Memory as a Site of Resistance in Ursula Le Guin’s City of Illusions

Year 2017, Issue: 4, 51 - 61, 15.04.2019

Şeyma Aşar

Abstract

Memory as a Site of Resistance in Ursula Le Guin’s City of Illusions

Abstract

Concepts of collective memory and counter-memory are two
significant terms to establish a person’s bond with his/her past and to build
his/her identity. This study examines the forces shaping collective memory
through a Foucauldian lens and looks into the function of counter-memory as a
resistance mechanism against these forces. In doing so, Ursula Le Guin’s
dystopian novel City of Illusions is
analyzed as an example in terms of the workings of the memory. The novel, whose
protagonist is depicted as an alien without memory, displays that the only way
to resist against the collective memory which is presented as the absolute
truth is possible by maintaining the bond with one’s historical and cultural
facts. The counter-memory comes into picture when an individual’s own memory or
knowledge contradicts with the indoctrinated knowledge given to him/her by the
collective memory. The protagonist of the novel can only resist against the
Shing, the dominant group in power, by using his counter-memory when the Shing
attempts to destroy any trace of undesired knowledge and thus re-shape
collective memory. In this regard,
this paper aims to apply Foucault’s counter-memory into this novel and
investigate how the memory can be employed as a form of resistance. 

Keywords

Collective memory, Counter-memory, Means of Resistance, Michel Foucault, Ursula Le Guin

References

• Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality. Vol. 1, Pantheon Books, 1978.
• Kelly, Michael, ed. Critique and Power-Recasting the Foucault/Habernas Debate. The MIT Press, 1994.
• Le Guin, Ursula K. City of Illusions, 1967
• Medina, Jose. “Toward a Foucauldian Epistemology of Resistance: Counter Memory, Epistemic Friction”. Foucault Studies, vol. 12, 2011.
• Mistral, Barbara, Theories of Social Remembering. England: Open U Press, 2003
• Vinthagen, Stellan, and Anna Johansson. “‘Everyday Resistance’: Exploration of a Concept and Its Theories.” Resistance Studies Magazine, vol. 1, 2013.