Cecilia Sjöholm – Producing Oblivion: Psychoanalysis and Memory Wars
Event date
- 8 May 2025
Public Lecture
Speaker: Cecilia Sjöholm (Södertörn University, Stockholm)
Abstract
In the wake of the destruction of Ukraine, Russian author Maria Stepanova writes: ‘in the reality of today memory has been transformed into its counterpart, to cynical attempts of producing oblivion.’
The obliteration of memory has become a political project. Thinkers such as Arturo Toscano point to the far-Right having replaced visions with memory wars.
Making memories evaporate, destroying or neglecting their material presence, or revising historical narratives is a powerful political and ideological tool. But what is at stake in the obliteration of memory from a psychoanalytical point of view? What kind of aggression is involved in the attempt to obliterate the other? For psychoanalysis, is it even possible to produce oblivion?
