Kazuo Ishiguro and Memory

"Kazuo Ishiguro's novels are suffused with a sense of memory, nostalgia and mourning. Memory is an area of research that continues to grow in importance within the humanities and this unique study examines the importance of memory and its representation in Ishiguro's novels, filling a long-standing gap in knowledge in studies of Ishiguro's work. Drawing from Paul Ricoeur's philosophical writing on memory, as well as theories on mourning, trauma and collective memory by Sigmund Freud, Henri Bergson, Maurice Halbwachs and Walter Benjamin, Yugin Teo introduces a conceptual framework that examines the function of memory in these novels, revealing the distinctive and cathartic work of memory that is very much a part of Ishiguro's novels. This innovative studyexplores how Ishiguro's writing both aligns itself with and challenges these established concepts of memory"--

List of contents

Introduction: Memory Work - Forgetting, Testimony and Release PART I: FORGETTING 1. Memory Traces and Fragments of the Past 2. Trauma, Forgetting and Memory PART II: REMEMBERING 3. Recognition and Testimony 4. Nostalgia and Mourning PART III: RELEASE 5. The Search for Meaning and Utopia 6. A Profound and Ethical Forgetting Conclusion: Ishiguro's Work of Memory Notes Bibliography and Further Reading Index

About the author

Yugin Teo is Associate Tutor in English and Film at the University of Sussex, UK, where he completed his PhD. He has published articles on contemporary literature and film in the journals Critique and Science Fiction Film and Television, as well as his own short fiction and poetry.

Product details

• Authors: Y Teo, Y. Teo, Yugin Teo
• Publisher: Palgrave UK
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 14.10.2014
• EAN: 9781137337184
• ISBN: 978-1-137-33718-4
• No. of pages: 187
• Subjects: Fiction; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; B, Fiction & related items, Cultural Studies, Cultural Theory, Fiction, Literature: history & criticism, Literary theory, Culture—Study and teaching, European Literature, Literature, Modern—20th century, Twentieth-Century Literature, Literature—History and criticism, Literary History, British literature, British and Irish Literature, Fiction Literature, Palgrave Literature Collection, Literature—Philosophy