OPEN GENRE; Conversations with the Dead: Postmemory in the Post-Colonial Diaspora By: Luc Le

Workshop Description: Writer and scholar Marianne Hirsch defines ‘postmemory’ as the ‘relationship of the second generation to powerful, often traumatic, experiences that preceded their births but that were nevertheless transmitted to them so deeply as to seem to constitute memories in their own right.’

For many writers from backgrounds marked by Western imperialism and colonialism, our existence is defined by these traumas not witnessed yet still felt all the same. Drawing on the works of writers like Brandon Shimoda, Diana Khoi Nguyen, and Victoria Chang, this workshop will explore the spaces between postmemory, ancestral trauma, and experience, and consider what it means to attempt to bridge these gaps within our own work; how we might navigate the often fraught relationships between narrative, history, and truth, and, ultimately, to explore what it means to reconstruct the past in order to make sense of it and preserve it; to dream and remember…