Troubling Archives

History and Memory in Namibian Literature and Art

Julia Rensing

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English

Transcript Verlag
21 October 2025

The Arts: General & Reference; Photography & photographs; Literary studies: general; African history

Series: Postcolonial Studies

Namibia's colonial history casts a long shadow over the country's present. Contemporary authors and artists confront the legacies of German and South African colonial rule and engage creatively with the persistent remnants of the past. In their works, the archive remains both an invaluable and fraught resource for accessing obscured histories. Julia Rensing examines how writers and artists from Namibia and South Africa navigate archival silences, omissions, and power structures to renegotiate historical narratives and address intergenerational trauma. Their creative practices challenge conventional understandings of archives and forms of commemoration, highlighting the diverse experiences that shape Namibian society and memory cultures.

By: Julia Rensing
Imprint: Transcript Verlag
Country of Publication: Germany
Dimensions: Height: 23mm, Width: 15mm,
ISBN: 9783837677607
ISBN 10: 3837677605
Series: Postcolonial Studies
Pages: 332
Publication Date: 21 October 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , College/higher education , Undergraduate , Further / Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Julia Rensing, born in 1991, is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the Centre for African Studies at the University of Basel, Switzerland. Her research focuses on discourses related to archives - particularly photographic archives - and their role as sites of knowledge production and contestation. She is a member of freiburg-postkolonial.

Reviews for Troubling Archives: History and Memory in Namibian Literature and Art

Troubling Archives is a welcomed contribution to feminist archival research in art and literature. In the last few decades, artists and writers have turned to archival materials as resources with the potential to unsettle conventional historical narratives. Well-researched and thoroughly refreshing, Julia Rensing's Troubling Archives offers thought-provoking analyses of this phenomenon and captures the affective resonance of archives. (Nomusa Makhubu, Professor in Art History at the University of Cape Town)--Nomusa Makhubu, Professor in Art History at the University of Cape Town This fine-grained exploration of colonial archives, Namibian women's personal narratives, and the transformative engagements with archives by a new generation of artists and authors significantly shifts our way of seeing history and listening to its reverberations. Troubling Archives illuminates multi-perspective approaches to the legacies of truly devastating pasts and traumatic experiences. (Dag Henrichsen, Basler Afrika Bibliographien & University of Basel)--Dag Henrichsen, Basler Afrika Bibliographien & University of Basel