Memory Studies recent issues

Looking beyond memory studies: Comparisons and integrations

Sutton, J. — 2009-09-01

Mapping and excavating spectral traces in post-apartheid Cape Town

Jonker, J., Till, K. E. — 2009-09-01

This article explores how spectral traces at places marked by acts of violence and injustice allow residents to come into contact with past and future inhabitants of the postcolonial city. We examine controversies surrounding Prestwich Place, Cape Town, an informal burial ground for colonial underclasses that was unearthed when construction began for an upscale ‘New York-style’ apartment and office complex. The human remains that emerged embodied a past that exceeded national narrations of public memory and presented this past as an object of concern for private capital and activists. Rather than offer a biography of the site, we develop two concepts, memorial cartographies and haunted archaeologies, that represent terrains not visible on Cartesian mappings. We understand these narrative strategies as creative acts that honour those who have gone before; both practices encourage us to listen as witnesses to geographies of loss that continue to structure contemporary urbanisms.

Redrawing cognitive maps of conflict: Lost spaces and forgetting in the centre of Belfast

Switzer, C., Mcdowell, S. — 2009-09-01

Northern Ireland is currently emerging from three decades of conflict. Belfast, its largest city, experienced some of the worst levels of violence. During these ‘Troubles’ it became a highly segregated city in which its citizens understandings of the urban fabric were mediated through their ethno-religious backgrounds. Yet as the region moves into a post-conflict situation, Belfast has been undergoing rapid physical change. One result of this has been an effort to remove evidence of the conflict from the ‘new’ city centre, despite more than 70 conflict-related deaths having occurred there. The article uses the example of Belfast city centre to explore: (1) how ‘normalization’ strategies employed after conflict seek to reshape cognitive understandings of violent spaces through reconstruction; and (2) how individual memory retains the potential to disrupt these efforts. We argue that the highly regimented spatial patterns of Troubles commemoration in Belfast may influence how the city deals with the challenges of its violent past.

The burden of memory: Victims, storytelling and resistance in Northern Ireland

Hackett, C., Rolston, B. — 2009-09-01

The article examines the potential and limitations of storytelling for victims of political violence. It rejects the view that storytelling is unproblematic, a way for victims to ‘get things off their chest’. It examines a wide range of literature on storytelling and testimony, from the Holocaust through to contemporary transitional societies. In particular, attention is focused on the experience of victims and survivors telling their stories in formal settings such as truth commissions and trials in South Africa and the former Yugoslavia, as well as at unofficial storytelling processes in Northern Ireland. The authors look at the potential of storytelling as resistance to injustice and conclude that while unofficial processes of storytelling present opportunities for collective solidarity, the stories often go unacknowledged by the wider society. Conversely, they also conclude that, while official mechanisms of truth recovery can ensure wide legitimacy for the stories of victims, this is often at the cost of marginalizing the storyteller and the story.

Spinning the past: Russian and Georgian accounts of the war of August 2008

Wertsch, J. V., Karumidze, Z. — 2009-09-01

Efforts by national media and political leaders to ‘spin’, or shape the public interpretation of events, are examined from the perspective of collective memory. It is argued that top-down analyses of such efforts overlook essential aspects of how shared national narratives shape collective interpretation and memory. Political leaders’ efforts to manage public discourse about important events provide insight into the existence and structure of ‘deep memory’ and the ‘narrative template’ that mediates it for a mnemonic community. Using the Russian-Georgian war of August 2008 as an illustration, two different national narrative templates are outlined and used to account for radically different views of the war and its causes.

Lampiao, Luiz and Padim Cico: Three icons of the Brazilian Northeast

Greenfield, G. — 2009-09-01

This article focuses on the collective memory within the Brazilian Northeast of three iconic figures, a renowned bandit, a miracle-working priest and a famous singer, identifying and analyzing the attributes that account for their status as regional heroes. It suggests that these attributes form a counter-narrative that casts them as champions of the powerless and victims of injustice, themes that resonate among and reflect the lived experience of the northeast’s masses. This element of resistance later served as a regional counter-narrative to a dominant national history that derogated the Northeast.

Book Review: Memory and Material Culture: Andrew Jones Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. 272 pp. US$25.99. ISBN 978--0521545518

Donald, M. — 2009-09-01

Book Review: Jewish Identity in Early Modern Germany: Memory, Power and Community: Dean Phillip Bell Aldershot, Ashgate, 2007. 200pp. 55. ISBN 075465897X

Carlebach, E. — 2009-09-01

Flashbulb memories, psychology and media studies: Fertile ground for interdisciplinarity?

Hoskins, A. — 2009-04-15

The witness in the archive: Holocaust Studies/ Memory Studies

Hirsch, M., Spitzer, L. — 2009-04-15

What has Holocaust Studies brought to the study of memory, and, conversely, how has theoretical work on the Holocaust been inflected by Memory Studies? Focusing on witness testimony, we argue that the theoretical and philosophical efforts to grasp and define its contours have provoked a radical rethinking of the workings of memory and transmission: in particular, a foregrounding of embodiment, affect and silence. Yet we caution against a hyperbolic emphasis on trauma and the breakdown of speech. We find that the very aporias that have made the Holocaust a touchstone for the study of twentieth-century memory have engendered two distinctive interpretive uses of witness testimony — one linked to a troubling idiom of uniqueness and exceptionalism, potentially supporting nationalist and identity politics, the other, to cosmopolitan or transnational memory cultures able to sustain efforts towards the global attainment of human rights.

