Reparation and Irreparability: Theoretical Approaches

This volume advances a theoretical perspective on cultural practices of reparation and the irreparable. It investigates practices developed by individuals and collectives in response to experiences of damage, loss, and harm that exceed economic, juridical, or institutional frameworks. Focusing on practices in domains such as literature, music, translation, or ritual, the contributions examine modes of engagement that seek to repair—on symbolic, affective, or spiritual levels—what often appears irreparable. Examining theories of reparation as a site where questions of meaning, form, memory, imagination, and persistence can be addressed in their complexity, the volume seeks to anchor these questions within the humanities. Rather than proposing a unified theory of reparation, however, the contributions attend closely to the historical, situated, and plural character of the cultural practices under consideration—and to the ways in which they work through reparation in the face of irreparability as an open, contested, and ongoing process.