The Poetics of Movement and Deterritorialisation in Katja Petrowskaja’s 'Vielleicht Esther' (2014)

Abstract

Katja Petrowskaja’s 'Vielleicht Esther' (2014) can be read as a poetic autobiography in which memory spaces constitute themselves by means of a poetics of deterritorialisation (Deleuze and Guattari) and multidirectionality (Rothberg). Borderlines between past and present and different memory discourses are put into motion, as topoi of travel literature and physical movement are employed within an aesthetic of association. This article shows how the travelling subject moves between historical and fictional places, through physical and virtual spaces of European memory, interlinking the author-narrator’s experience with that of Jewish family members, as well as with a wider global community. Challenging major memory discourses and narratives of belonging, as well as boundaries between fact and fiction, corporeal and digital movement, the performative ‘minor’ language of the narrative creates lines of flight and opens new spaces of memory. Tweetable Abstract: Deterritorialisation and multidirectionality: How corporeal and virtual movement in 'Vielleicht Esther' creates lines of flight and spaces of memory.