When history isn't made but happens: Memories of victimhood in Halberstadt (Germany)

Neumann, K. — 2009-04-15

Taking as its point of departure two civic ceremonies on 8 April 2006 in the East German town of Halberstadt, one to commemorate people who had been murdered in a local concentration camp, the other to commemorate the German civilian victims of an Allied air raid, this article discusses memories of victimhood. It is argued that Halberstadt's citizens remember history as something that happened to them. It is demonstrated that, for them, the town itself, rather than human casualties (be they those who perished in a concentration camp or those who were killed in a bombing raid), provides the main focus for their grief. Drawing on the work of Alexander Kluge, it is suggested that memories of the air raid of 8 April 1945 are shaped by the inertia of emotions and of the capacity to remember and mourn.

Apology, historical obligations and the ethics of memory

Thompson, J. — 2009-04-15

This article defends a conception of citizenship and political solidarity that encompasses an ethics of memory and the recognition of obligations that come from history. It claims that citizens ought to remember the deeds of their predecessors and to apologize and make recompense for historical injustices. To establish that such obligations exist it is necessary to contend with a tradition of liberal philosophical thought that regards history as irrelevant to the duties of citizens and their relationship as members of a political society. `Ahistorical liberalism' not only fails to appreciate the importance to people of historical memories. It also faces serious philosophical and moral difficulties. The obligations and rights of citizens are best understood in the framework of a relationship of intergenerational cooperation that gives citizens duties in respect to the past as well as the future.

Forgetting and remembering in the margins: Constructing past and future in the Romanian Danube Delta

Van Assche, K., Devlieger, P., Teampau, P., Verschraegen, G. — 2009-04-15

This article investigates the process of social forgetting by relating it to the disintegration of social and spatial networks. Looking at the case of Sulina, a small town on the eastern edge of the Romanian Danube Delta, we analyze how the unraveling of networks caused a process of social forgetting with margin-specific features, a fundamental restructuring of social memory and social identities. An important focus of our investigation is the connection between social memory and spatial planning, as a coordinated effort to look forwards. While forgetting as such is seen as a positive process, constitutive of memory, its local characteristics can create problems, for example, for cooperation and planning. Theoretically, this article adopts a systems theoretical framework, incorporating notions derived from anthropology and geography. Social memory is defined as a continuous process of selection, carried out in various specialized subsystems. Concepts of social identity and network are found to be essential in a localized analysis of social memory. Concluding, we argue that local characteristics of social memory can impede the articulation of viable spatial planning strategies.

`We were all there': Remembering America in the anniversary coverage of Hurricane Katrina

Robinson, S. — 2009-04-15

The study of Hurricane Katrina's anniversary coverage in a dozen national and local mainstream outlets and six books explored whether the journalism followed the `typical' commemoration patterns that press historians have described. Nationally, the press demonized New Orleans as an example of what the country needed to avoid — politically, economically, structurally, morally. Locally, the press did not set agendas, but rather focused on the importance of ritual in recreating a lost community. Instead of creating a mnemonic quagmire, these seemingly disparate narratives sought to restore faith in American redemption, collectively, at a time of national unrest. Such research exemplifies the tension between dominant institutions of the press, government and the Church, how authority is asserted, and the process by which all of this plays out in the news media, forming collective memory according to national ideals and local interests.

Fixing the floating gap: The online encyclopaedia Wikipedia as a global memory place

Pentzold, C. — 2009-04-15

The article proposes to interpret the web-based encyclopaedia Wikipedia as a global memory place. After presenting the core elements and basic characteristics of wikis and Wikipedia respectively, the article discusses four related issues of social memory studies: collective memory, communicative and cultural memory, `memory places' and the `floating gap'. In a third step, these theoretical premises are connected to the understanding of discourse as social cognition. Fourth, comparison is made between the potential of the World Wide Web as cyberspace for collective remembrance and the obstacles that stand in its way. On this basis, the article argues that Wikipedia presents a global memory place where memorable elements are negotiated. Its complex processes of discussion and article creation are a model of the discursive fabrication of memory. Thus, they can be viewed and analysed as the transition, the `floating gap' between communicative and collective frames of memory.

