Speaking Memory

"Exploring a wide variety of examples from both the past and present, this collection defines cities as fields of translational forces, of languages in conversation and in tension. From the 19th century multilingual border city to today's metropolis, language fractures and connections shape urban territory, giving the city its distinctive sensibility. Like architecture and urban planning, like the creation of monuments, translation defines the memories which survive, the narratives which tell the story of the city. Choosing what to remember is always a conflictual process, and particularly in cities with histories with internal language strife, acts of translation are a crucial part of this struggle. The essays draw a variegated portrait of the translational city, highlighting spaces of accelerated exchange and heightened language awareness. The contributions discuss cities across Europe (with particular attention to its Eastern borderlands) and the Americas (Canada, the US, Brazil, Uruguay). Emblematic importance is given to the layered memories of the Central European and Habsburg city (Vilnius, Prague, Brody, Trieste) as well as the traumas of passage from empire to nation. Subsequent essays explore the broader fault lines which traverse today's global city: the new ways in which immigrants imprint their presence and their memories in today's material and virtual cities, the obstacles to translation in the experience of the refugee and the exile, the ways in which media networks enhance or limit possibilities of translation, and the active and performative character of hybrid languages as they emerge in the interstices of city life."--