The first decade of the twenty-first century witnessed a passionate
engagement with the losses of the past. Rites of Return examines the
effects of this legacy of historical injustice and documented suffering
on the politics of the present. Twenty-four writers, historians,
literary and cultural critics, anthropologists and sociologists, visual
artists, legal scholars, and curators grapple with our contemporary
ethical endeavor to redress enduring inequities and retrieve lost
histories. Mapping bold and broad-based responses to past injury across
Eastern Europe, Africa, Latin America, Australia, the Middle East, and
the United States, Rites of Return examines new technologies of
genetic and genealogical research, memoirs about lost family histories,
the popularity of roots-seeking journeys, organized trauma tourism at
sites of atrocity and new Museums of Conscience, and profound
connections between social rites and political and legal rights of
return.
Contributors include: Lila Abu-Lughod, Columbia University; Nadia Abu
El-Haj, Barnard College; Elazar Barkan, Columbia University; Svetlana
Boym, Harvard University; Saidiya Hartman, Columbia University; Amira
Hass, journalist; Jarrod Hayes, University of Michigan; Marianne Hirsch,
Columbia University; Eva Hoffman, writer; Margaret Homans, Yale
University; Rosanne Kennedy, Australian National University; Daniel
Mendelsohn, writer; Susan Meiselas, photographer; Nancy K. Miller, CUNY
Graduate Center; Alondra Nelson, Columbia University; Jay Prosser,
University of Leeds; Liz Sevchenko, Coalition of Museums of Conscience;
Leo Spitzer, Dartmouth College; Marita Sturken New York University;
Diana Taylor, New York University; Patricia J. Williams, Columbia
University
