CONTRIBUTI / 14 / Miguel Alirangues López
On negative memory. A reading of The Aesthetics of Resistance by P. Weiss and Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald
This paper aims to characterize the process of remembering particular experiences of harm produced in the context of past historical events. Starting from the observation of the impossibility of a conclusive memory such as the one that would be promoted by factual discourses such as history or law, we consider the possibility of a negative memory that could elaborate such experiences imaginatively. To this end, the perspective developed by Walter Benjamin in “On the Concept of History” is assumed. After proposing fiction as the most appropriate discourse for negative memory, the concept of history in The Aesthetics of Resistance by Peter Weiss and Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald is interpreted.
