Remember Me Nought: The 1985 Cultural "Nachträglichkeit"

Abstract

This paper engages with the politics of remembering and forgetting that surround the unsettled history of the 1985 Air India bombings. In particular, I use the concepts Nachträglichkeit and "affective recircuitry" to describe the way in which the bombings have been problematically and retroactively framed through a post-9/11 "war on terror" lens in recent, public recollections of this traumatic past. Examples are drawn from the federal Commission of Inquiry into the Investigation of the Bombing of Air India 182, as well as from public memorial sites and ceremonies dedicated to those killed in the bombings. The paper also centres on a reading of Eisha Majara's new photomontage series Remember Me Nought to consider how artistic commemorations might contribute to a critical counterpublic in response to the injustices that continue to manifest in the ongoing aftermath of this mass violence.