INMS Working Paper Series

The INMS Working Papers Series (WPS) provides members with the opportunity to publish research papers in progress on the INMS website. The aim of the working paper series is to foster innovative research culture in Memory Studies and provide researchers with the necessary guidance and tools to work on research papers which can potentially be published in academic journals.

DIGITAL STORYTELLING AS THE NEW AVANT GARDE HERITAGE, MEMORY AND INCLUSIVITY

February 27, 2026

In an age where narratives no longer remain confined to printed pages or oral traditions but circulate fluidly through digital interfaces, the act of storytelling has undergone a paradigmatic transformation. The digital medium has not only expanded the means of narration but has also revolutionized the function and form of cultural memory. This paper explores digital storytelling as an avant-garde form, not merely because of its technological novelty, but because of its potential to dismantle aesthetic orthodoxy, foreground cultural inclusivity, and revive the heterogeneous textures of memory.

Between Memory and Forgetting: Representation of Identity and Family in Thanmathra

February 27, 2026

This essay examines the interplay of memory, identity, and family as portrayed in the film Thanmathra (2005). Serving as the primary text, Thanmathra provides a cinematic exploration of the effects of Alzheimer’s disease, particularly highlighting how memory loss disrupts personal identity and familial bonds. Thanmathra (English: Molecule) is a 2005 Indian Malayalam-language drama film written and directed by Blessy and starring Mohanlal, Meera Vasudevan and Arjun Lal. Based on Padmarajan’s short story “Orma”, it portrays the effects of Alzheimer’s disease on the life of Ramesan Nair (Mohanlal) and his family.

From Page to Protest: Literary Testimony and the Reconstruction of Public Memory (Elakshi Gupta)

February 27, 2026

Hernán Loyola’s Neruda’s Sins attempts a sympathetic reckoning of the poet’s personal failings — his betrayals as a husband, his inadequacies as a father, casually inserting the word rapist into a list of moral lapses, as if all were sins of comparable weight. But what Neruda confessed to in Ceylon (present day Sri Lanka), where he served as a consul, was not a personal failing, but a violent crime. In ‘Confieso Que He Vivido’ his memoir’s fourth chapter ‘Luminous Solitude’, he describes, without any apparent remorse, the assault of a Tamil woman of the Paraiyar caste. A chilling account steeped in objectification, yet again stripping her of both voice and agency, as he indulges in a crude, lustful description.

Memory through Play – Transmission of Cultural Memory through Board Games A Case study of Goa’s Liberation (Akhila Rajeena James)

February 27, 2026

Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” – Benjamin Franklin Introduction Playing has been around since the time humans have existed. It is through games and storytelling we make sense of the world around us. From phenomenological perspective, the act of playing goes beyond recreation. The player …

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Reclaiming the Self: Trauma, Memory, and Neuroplasticity in Imtiaz Ali’s Tamasha (2015) – (Vickey Prasad)

February 27, 2026

This paper scrutinizes Tamasha (2015), a Bollywood film by Imtiaz Ali, as a cinematic narrative that delves into psychological trauma, memory suppression, and maps the journey of reclaiming one’s true identity. The film follows the protagonist Ved, whose identity is shaped by childhood conditioning and societal pressure, leading to emotional dissociation and identity confusion. Fundamentally grounded on the theoretical understanding of Cathy Caruth, Judith Herman, Bessel van der Kolk, Norman Doidge, and Laura Marks, the study examines how Ved’s emotional vulnerability and eventual healing reflect the principles of “belated” trauma, memory recovery, and neuroplastic transformation. The study, through close analysis of the film’s narrative structure, visual triggers, and symbolic motifs, emphasizes how Tamasha reflects not only the burden of repression but also the healing capacity of storytelling and self-expression. The study aims to make a meaningful contribution to Indian cinema’s association with mental health and the discourse of trauma recovery.

