Between Autobiography, Personal Archive and Mourning: David Perlov’s Diary 1973–1983 in Tel Aviv

Abstract

In her essay Ilana Feldman investigates the relations between the private and the political in the autobiographical work of Israeli-born Brazilian filmmaker David Perlov (1930–2003). Problematizing her position as researcher, she points out that she was also affectively and intellectually deeply implicated in this research. In questioning self-reflexively her supposed neutrality as researcher, she is following, among others, Georges Devereux in De l’angoisse à la méthode (2012) where he argues for a dialectics between the subject and the object of the investigation in a prolonged process ‘of becoming aware’. Applying Marcio Seligmann-Silva’s notion of the ‘testimonial content of culture’ (2003) to her research methodology, Feldman writes that there is no knowledge of the ‘other’ without recognition of the ‘self’. She argues for the significance of her own personal archives and the transformative power they had in the construction of this research.