Authors

Dara Sljukic¹;  ¹ Central European University, Austria

Discussion

In my paper, I will analyze how a number of select post-Yugoslav literary texts contest the teleological perspective on the past, particularly on the Yugoslav project – in other words, how they aim to liberate the memory of Yugoslavia from its end. In relying on the concept of queer and straight time by Jose Esteban Munoz, I call this literary and memory strategy queering time. In doing so, the literary texts do not present any one definitive interpretation of the past; they simply question the fossilized apparent truths or commonplaces about the former country and, simultaneously, about the present time.
The concepts of queer and straight time will further allow for recognizing the future-oriented quality of post-Yugoslav literary memory narratives, which are often interpreted as exclusively traumatic memory narratives. I will also engage with the old discussion of Yugonostalgia and the more recent discussion of post-Yugoslav temporalities (for example, by Aleksandar Mijatovic (2020; 2021), aiming further to dislodge the prevalence of Yugonostalgia in the discussion of post-Yugoslav remembrance, in particular future-oriented remembrance.
In using Esteban’s concept of queer time, I also want to show the gendered dimension of given memory processes. Each narrative incorporates a gendered perspective differently. Outlining these varieties can potentially open up a new dimension of selected memory narratives and of their strategies of queering time.