Book details

Publication date: June 2017
Features: 5 B&W photographs, notes, bibliography, index
Keywords: Memory Studies / Art & Literature / Terrorism / Racism
Subject(s): LITERARY CRITICISM / Subjects & Themes / Politics, Literary Studies, Literary Studies / Literary Criticism, Memory Studies / Art & Literature / Terrorism / Racism, Literary Criticism, Canadian History, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Discrimination & Race Relations, ART / Art & Politics, Social discrimination & equal treatment, Ethnic minorities & multicultural studies, Memory Studies / Art & Literature / Terrorism / Racism, Ethnic minorities & multicultural studies, The arts: general issues, Black Authors and Authors of Colour, Humanities
Publisher(s): The University of Alberta Press
Chandrima Chakraborty is University Scholar and Associate Professor in the Department of English and Cultural Studies. Amber Dean is Associate Professor in the Department of English and Cultural Studies. Both are from McMaster University in Hamilton. Angela Failler is Canada Research Chair in Culture and Public Memory, and Associate Professor of Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Winnipeg.

"[Remembering Air India] is an important book. It explores, through a number of essays, poems and excerpts from the public record, a question that should haunt us all still: why has this terrible disaster been relegated to the very margins of public memory?... The focus of this book is not just on a failure of surveillance, policing, intelligence or the court system. Its theme is a wider, and painful, reality: the failure to embrace the Air India bombing and its aftermath as our own....” [Full review at http://reviewcanada.ca/magazine/2017/06/a-tragedy-of-our-own/]

Bob Rae, Literary Review of Canada


"When 329 people, mostly Canadians, perished at sea in the 1985 Air India bombing, there was ... no mass public mourning. The only memorial was in County Cork, Ireland, near the spot where Flight 182 took whole families to their death. Few Canadians recall the year this mass murder occurred. The victims were modest people of ordinary means and little public profile. Would it have been different if 329 bankers died, or 329 tennis players? Of course. Would it have been different if 329 white Christians died? Remembering Air India answers this last, jarring question.... Remembering Air India is a poignant postmortem on memory and culture." [Full article at https://www.blacklocks.ca/review-329-hearts/]

Holly Doan, Blacklock's Reporter


"Another standout for its typography, which is pleasing at a glance and impressive on closer inspection. The complex content is demanding, and the solutions are elegant, displaying sensitivity to the subject and cohesiveness while connecting the many structural elements of the page."

Jury Comments, The Alcuin Society, 36th Alcuin Society Awards for Excellence in Book Design in Canada, 2017 - Prose Non-Fiction (Second Prize)


"As a testimony to how the cultural landscape of the world is constantly in flux, Remembering Air India shows how no act of terrorism exists in isolation and may have consequences even after decades have passed. [This collection reclaims] an incident that was neglected from public conversation for the longest time."

Shraddha A. Singh, British Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol 32, Nos 1-2, 2019-2020


"Remembering Air India underscores the profound need for acknowledgement, especially after trauma... This acknowledgement, the book suggests, involves open-endedness rather than quick resolution, a commitment to memory as 'difficult return,' and a willingness to see rather than cover up histories of racism."

Tracy Whalen, TOPIA, September 2021


AUP Book, Jacket & Journal Show, Book – Scholarly Typographic, United States
Winner
2018
Alcuin Society Awards for Excellence in Book Design in Canada (Second, Prose Nonfiction), Canada

2018
Acknowledgements

The Art of Public Mourning / An Introduction // CHANDRIMA CHAKRABORTY, AMBER DEAN & ANGELA FAILLER

Remembering in Relation
Remembering in Relation: The Air India and Komagata Maru Disasters // AMBER DEAN
On the Shores of the Irish Sea // UMA PARAMESWARAN
The Ever After of Ashwin Rao (excerpt) // PADMA VISWANATHAN
Remembering across Place and Time: The Komagata Maru and Air India // RITA KAUR DHAMOON

A Nation Outside of History
From Foreign to Canadian: Air India and the Ongoing Denial of Racism // MAYA SESHIA
The Impact of Systemic Racism on Canada’s Pre-Bombing Threat Assessment and Post-Bombing Response to the Air India Bombings // SHERENE H . RAZACK
Courtroom 1 from the Flight 182 Series // DEON VENTER
In the Vestibule of the Nation // SHERENE H . RAZACK

The Political Apology
Politics of (Im)moderation: The Production of South Asian Identities in the Canadian Apology for Air India Flight // CASSEL BUSSE
Statement by the Prime Minister of Canada at the Commemoration Ceremony for the 25th Anniversary of the Air India Flight 182 Atrocity // PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA
The Canadian Government’s Apology to the Victims and Families of Air India Flight 182 // KAREN SHARMA

Creative Archive
Mediating Memories of the 1985 Air India Bombings: A Critical Dance with Lata Pada’s Revealed by Fire // ELAN MARCHINKO
Revealed by Fire: Artist Statement // LATA PADA
An Invocation Dance for Lata // UMA PARAMESWARAN
An Ethics of Remembering: Air India 182 and Its Creative Archive // TERE SAHUBEL

Personal Loss, Collective Grief
Model Mourning, Multiculturalism, and the Air India Tragedy // CHANDRIMA CHAKRABORTY
The Management of Grief // BHARATI MUKHERJEE
Desperately Seeking Helen: Film Synopsis // EISHA MARJARA
air india, unsent / letters from the archive // RENÉE SAROJINI SAKLIKAR
“Courting Aphasia, We Travel” // SUVIR KAUL

Contributors
Index
ISBNs: 9781772122596 978-1-77212-259-6 Title: remembering air india ISBNs: 9781772123111 978-1-77212-311-1 Title: remembering air india ISBNs: 9781772126495 978-1-77212-649-5 Title: remembering air india