Memory and Malignancy: Accounting for the Autobiographical Narrative Through the Embodied Self in Healed by Manisha Koirala (Violet Mary)

February 27, 2026

Abstract Cancer narratives, or pathographies, hold significant value in the field of health humanities. As memoirs, these personal narratives occupy a central place in memory studies, offering insight into how individuals remember, interpret, and give meaning to lived experiences. Moreover, memoirs can serve as tools of resistance, healing, or testimony, especially in contexts of trauma, …

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Digitizing War Narratives through Postwar Japanese Anime and Manga ​

February 27, 2026

World War II left an indelible mark on Japan’s collective consciousness. In the early postwar years, memories of defeat and devastation were often kept private or repressed, as Japan grappled with being both a victim of atomic attacks and the perpetrator of imperial war. This created ‘a gap’ in the tradition of familial storytelling, and social stigma around retelling painful experiences. Over time, new media forms became crucial platforms to fill that gap. Specifically, Japanese anime and manga began to ‘speak for history’ in place of ordinary witnesses. Anime works like Barefoot Gen (Manga -1973; Anime -1983) and Grave of the Fireflies (short story – 1967; Anime -1988) transform personal trauma into collective memory through powerful visual narratives. Anime also blends history with myth, as Susan J. Napier notes, animation allows “history and memory [to] transform into myth and even into fantasy,” offering viewers a way to “work through” historical trauma (Napier 2005, 1). Yet this very mediation of memory raises tensions, as critic Lisa Yoneyama warns (cited by Napier), “memory has often been associated with myth or fiction” and must be carefully handled because any portrayal of the past is “always enmeshed in the exercise of power” (Napier 2005, 1). Thus, postwar anime/manga serve as digitized war archives that preserve the past in narrative form while inviting scrutiny of their authenticity.

Space Resonates with Inspirational Memories: W.B. Griffin, Lucknow Chapter – Dr Rani Massey

April 17, 2023

Abstract Space is actively “produced ” through human activity and is therefore a social construct. The production of Space Theory explains how people inhabit the world and find mediations between the world and themselves, as social and cultural agents. Since space acquires a human dimension, it is therefore mentally and emotionally embedded. This, therefore, gives …

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Locating Caste of Memory: A Phenomenological Inquiry into Memory and Experience of Caste. – Vikas Kumar Choudhary

April 17, 2023

This paper argues that the caste of memory is an unexplored phenomenon in memory studies. The paper outlines two possible epistemological categories to advance caste-based understanding of memory. The first category suggests that existing studies of memory can be grouped into Memory of Caste. The memory of caste as an epistemological category group is the work which explores the role of collective memory in consolidating the caste-based group identity. The second category is termed as Caste of Memory- this category lacks existing research- for which the paper contributes and argues that individual memory in the caste system’s context is not naïve or free of caste’s influence. In this endeavour, the work analyses lived experience of the Dalit individual as narrated in autobiography. The paper concludes that memory should not be considered caste neutral and should be accounted in the analysis of memory.

‘Burning Sikh Man’ as an Icon: Analysing Representations of the Anti-Sikh Violence of 1984 – Harleen Kaur

April 17, 2023

Remediation uncovers conformity as well as contestation. The paper analyses the remediation of the anti-Sikh violence of 1984 and decodes several medial representations to underscore their convergence in representing the image of a burning Sikh man. It investigates a novel, a poem, a web article, a painting, a film, and a commission report to substantiate the arguments. The paper questions whether the icon aids in the solidification of the cultural memory of the carnage or not. Is the image evocative enough to invoke the varied meanings of the violence, and establish it as a powerful site of memory? In addition, the paper analyses the gendered nature of the violence and the causes of the perpetrators in targeting a particular gender of the community.

Plating Memory, Tasting Grief: Exploring the Gastronomical Politics of Memory in Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H Mart (2021) – Ashmita Biswas

April 17, 2023

Food plays an important part in the processes of remembering and forgetting, thereby elevating a relatively quotidian task to an important archival process that concretizes identity formation. Food and associated culinary practices can trigger certain acts of remembrance that take up the texture and flavour of the food in question. The article explores the complex convergences of memory and culinary studies through an analysis of Michelle Zauner’s memoir Crying in H Mart (2021). The novel is entirely founded on the dialogue that goes on between the act of consumption of food and memory-making. The article studies how food manipulates the discourses on memory, belonging, nostalgia, and grief as represented in the novel. It will thus highlight Zauner’s work as a memory-narrative that engages in the visceral, metaphorical, and material affect contained within taste memories and the power that it holds in chronicling a life-narrative.

