Déjà Vu

Déjà Vu

Aberrations of Cultural Memory

Peter Krapp

$25.00 paper
ISBN: 0-8166-4335-0
ISBN-13: 978-0-8166-4335-6

$67.50 cloth
ISBN: 0-8166-4334-2
ISBN-13: 978-0-8166-4334-9

The pitfalls of cultural memory and forgetting, understood through the genealogy of the phenomenon called déjà vu.

Referring to a past that never was, déjà vu shares a structure not only with fiction, but also with the ever more sophisticated effects of media technology. Tracing the term from the end of the nineteenth century, when it was first popularized in the pages of the Revue philosophique, Peter Krapp examines the genealogy and history of the singular and unrepeatable experience of déjà vu. This provocative book offers a refreshing counterpoint to the clichéd celebrations of cultural memory and forces us do a double take on the sanctimonious warnings against forgetting so common in our time.

Disturbances of cultural memory—screen memories, false recognitions, premonitions—disrupt the comfort zone of memorial culture: strictly speaking, déjà vu is neither a failure of memory nor a form of forgetting. Krapp’s analysis of such disturbances in literature, art, and mass media introduces, historicizes, and theorizes what it means to speak of an economy of attention or distraction. Reaching from the early psychoanalytic texts of Sigmund Freud to the plays of Heiner Müller, this exploration of the effects of déjà vu pivots around the work of Walter Benjamin and includes readings of kitsch and aura in Andy Warhol’s work, of cinematic violence and certain exaggerated claims about shooting and cutting, of the memorial character of architecture, and of the high expectations raised by the Internet.

“Bold and highly provocative. Compelling and refreshing.” —Afterimage

Peter Krapp, assistant professor of new media at University of California at Irvine, coedited “Medium Cool,” a special issue of the South Atlantic Quarterly on contemporary media theory. He has published in the fields of German studies, media studies, and literary theory and, since 1995, has acted as editor of the Hydra Web site for theories of literature and media.

296 pages | 5-7/8 x 9 | 2004
Electronic Mediations Series, volume 12

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Déjà Vu *Aberrations of Cultural Memory* Peter Krapp		$25.00 paper ISBN: 0-8166-4335-0 ISBN-13: 978-0-8166-4335-6 $67.50 cloth ISBN: 0-8166-4334-2 ISBN-13: 978-0-8166-4334-9
The pitfalls of cultural memory and forgetting, understood through the genealogy of the phenomenon called déjà vu. Referring to a past that never was, déjà vu shares a structure not only with fiction, but also with the ever more sophisticated effects of media technology. Tracing the term from the end of the nineteenth century, when it was first popularized in the pages of the Revue philosophique, Peter Krapp examines the genealogy and history of the singular and unrepeatable experience of déjà vu. This provocative book offers a refreshing counterpoint to the clichéd celebrations of cultural memory and forces us do a double take on the sanctimonious warnings against forgetting so common in our time. Disturbances of cultural memory—screen memories, false recognitions, premonitions—disrupt the comfort zone of memorial culture: strictly speaking, déjà vu is neither a failure of memory nor a form of forgetting. Krapp’s analysis of such disturbances in literature, art, and mass media introduces, historicizes, and theorizes what it means to speak of an economy of attention or distraction. Reaching from the early psychoanalytic texts of Sigmund Freud to the plays of Heiner Müller, this exploration of the effects of déjà vu pivots around the work of Walter Benjamin and includes readings of kitsch and aura in Andy Warhol’s work, of cinematic violence and certain exaggerated claims about shooting and cutting, of the memorial character of architecture, and of the high expectations raised by the Internet. “Bold and highly provocative. Compelling and refreshing.” —Afterimage Peter Krapp, assistant professor of new media at University of California at Irvine, coedited “Medium Cool,” a special issue of the South Atlantic Quarterly on contemporary media theory. He has published in the fields of German studies, media studies, and literary theory and, since 1995, has acted as editor of the Hydra Web site for theories of literature and media. 296 pages \| 5-7/8 x 9 \| 2004 Electronic Mediations Series, volume 12