Towards an Understanding of Kurdistani Memory Culture

Download or read book Towards an Understanding of Kurdistani Memory Culture written by Bareez Majid and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2024-01-21 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a thorough analysis of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq’s memory culture, focusing particularly on commemorations and representations of the Anfal and Halabja atrocities. The author employs a transdisciplinary approach that draws on Memory Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Heritage Studies, Kurdish Studies, Literary Studies and Trauma Studies, to analyze cultural objects such as Kurdistani literary novels, museums, and school curricula. The book introduces two key concepts: the "phantomic museum" and the "apostrophic museum." The former explores the fragile and politicized nature of memories of missing individuals who disappeared during Saddam Hussein's genocidal campaigns and who have never been found, primarily as they return in the Halabja Monument and Peace Museum. The latter examines how the addressing – apostrophizing – of Kurdistan, in and by the Amna Suraka museum in the city of Sulaymaniyah, institutionalizes “official” and highly politicized versions of the past.