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A review by redbecca
An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public Cultures by Ann Cvetkovich
5.0
This is really an excellent book, and very teach-able. It, or individual chapters from it could be used in courses on on Holocaust or trauma studies, affect theory, psychoanalytic reading of popular culture, as well as GLBTQ, transnational culture, social movement history, /or gender pop culture more generally. Cvetkovich accessibly presents complicated and nuanced readings of a variety of texts and connects these readings to the way they are part of public cultures of feeling that we all live with.
Although Cvetkovich is not a historian, her chapter on AIDS activism could be very useful for historians who might be interested in the role that emotions play in politics. I thought her work on the archive and the politics of archives was the only weak one (I am usually annoyed by the somewhat dramatic or arch way that lit people write about "the archive" because they read Foucault or Derrida, even if they don't have extensive experience actually using archives or doing historical research. Historians might induce similar annoyance if they started writing about the importance of "the metaphor" or some other basic literary term.) That aside, her work on messy feelings that disrupt easier activist narratives, whether they are about incest survival, butch-femme experience, or even the Holocaust, is vital and important.
Although Cvetkovich is not a historian, her chapter on AIDS activism could be very useful for historians who might be interested in the role that emotions play in politics. I thought her work on the archive and the politics of archives was the only weak one (I am usually annoyed by the somewhat dramatic or arch way that lit people write about "the archive" because they read Foucault or Derrida, even if they don't have extensive experience actually using archives or doing historical research. Historians might induce similar annoyance if they started writing about the importance of "the metaphor" or some other basic literary term.) That aside, her work on messy feelings that disrupt easier activist narratives, whether they are about incest survival, butch-femme experience, or even the Holocaust, is vital and important.