The Genealogy of Dislocated Memory: Yugoslav Cinema After the Break

University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations Dissertations and Theses April 2014 The Genealogy of Dislocated Memory: Yugoslav Cinema after the Break Dijana Jelaca University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2 Part of the Communication Commons Recommended Citation Jelaca, Dijana, "The Genealogy of Dislocated Memory: Yugoslav Cinema after the Break" (2014). Doctoral Dissertations. 10. https://doi.org/10.7275/vztj-0y40 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/10 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE GENEALOGY OF DISLOCATED MEMORY: YUGOSLAV CINEMA AFTER THE BREAK A Dissertation Presented by DIJANA JELACA Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY February 2014 Department of Communication © Copyright by Dijana Jelaca 2014 All Rights Reserved THE GENEALOGY OF DISLOCATED MEMORY: YUGOSLAV CINEMA AFTER THE BREAK A Dissertation Presented by DIJANA JELACA Approved as to style and content by: _______________________________________ Leda Cooks, Chair _______________________________________ Anne Ciecko, Member _______________________________________ Lisa Henderson, Member _______________________________________ James Hicks, Member ____________________________________ Erica Scharrer, Department Head Department of Communication TO LOST CHILDHOODS, ACROSS BORDERS, AND TO MY FAMILY, ACROSS OCEANS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation is about a part of the world that I call “home” even though that place no longer physically exists. I belong to that “lost generation” of youth whose childhoods ended abruptly when Yugoslavia went up in flames. It is difficult to resist making the following generalization about my generation: we are positioned in an almost impossibly paradoxical way with respect to the turbulent times that our region went through at the end of the 20 th century. Unable to remember Yugoslavia in any other way but through childish eyes, we were forced to reconfigure our sense of collective belonging by letting go of our multicultural childhoods, and by abruptly coming of age through an imposition of ethno-national belonging that separated us from many of our friends who suddenly belonged to “other” groups. Yet as utopian as it might seem at times, our early education on the beauties of a diverse country that was our homeland regularly chips away at the incessant nationalisms that have since delegated it to a foregone history. Perhaps that utopian early childhood influence that celebrated multiplicities – channeled to us via what I only later learned was “socialist propaganda” – remains because we inevitably romanticize our childhoods. But perhaps it also remains because it is a scenario still worth reliving and revisiting in our collective dreams of possibility, away from obsessive insistence on the primacy of ethno-national belonging over anything else. My generational positioning – a child before, a sudden adult after the “break” – strongly influences this project, and its approach to the cinematic representations of violence and bloodshed that tore Yugoslavia – and our collective childhoods – apart. I purposefully do not use the standard term “post-Yugoslav” in the dissertation title because I am interested in exploring how films discussed here re-create a cultural space (nowadays referred to as the “Yugosphere”) that tackles the question of not only what Yugoslavia was, but what in some ways it still is – and not just in the esoteric domain of memory. There are many people to thank for seeing me through this work. This project could never have come to fruition without an inordinate amount of support and intellectual inspiration from friends and colleagues both at UMass, and at my previous educational homes. I thank them all, and especially my advisor Leda Cooks, and my committee members Anne Ciecko, Lisa Henderson and Jim Hicks, for their close attention to my work, and their provocative and insightful readings. I also wish to thank my fellow graduate students Emily Polk, Lily Herakova and Allison Burr-Miller for being wonderful friends and great companions on this adventure that we embarked on together. It was a source of endless joy to be in the same cohort as you, and to share with you the experiences both inside and – more importantly – outside the classroom. Special gratitude goes to my lively and diligent writing support group – Kristin Hole, Anne Cunningham, and Sean Springer – for reading my words carefully, and for making me think harder and write clearer. I also want to thank the scholars who inspired me and helped me along the way: Heather Lukes, Robert Sklar, Tom de Zengotita, Claudio Moreira, Demetria Shabazz, James Young, Pavle Levi, Patricia White, as well as all my friends and colleagues at the University of Banja Luka and at NYU. My ideas would never have taken the shape they did without the intellectual presence (and wit!) of my dear friends and brilliant thinkers Lisa Diedrich and Victoria Hesford. I also owe an inordinate amount of gratitude to my beloved friends and thinking v comrades Polly Gannon, Danijela Lugari ć and Blanka Blagojevi ć. I feel extremely lucky to call all of you, incredible women and scholars, my friends. Early on in my life, a few people who are, sadly, no longer with us, set me on a thinking path that led to here: my wise, illiterate grandmother Sava Tintor; my kind and generous grandfather Rade Repaji ć; and the prematurely departed, but never forgotten Milorad Nedimovi ć, who always treated me as his equal, even when I was just five years old. I miss you dearly, and will never forget. Deepest appreciation goes to my closest and dearest, relentlessly supportive soul mate Danica Kolev, who has challenged me to intellectual rigor ever since the war brought us to the same school in 7 th grade. Daco, I am so happy we found each other and never let go. Later, in college, several people inspired me to push on even when I doubted myself: my professor Zoran Paunovi ć, and my friends Ana Divjak and Gordana Maksimovi ć, all three unique individuals in their own right, incredibly generous in sharing their impressive intellect with those lucky enough to know them. Most of all, I want to thank my family, especially my parents Du šan and Milka, for always supporting me in my decisions, even when those decisions took me far away from home, and from them. Their love and selfless sacrifice are the most precious things in my life. And to my big sister Dragana, my companion and protector, and her partner Miroslav-Ćiro, for caring and for being there, always. Thank you to my grandmother Dara, for her calm poise and encouragement. My deep gratitude also goes to my parents- in-law Lotte and Bernard Bailyn, for their love, encouragement and support. I am very fortunate to have a family that understands. During the writing of this dissertation, my most frequent company were my feline friends – the wise Matisse and the impulsive Vuk, a formidable duo. I am grateful for their limitless patience and gentle care. Finally, the biggest thank you of all goes to my partner in love and in life, John Bailyn, and to our little girl Sava Marie. Having you two by my side, through the ups and downs of wrestling with difficult themes, has been the source of limitless inspiration and joy. I couldn’t have asked for a better gift than having you two as my companions in all the adventures that life brings. I hope you know how much your unconditional love means to me. This dissertation is for you. Dijana Jela ča Brooklyn, October 2013 vi ABSTRACT THE GENEALOGY OF DISLOCATED MEMORY: YUGOSLAV CINEMA AFTER THE BREAK FEBRUARY 2014 DIJANA JELA ČA, B.A., UNIVERSITY OF BANJA LUKA M.A., NEW YORK UNIVERSITY Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Leda Cooks This dissertation analyzes the post-conflict cinema in the region of the former Yugoslavia, and the way that this particular form of cultural production establishes affective regimes within which bearing witness to trauma becomes variously articulated to national identity, history, politics, and memory. Using affect and trauma theories as organizing frameworks, my project looks at the way in which post-Yugoslav cinema has become a pivotal outlet for the process of working through the trauma of recent violent history in the region. I examine this process through its various iterations, from its applications to identity – be it ethnic, national, class, age, gender or sexuality-based – to its influence on normativizing some narratives as history while concealing others. One of the key arguments of this dissertation is that certain trauma narratives represented through cinema have the potential of destabilizing the essentialist locating of trauma within singular (here predominantly ethno-national and heterosexual) identity, by offering a pathway towards affective attachments of empathy towards the Other instead. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...................................................................................................v ABSTRACT .....................................................................................................................

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