... 36 Methodology .................................................................................................................. 42 Witnessing ...................................................................................................................... 42 Testimony ....................................................................................................................... 46 Chapter 2- The Italian colonial experience in literature ................................................ 52 Colonial memory in literature: A revival ....................................................................... 53 The lack of a process of decolonisation .......................................................................... 55 Post-imperialist literature .............................................................................................. 59 Giallo coloniale: Colonialism in Italian crime fiction ..................................................... 65 Science Fiction ............................................................................................................... 70 Trauma novels ............................................................................................................... 73 Settler literature ............................................................................................................. 76 Chapter 3 - Intergenerational Trauma .......................................................................... 87 Intergenerational trauma in literature .......................................................................... 88 The transmission of intergenerational trauma .............................................................. 90 Intergenerational trauma in the selected texts ............................................................... 93 Intergenerational trauma as cultural bereavement ....................................................... 94 Intergenerational trauma, miscegenation and anxiety around cultural identity ......... 105 vi Motherhood, identity and trauma ................................................................................ 112 Intergenerational trauma as abandonment and neglect .............................................. 119 Absent fathers, troubled mothers ................................................................................ 123 Chapter 4 - Witnessing ................................................................................................. 131 Witnessing .................................................................................................................... 132 Translating trauma ...................................................................................................... 134 The vicissitudes of translation: the case of Woizero Bekelech ..................................... 136 Inner murmurings: Mahlet’s recovery and the birth of a cantora ............................... 144 ‘Una repubblica senza memoria’: Isabella’s quest for memory and identity .............. 150 Co-authorship as witnessing in Timira ......................................................................... 157 A cassette of broken dreams: witnessing in Oltre Babilonia ......................................... 161 Chapter 5 - Reading Trauma ....................................................................................... 170 Trauma novels and testimonial writing ....................................................................... 171 Reading