Enter the Ghosts of Europe
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Enter the Ghosts of Europe
📝 Description
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Elisabeth Tropper's 2023 book examines how European ghosts undermine the continent's self-image.
This book analyzes the presence of "ghosts" within Europe, not as supernatural entities, but as repressed elements that haunt the continent's identity. These specters manifest in the gaps and omissions of its dominant order, challenging the coherence of European self-descriptions and historical narratives. Tropper draws on thinkers like Judith Butler, Julia Kristeva, and Giorgio Agamben to redefine "haunting" beyond its everyday meaning, revealing its subversive potential.
The study argues that acknowledging these hauntings can deconstruct hegemonic structures by making visible what was discarded to maintain them, yet continues to linger. This approach highlights processes of abjection, exclusion, violence, and trauma, while also suggesting possibilities for overcoming them. The book specifically investigates how theatrical performances engage with these phenomena, using the stage as a space where the excluded from contemporary Europe are brought into the present.
While not strictly occult, this work engages with the "ghostly" as a metaphor for repressed historical and social forces that continue to exert influence. It aligns with critical theory's use of spectrality to understand lingering traumas and unresolved conflicts within cultural and political formations. The book uses "haunting" to signify the persistence of the past and the marginalized within the present, a concept explored in various critical and postcolonial studies.
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