Beyond trauma? Memories of Joi/y and memory play in Blade Runner 2049

Bibliographic Data

ID5821671
AuthorsSilke Arnold‐de Simine (Birkbeck, University of London, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume12
Issue1
Pages61-73
Publication date2019-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueMemory Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1750-6980 • E-ISSN: 1750-6999
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1750698018811989
OpenAlexW2904537997
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited22

Cultural memory studies finds itself at an impasse: whereas 'cultural memory' is conceptualized as mediated, dynamic, imaginative and shaped by the present, the dominant paradigm of 'trauma' illuminates the hold the past has on us, casting the shadow of a melancholic subjectivity that threatens to obscure our agency as (political) subjects. This article asks what lies in store for memory studies beyond the focus on (classic) trauma (theory). Using the movie Blade Runner 2049 (US 2017; dir: Denis Villeneuve) as an illustrative example, it explores how creative and joyful forms of meaning-making through play and acts of memory inform each other in what the psychoanalyst DW Winnicott described as 'cultural experience

Cultural memory · Cinema and Media Studies · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Nostalgia and Consumer Behavior

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