Intermedial Strategies of Memory in Contemporary Novels

In her article Intermedial Strategies and Memory in Contemporary Novels Sara Tanderup discusses a tendency in contemporary literature towards combining intermedial experiments with a thematic preoccupation with memory and trauma. Analyzing selected works by Steven Hall, Jonathan Safran Foer, and Judd Morrissey and drawing on the theoretical perspectives of N. Katherine Hayles (media studies) and Andreas Huyssen (cultural memory studies), Tanderup argues that recent intermedial novels reflect a certain nostalgia celebrating and remembering the book as a visual and material object in the age of digital media while also highlighting the influence of new media on our cultural understanding and representation of memory and the past

NÆRBILLEDER OG MODFORTÆLLINGER - INTERMEDIALITET, ERINDRING OG HISTORIEFREMSTILLING HOS KLUGE, SEBALD OG FOER

CLOSE-UPS AND COUNTER STORIES | Recently, several literary works have appeared which use formal experiments and intermedial strategies to thematize memory and history. Authors such as Alexander Kluge, W.G. Sebald, Daniel Mendelsohn, Monica Maron, Jonathan Safran Foer, Don DeLillo and Aleksandar Hemon include other, primarily visual, media such as film, photographs and drawings, in their works while dealing with historical events like the Holocaust or the 9/11 terror attack. My article discusses this tendency, analyzing works by Kluge, Sebald and Foer. They all work with photographs in their texts. I trace the differences between them, following how ’foto-fiction’ as a genre has developed during the last three decades while arguing that Kluge, Sebald and Foer can all be read as part of the same tendency: Inspired by Andreas Huyssen’s idea of a modern memory culture, I suggest that the modern intermedial works can be read as an expression of a current cultural situation brought about by changes in the mediascape. Of course, books with pictures have always existed, however, the modern works are different from the typical illustrated novel as well as traditional history books, since they do not use the visual material to illustrate or document the story. Rather, images and text are brought together to introduce some tensions; to navigate between fiction and documentary, between an intimate remembering gaze and the ’objective’ writing of history. Intermediality thus becomes a tool to reflect upon modern conditions of writing history

Lydlitteraturens værdier

x