echo in three acts: The Lost Historical Subject in (Dis)articulation

This essay attempts to formulate a phenomenological conception of the subaltern historical figure that has been absented from archives of state violence. In order to do so, a reading of the myth of Echo is placed alongside Saidiya Hartman's work on Venus' presence in the archive of the Atlantic Slave Trade to argue for a shift to consider "echo" as a notion of subjectivity that encompasses the dilemmas that Hartman lays out. In shifting to read the lost subaltern historical figure through this mythos, this essay argues that we revisit and expand on the concerns of speaking for others by understanding the articulation of subjectivity at the moment of disarticulation, or in the break. Through this framework, the essay turns to consider the productivity of grief as a politic and applies the considerations to the Brazilian National Truth Commission.

Author

• Johnston III, James Slayton

Language

• en

Keyword

• Brazil
• Historiography
• Subaltern
• Subjectivity
• Echo
• Grief

Date created

• 2017

Type of Work

• Master's Thesis

License

• All rights reserved

Rights statement

• In Copyright

GW Unit

• Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies

Degree

• M.A.

Advisor

• Riedner, Rachel C

Persistent URL

•  https://scholarspace.library.gwu.edu/etd/rn3011364