DOI 10.33234/SSR.13.1
The first three papers of this issue are long, and together comprise different but complementary approach to understanding memory. The first, Exploring Contortions of the Authentic: Voodoo in New Orleans, by Elvira K. Katić, relies on a first hand encounter (or rather series of encounters) with a contemporary practitioner of voodoo rituals; the second, The Performativity of the Archive from a semiotic perspective, by Martin Acebal, Claudio Guerri and Cristina Voto, explores how meaning and knowledge of the past are constructed on archives, and how indeed our knowledge of archives itself is constructed. The authors adopt a Peircean inspired approach to clarification and explication of historical materials. In the third, Postcolonial Memorabilities and Transforming Performativity in Dispersion, Fatima Festić focuses on the aftermath of Balkan wars, and in particular overseas Bosnian-Herzegovinian “cultural circles” and emigres. Through a crucial distinction between diaspora and dispersion the author clarifies the role of the individual creative artist in remembering intensities, details and feeling associated with past conflicts, in a way that can elude public accounts of history. 