Rights statement: The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11196-015-9437-6 Copyright transferred on 29 July 2015 to Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.
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Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Musine Kokalari and the power of images
T2 - law, aesthetics and memory regimes in the Albanian experience
AU - Fijalkowski, Agata
N1 - The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11196-015-9437-6
PY - 2015/9/1
Y1 - 2015/9/1
N2 - Tarot cards are one means to unlocking an image. In this article, the image is that of the Albanian writer and political dissident Musine Kokalari at her 1946 trial. Her photograph features in Albanian discourses about its communist past. I argue that the image provides clues as to the manner in which the country has faced up to its own history. For what is certain is that the Albanian account of the Enver Hoxha dictatorship (1944-1991) remains incomplete. Drawing on Walter Benjamin’s notion of ‘here-and-now in a flash’, and Roland Barthes’ and Italo Calvino’s reflections on photography and the power of the visual, we can identify at least two distinct memory regimes in the relevant historical, legal and political narratives.
AB - Tarot cards are one means to unlocking an image. In this article, the image is that of the Albanian writer and political dissident Musine Kokalari at her 1946 trial. Her photograph features in Albanian discourses about its communist past. I argue that the image provides clues as to the manner in which the country has faced up to its own history. For what is certain is that the Albanian account of the Enver Hoxha dictatorship (1944-1991) remains incomplete. Drawing on Walter Benjamin’s notion of ‘here-and-now in a flash’, and Roland Barthes’ and Italo Calvino’s reflections on photography and the power of the visual, we can identify at least two distinct memory regimes in the relevant historical, legal and political narratives.
KW - law and aesthetics
KW - tarot cards
KW - photograph
KW - Musine Kokalari
KW - Albania
KW - memory regimes
KW - transitional justice
U2 - 10.1007/s11196-015-9437-6
DO - 10.1007/s11196-015-9437-6
M3 - Journal article
VL - 28
SP - 577
EP - 602
JO - International Journal for the Semiotics of Law
JF - International Journal for the Semiotics of Law
SN - 0952-8059
IS - 3
ER -