Tracing the Traces: Remembering 1992 as a Memory Trace – Smithi Mohan

April 17, 2023

A digital archive can retain and reinforce ‘memories of social collapses’ because of its ability to act as ‘memory ensembles’ demanding undivided attention. In this context, an analysis of the digital archive http://mumbairiots.tiss.edu (Remembering 1992, Mumbai Riots: A Web Archive), a scholarly intervention by the School of Media and Cultural Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, http://smcs.tiss.edu, I would like to argue that this comprehensive online visual archive which traces the history of the 1992 Mumbai riots leaves ‘traces’ as attempts are made to deliberately compress and suppress those performances of dissent from national memory. Borrowing Ron Hubbard’s notion of ‘engram as a form of memory trace,’ I also argue that this digital archive is a ‘historical memory engram’ which remains as a latent memory picture, a lasting trace lingering in the interstices of times, histories and memories and reminding of an always already inherent contradiction in the Indian social psyche. In between the top-down memory of forced erasure which percolates from the records of official history, and the neutralised versions of bottom-up memory induced by imagined accounts of the event, this digital archive is a Cheshire Cat. It can be compared to Cheshirization, a type of sound change where a trace remains of a sound that has otherwise disappeared from a word.

Partition, Cinema and Prosthetic Memory: On the Cinematic Works of Ritwik Ghatak and Nemai Ghosh – Sriparna Datta

April 17, 2023

Cinema is an altogether different medium of artistic expression from literature. Its power of capturing the present has complicated the concept of memory and postmemory. The experience of a geo-political event like partition passes from one generation to another through memory. But what happens when the first-hand experience of partition is captured in a cinematic work? This essay will engage with this complex phenomenon of Indian history reflected in Nemai Ghosh’s Chinnamul (The Uprooted) and Ritwik Ghatak’s Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud-Capped Star). In addition, I shall emphasise how Ghosh and Ghatak use the technique of telling and re-telling stories to recreate the partition memory in a more complex manner. However, in bringing these two works together, this article will discuss the idea of prosthetic memory and trauma related to the Bengal partition.

Memory and mobilization: The representation of collective trauma in the #Metoo movement – Kanchan Panday

March 7, 2023

Technological aids now play a more significant role in mobilizing popular movements. Social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook have provided survivors with a virtual space to publicize their trauma-laden mental, physical, and sexual assault memories. These virtual spaces, therefore, provide a space for collective trauma, having the potential to ignite popular movements. The #MeToo movement, #YesAllWomen, and #BLM movement show that the traumatic chunks of memories possess the potential to uncover hidden patterns of suppression and sexual violence in public spaces ranging from films to MNCs to academia. Acknowledging the controversial nature of the consequent events of the #MeToo movement, in this paper, I intend to explore the role of social media in providing a space for memory mobilization in the #MeToo movement. Furthering the discussion in this direction, I also aim to conceptualize the role of Twitter in constructing an emancipatory debate for survivors of sexual assault.

(How) do we memorialise COVID-19 in the digital age? – Utkarsh Sharma

May 16, 2023

This paper tries to understand the politics involved in memorialising COVID-19 in the digital world. The COVID-19 pandemic brought forth multiple challenges in front of the world and is expected to continue to do so. How we remember the pandemic is critical to our responses towards challenges that will be posed by it in the medium to long terms. An approach that recognises failures of state policies may yield completely different answers than one that considers COVID a natural disaster. The question is as much of remembering COVID-19 as it is of how it ought to be remembered. While the privately curated National COVID Memorial exists online, it falls short in drawing any relevant connections between the dead and fails to imbue their deaths with any common meaning other than their cause of death. The question of if a memorial is required at all is relevant to this paper, especially in the digital age when images, videos and writings are widely accessible. We can view with hindsight different responses of the Indian masses to the pandemic in each subsequent wave. As videos and images swirled over the digital domain, different kinds of responses to the pandemic were generated. This paper will try to answer if a unitary meaning ought to be given to COVID-19, especially to the backdrop of alternate discourses and experiences available digitally.

