Nomadic Memory in Aleksandar Hemon’s Memoirs
This article focuses on Bosnian-American author Aleksandar Hemon’s two 2019 memoirs published in one volume, My Parents: An Introduction and This Does Not Belong to You. Specifically, it applies Rosi Braidotti’s notion of nomadic memory to Hemon’s telling of his and his family’s life stories. Analyz...
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European Association for American Studies
2023-11-01
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| Series: | European Journal of American Studies |
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| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/21071 |
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| author | Rubén Peinado-Abarrio |
| author_facet | Rubén Peinado-Abarrio |
| author_sort | Rubén Peinado-Abarrio |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This article focuses on Bosnian-American author Aleksandar Hemon’s two 2019 memoirs published in one volume, My Parents: An Introduction and This Does Not Belong to You. Specifically, it applies Rosi Braidotti’s notion of nomadic memory to Hemon’s telling of his and his family’s life stories. Analyzed with the tools provided by critical posthumanism, Hemon’s nonfiction becomes an example of remembering in what Braidotti calls a minority-mode. He presents the migrant as a subject-in-becoming, belonging to their community thanks to the workings of a transgenerational, nonlinear memory, operating in a time continuum where stable identities are deterritorialized and creative ways to access an unavailable past are generated. In Hemon’s writing, identity is rooted in concentric homelands, and the truth of the memory resides in the affects it provokes and sustains. Opposing the static authority of the past and any fixed notion of the self, Hemon understands the past as a cultural practice deposited in bodies and rituals, as a home apparently beyond reach to which the migrant reconnects through the resources of the imagination. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-c1c2133750b14583b1d0e5c3014a34ee |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1991-9336 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2023-11-01 |
| publisher | European Association for American Studies |
| record_format | Article |
| series | European Journal of American Studies |
| spelling | doaj-art-c1c2133750b14583b1d0e5c3014a34ee2025-01-06T09:08:11ZengEuropean Association for American StudiesEuropean Journal of American Studies1991-93362023-11-0118410.4000/ejas.21071Nomadic Memory in Aleksandar Hemon’s MemoirsRubén Peinado-AbarrioThis article focuses on Bosnian-American author Aleksandar Hemon’s two 2019 memoirs published in one volume, My Parents: An Introduction and This Does Not Belong to You. Specifically, it applies Rosi Braidotti’s notion of nomadic memory to Hemon’s telling of his and his family’s life stories. Analyzed with the tools provided by critical posthumanism, Hemon’s nonfiction becomes an example of remembering in what Braidotti calls a minority-mode. He presents the migrant as a subject-in-becoming, belonging to their community thanks to the workings of a transgenerational, nonlinear memory, operating in a time continuum where stable identities are deterritorialized and creative ways to access an unavailable past are generated. In Hemon’s writing, identity is rooted in concentric homelands, and the truth of the memory resides in the affects it provokes and sustains. Opposing the static authority of the past and any fixed notion of the self, Hemon understands the past as a cultural practice deposited in bodies and rituals, as a home apparently beyond reach to which the migrant reconnects through the resources of the imagination.https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/21071memoirAleksandar HemonMemory Studiesnomadic memoryRosi Braidotti |
| spellingShingle | Rubén Peinado-Abarrio Nomadic Memory in Aleksandar Hemon’s Memoirs European Journal of American Studies memoir Aleksandar Hemon Memory Studies nomadic memory Rosi Braidotti |
| title | Nomadic Memory in Aleksandar Hemon’s Memoirs |
| title_full | Nomadic Memory in Aleksandar Hemon’s Memoirs |
| title_fullStr | Nomadic Memory in Aleksandar Hemon’s Memoirs |
| title_full_unstemmed | Nomadic Memory in Aleksandar Hemon’s Memoirs |
| title_short | Nomadic Memory in Aleksandar Hemon’s Memoirs |
| title_sort | nomadic memory in aleksandar hemon s memoirs |
| topic | memoir Aleksandar Hemon Memory Studies nomadic memory Rosi Braidotti |
| url | https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/21071 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT rubenpeinadoabarrio nomadicmemoryinaleksandarhemonsmemoirs |