Apostrophizing the nation: Witnessing and virtuality in the Yasser Arafat Museum and Amna Suraka

Abstract

This article aims to further develop a concept that I recently coined in my postcolonial exploration of Kurdistani memory culture: that of the “apostrophic museum.” The term “apostrophic” is derived from the fields of rhetoric and poetry. It refers to a figure of speech that addresses an absent object or person, making the reader or listener into an “overhearer.” Through close-readings of the Yasser Arafat Museum in Ramallah and the Museum of Amna Suraka: In Order Not to Forget in Sulaymaniyah, it is shown that apostrophic memory sites, located in postcolonial societies, depict national heroes that address a homeland – in this case, Palestine and Kurdistan – and engage visitors as “overhearers” of this addressing. The article extends my earlier analysis of apostrophic museums by indicating how these two case studies shape two apostrophic acts, drawing on Frans-Willem Korsten’s analysis of apostrophic forms of address and Gilles Deleuze’s concept of virtuality. A first apostrophic act revolves around national heroes who apostrophize their countries, which gain a virtual quality. A second apostrophic act makes visitor into witnesses who turn away from these heroes to report to various others about what they have seen.