Commemorative spectacles: The performativity of monumentalized bodies

Bilkic, Maida (22 June 2018). Commemorative spectacles: The performativity of monumentalized bodies (Unpublished). In: The School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies. Victoria University of Wellington.

"There is nothing in this world as invisible as a monument" - Robert Musil, 1987

In this talk, I address commemorative atmospheres showing how space is controlled, rejected, appropriated and experienced. Combining the social semiotics and multimodality approaches, I offer a transdisciplinary reading (Halliday, 2001) of a range of semiotic resources and modalities of performance (Van Leeuwen, 2005; Bell & Gibons, 2011). When the denial of violence endures for too long, commemoration manifests itself through performative bodies filling the space with the loudest spectacles – louder than a static monument could ever produce. Such “living memorials” ultimately point to the dynamic entanglement of people and semiotic landscapes, achieved through an affective, monolithic, massive body and its experiences.

Item Type:

Conference or Workshop Item (Speech)

Division/Institute:

06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of Linguistics and Literary Studies > Institute of English Languages and Literatures
06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of Linguistics and Literary Studies > Institute of English Languages and Literatures > Modern English Linguistics

UniBE Contributor:

Bilkic, Maida

Subjects:

400 Language
400 Language > 410 Linguistics
400 Language > 420 English & Old English languages

Language:

English

Submitter:

Federico Erba

Date Deposited:

24 Apr 2019 15:56

Last Modified:

14 Mar 2024 12:31

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/123606

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