Gampel, Yolanda
Different Movements of Transmission: Destructive Radioactive Transmission—Creative Radioactive
- 2016.
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The metaphor of radioactivity, transformed into the concept of “radioactive core,” emerged in the context of studies on the effects of social traumas, particularly those linked to the Holocaust. Borrowed from the domain of nuclear physics, the term radioactivity helps to metaphorize the monstrous, unexpected, and aberrant effects caused by sociopolitical violence. In the light of two testimonies, we can see that psychic radioactivity can be transformed destructively or creatively. This transformation depends, obviously, on the context and above all on the modalities of transmission from one generation to another.