Materialisation of existential aesthetics – Dr Neha Khetrapal

March 7, 2023

Maes’ proposal on existential aesthetics, which appeared in the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism in 2022, has the potential to be extended in myriad manners. Here, the attempt is to confer a material or tangible extension to his proposal. Material existential aesthetics provides scope for dialogues between artists, philosophers, historians and architects. Through their endeavours, viewers can expect to access a tangible platform for addressing existential concerns. Simultaneously, materialisation of existential aesthetics provides an avenue for researchers to examine how material forms, that include cemeteries and memorials, may help salvage people’s existential fears. As the gap between the material and existential aesthetics narrows further, the world may witness new forms of memorials that have the potential to be appreciated for both their utilitarian and artistic values.

Resisting political forgetting through cultural productions: Viewing the Kashmir Question through the frames of collective memory – Sana Shah and Aishwarya Bhattacharyya

March 7, 2023

The present paper will attempt to understand the interfaces of history and memory, in Kashmir, by looking at the kind of challenges presented by memory, as a mode of engagement, response, and resistance to the statist reading of the Kashmir Question. The paper attempts to focus on the counter-memory practices as alternative means of expressions and protests, that the local population has lately devised through popular cultural productions like musicals and arts in circulation through latest media technologies. The paper in particular will look at the potential of cultural productions, not only as alternative means of protest and resistance but also as archives of resistance, building on the works of scholars like David Lowenthal and Patrick Hutton. The paper highlights the potential for simultaneous uses of memory-making as an artifice by both the oppressor groups and the oppressed groups to necessitate further research into identification and self-identification premised on memory-politics as conceptual categories towards determining the nature, scope and challenges of memory-making for different types and scales of nationalist projects.

Camp as Moral Architecture: Memory, Migration and Resistance – Adhila Abdul Hameed

March 7, 2023

Remembrance seems to be about the past. While the Holocaust is an event in the past, the Nakba did not end in 1948. The relationship between film and reality is historically and politically infused in the films of the Palestinian new wave to create a cultural weapon that also serves as resistance. These movies are works of oppressed people’s history. This paper intends to focus on the intersections of memory and trauma in Mahdi Fleifel’s A World Not Ours and Mai Masri’s Children of Shatila, by examining the themes of traumatic identity, global and prosthetic memory in the films. The study further explores the representation of memory and how it externalizes and historicizes traumatic emotions which would otherwise remain at the level of internal and individual psychology.

Pan-African identity: A standpoint of Memory Studies – Dr. Divya Sharma

March 7, 2023

Essentially, there are three approaches to Africana history – the griotic methodology, liberation historiography, and Afrocentricity. All these have been to the end of free Africans empowering their identity politics. The griotic methodology of African historiography or the griotic framework particularly conjures up a dialogue between the present and the past as it involves helping turn oral to written. It has been used particularly by the free African Americans of the antebellum North to chart the oral/performance basis of history ascending into the textual production of history. As a distinct approach of history production, the griotic methodology started taking hold from the late 1700s through the 1830s. It was meant to counter the Eurocentric American discourses. The intelligentsia sought to liberate themselves through re-interpreting the connotational meanings/implications of “Africa,” which was viewed as a metaphorical source and destiny of the black race. While this holds true for the African-Americans, African historiography displays a similar pedestal for oral history (orature) which it sees deeply tied to identity politics. Pan-African Cultural Nationalism in African literature, therefore, intersects with the griotic engagement of African historiography and identity politics. The proposed research paper endeavours to look at this historiographical engagement in identity politics from the standpoint of memory studies.

“I was disconnected from my emotions, like a hand severed from a wrist”: Trauma, Plasticity, Unprecedented Identities and Coolness in Alex Michaelides’ ‘The Silent Patient’ – S. Kirubakaran

March 7, 2023

The last few decades have seen an increase in the research on human memory. Human brain is an extremely complicated and a unique device among the living beings. The topics covered are Plasticity, Unprecedented Identities and Coolness in correspondence to trauma, which are depicted in Alex Michaelides’ novel ‘The Silent Patient’. The characters in the novel go through various psychological conditions. Literature is an important field of introspection on memory studies. A fiction is an amalgamation of realities and possibilities. The articulation of absence in a fiction makes it a cognitive medium, for the interplay of Memory Studies and Medical Humanities. A rigid understanding of remembering and forgetting is achieved through a critical study.