NOMADIC MEMORY AND REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN EAVAN BOLAND’S THE HISTORIANS

Abstract

This article aims to explore Eavan Boland’s The Historians (2020) through the lens of Rosi Braidotti’s concept of nomadic memory. In this posthumously published poetry collection, Boland brings together the marginalised and mostly forgotten stories of Irish women so as to reject their silenced and monolithic representation in traditional narratives such as history and official documents. While doing so, Boland uses the power of memory and fuses the act of remembering with imaginative recreations. The act of remembering Boland presents in The Historians is in line with nomadic remembering in that it provides mobility and fluidity for female subject positions, and eventually problematises the essentialist representations that are supported in the dominant patriarchal discourse of history. Accordingly, this paper argues that read through Braidotti’s notion of nomadic memory, Boland, in The Historians, uses nomadic memory to develop female nomadic subjects with fluid identities and their own history.

Keywords

• Eavan Boland
• The Historians
• Nomadic memory
• History
• Past
• Irish women
• Momadic subjectivity

EAVAN BOLAND’IN THE HISTORIANS ESERİNDE GÖÇEBE HAFIZA VE KADIN TEMSİLİ

Abstract

Bu makale, Eavan Boland’ın The Historians (2020; Tarihçiler) adlı eserini Rosi Braidotti’nin göçebe hafızası kavramı bağlamında incelemeyi amaçlamaktadır. Ölümünden sonra yayınlanan bu şiir koleksiyonunda Boland, İrlandalı kadınların tarih ve resmî belgeler gibi geleneksel anlatılarda susturulmuş ve tekdüzeleştirilmiş temsilini reddetmek amacıyla bu kadınların marjinalleştirilmiş ve çoğunlukla unutulmuş hikâyelerini bir araya getirmektedir. Boland bunu yaparken hafızanın gücünden yararlanmakta ve hatırlama eylemini yaratıcı canlandırmalarla birleştirmektedir. Boland’ın The Historians eserinde sunduğu hatırlama eylemi, kadın özne konumlarına hareketlilik ile akışkanlık sağlaması ve sonuçta kadınların hâkim ataerkil tarih söyleminde desteklenen özcü temsillerini sorunsallaştırması bakımından göçebe hatırlamayla uyumludur. Dolayısıyla bu makale, The Historians eseri Braidotti’nin göçebe hafızası kavramı üzerinden okunduğunda, Boland’ın değişken kimliklere ve kendi tarihlerine sahip göçebe kadın özneler geliştirmek için göçebe hafızayı kullandığını ileri sürmektedir.

Keywords

• Eavan Boland
• The Historians
• Göçebe hafızası
• Tarih
• Geçmiş
• İrlandalı kadınlar
• Göçebe öznellik

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