Abstract
The article looks at the narrative and performative strategies employed by Lebanese artists of the so-called postwar generation to produce and put-forward non-sectarian and post-identitarian tales of the civil wars (1975–1989) in a situation characterized by “state-sponsored amnesia” on one side, and the pursuing of a divisive, partisan politics of memory on the other. Focusing on two works in particular—Walid Raad’s expansive and trans-medial project The Atlas Group (1999–2008) and Akram Zaatari’s video-essay Letter to a Refusing Pilot (2013)—I examine how practices of fictionalization and abstraction of real events permit to side-step entrenched and partisan accounts, while, at the same time, maintaining a stringent referential relation with the historical reality via the documentary form and the use of actual archival materials. The artists construct internally disrupted and disjunctive narratives out of the rubble of individual experience so to open up the possibility for a speculative post-identitarian collectivity.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Adnan, Etel, Sit Marie Rose. Sausalito, (CA: Post-Apollo Press, 1982).
Benjamin, Walter. “The Storyteller: Observations on the Works of Nikolai Leskov” in Selected Writings, vol. 3, 1935–38, edited by Howard Eiland, Michael W. Jennings, 143–166. (Cambridge: Mass; London: Harvard University Press, 2002).
Berry Slater, Josephine. “Epistemic Panic and the Problem of Life.” mute magazine, 13 Feb 2014. Accessed November 2, 2016: [http://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/epistemic-panic-and-problem-life].
Foucault, Michel, “What is an Author?” (1969). In Textual Strategies: Perspectives in Post-Structuralist Criticism, edited by Josué V. Harari, 141–160. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1979).
Foucault, Michel. The Archeology of Knowledge ,(New York: Pantheon, 1972).
Gilbert, Alan, “Walid Raad’s Spectral Archive, Part I: Historiography as Process,” e-flux, Journal #69, January 2016. Accessed November 2, 2016: [http://www.e-flux.com/journal/69/60594/walid-raad-s-spectral-archive-part-i-historiography-as-process/].
Haugbolle, Sune and Sanders Hastrup. “Introduction: Outlines of a New Politics of Memory in the Middle East.” In The Politics of Violence: Truth and Reconciliation in the Middle East, (London: Routledge, 2008).
Huyssen, Andreas. “An Analytical Storyteller in the Course of Time”, October 46, (Autumn 1988): 116–128.
Lambert, Carry Beatty, “Make-Believe: Parafiction and Plausibility.” October 129 (Summer 2009): 51–84.
Latimer, Quinn and Akram Zaatari. Film as a Form of Writing. (Brussels: Wiels, 2014).
Maimon, Vered. “The Third Citizen: On Models of Criticality in Contemporary Artistic Practices.” October 129 (Summer 2009): 85–112.
Osborne, Peter. Anywhere or not at All. Philosophy of Contemporary Art. (London: Verso, 2013).
Pessoa, Fernando. The Book of Disquiet. (Penguin Modern Classics: 2002).
Raad, Walid. “Interview with Alan Gilbert”, Bomb Magazine 81 (Fall 2002), Accessed November 2, 2016: [http://bombmagazine.org/article/2504/walid-ra-ad].
Raad, Walid. “Let’s Be Honest, the Rain Helped: Excerpts from an Interview with The Atlas Group.” In Review of Photographic Memory, ed. Jalal Toufic, (Beirut: Arab Image Foundation, 2004).
Rancière, Jacques. The Names of History. On the Poetics of Knowledge. (Minneapolis; London: University of Minnesota Press, 1994).
Rancière, Jacques. The Politics of Aesthetics. (London; New York: Continuum, 2004).
Rogers, Sarah. “Forging History, Performing Memory: Walid Ra’ad’s The Atlas Project.” Parachute 108 (October/November/December 2002).
Zaatari, Akram. A Conversation with an Imaginary Filmmaker Named Avi Mograbi. (Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers, Kadist Art Foundation, Sternberg Press, 2012).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Adami, E. (2017). The Truth of Fiction: Some Stories of the Lebanese Civil Wars. In: Deslandes, K., Mourlon, F., Tribout, B. (eds) Civil War and Narrative. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61179-2_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61179-2_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-61178-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-61179-2
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)