Visible Memories A conference held at the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies of Syracuse University (USA), 2--4 October 2008

Hajek, A. — 2009-04-15

Memory Day A conference held at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia, 27--28 November 2008

Cox, R. E., Harris, C. B. — 2009-04-15

Book Review: Wounds of Memory: The Politics of War in Germany Maja Zehfuss Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 2007. 294 pp. US$95. IBSN 978--0521873338

Olick, J. K. — 2009-04-15

Book Review: Memory and Tradition in the Book of Numbers Adriane Leveen Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. x + 245pp. $160. ISBN 978--0521878692

Hendel, R. — 2009-04-15

Book Review: Aristotle on Memory and Recollection: Text, Translation, Interpretation, and Reception in Western Scholasticism David Bloch Leiden: Brill, 2007. 276 pp. US$125. ISBN 978--9004160460

Jimenez, E. R. — 2009-04-15

Book Review: They Called Me Mayer July; Painted Memories of a Jewish Childhood in Poland before the Holocaust Mayer Kirshenblatt and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007. 410 pp., 381 illustrations. US$39.95. ISBN 978--0520249615

Zemel, C. — 2009-04-15

Book Review: Defining Memory: Local Museums and the Construction of History in America's Changing Communities Amy K. Levin (ed.) Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2007. 298 pp. US$27.95. ISBN 978--0759110502

Medved, M. I. — 2009-04-15

Editorial: Time. Matter. Multiplicity

Kontopodis, M. — 2008-12-22

Documents' memories: Enacting pasts and futures at the School for Individual Learning-in-Practice

Kontopodis, M. — 2008-12-22

The study presented below has been an effort in examining the interdependence between time and memory practices, and in particular in studying how memory is related to the generation of pasts, presents and futures. Drawing on a one-year ethnographical research project in a secondary vocational school for students from sociocultural minorities in Germany, I examine how material-semiotic orderings determine how students' development and everyday action is remembered and forgotten, and at the same time what kind of futures are made possible for the students. On the ground of a relational-materialist approach, I analyze symmetrically the interaction between students and reports, files or questionnaires, and other actants. My analysis challenges the modern model of the arrow of time by suggesting that memory includes uncertainty, and that it is impossible to predict how pasts, presents and futures relate to each other.

A monument to dismantlement

Varvantakis, C. — 2008-12-22

The Palast der Republik was the parliament building of the former German Democratic Republic and an entertainment center for its people. It is currently being dismantled in a lengthy procedure that will last for a period of three years. The extended `present' of the building's removal is the focus of this article, which examines the ways in which the building is becoming a memory as it de-materializes. Throughout the text, the monumental characteristics of the dismantlement and its physiognomy as a monument to temporality are taken into consideration.

Building memory: Architecture, networks and users

Guggenheim, M. — 2008-12-22

Why are buildings such disputed objects with regard to time and memory, and what makes them peculiar? With the help of actor-network theory and the theory of functional differentiation, I show how objects in general relate to time and how objects can stabilize memories. I demonstrate the different ways in which networks place objects in time and how they are isolated and multiplied to relate to functional systems. I then argue that buildings cannot be controlled by functional systems because they cannot be isolated. This is so because they are singulars, occupy a stable location and are used by multiple users at the same time. For this reason I call them mutable immobiles. As mutable immobiles, buildings develop very complex relationships to times. They are changed and even converted to other building types, which cuts them off from their networks even though they still occupy the same location.

Where do we go from here: The pasts, presents and futures of Ground Zero

Gutman, Y. — 2008-12-22

Spring 2006, when the rebuilding of Ground Zero began, was a unique moment in time — a turning point for the New York site and its publics. It signified transformation from debris to a memorial museum; a move from past catastrophe to future memories, as the nationalized narration of the events in the formal exhibit on site emphasized. Surprisingly, while the end result was already known, this moment of transformation allowed different audiences to put at halt the nationalized interpretation of the events of 9/11 and engage in personal, collected and collective, local and global, perspectives on the past, while enacting the presents and futures which seem to unfold from them. This article examines these distinct yet connected moments in order to reveal the different connections that people and governments make between pasts, presents and futures. It uses a non-linear approach to time, which explores and reworks the tension between linearity and relativity, as a sensitive lens to a political change that has proceeded well beyond the interaction on site.

Ways of looking: Observation and transformation at the Holocaust Memorial, Berlin

Dekel, I. — 2008-12-22

Observation is one of the core actions at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. Observing fellow visitors, photographing and looking at photos at the memorial transcend its actual time and probe its space and the boundaries of discourse about the past. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this article focuses on the ways visitors experience the memorial, and argues that in taking and looking at photos at the memorial and observing other visitors and the scene, visitors create a space for self-realization and transformation, in which they explore their relations to the past and to present memory politics. They do so through reflection on the memorial's lack of stated meaning, alongside the impossibility of representing the Holocaust.

The place of trauma: Memory, hauntings, and the temporality of ruins

Trigg, D. — 2008-12-22

Implicit in theoretical treatments of the memory of trauma is the fragmented reception of the past. While a great deal of research has approached this issue from the perspective of oral testimony, what has remained underdeveloped is the role sites of memory play in contributing to our understanding of trauma. Accordingly, in this article, I intend make a foray into this convergence between place and trauma through undertaking a phenomenological investigation of the testimonial attributes of ruins. In doing so, I will pursue two central questions. First, insofar as the built environment is able to contain memory, how does the place of trauma testify to history? Second, if ruins are by their nature contingent and dynamic, how can the past be spatially preserved without creating a false unity between time and the event? In response to these questions, I will put forward the notion that sites of trauma articulate memory precisely through refusing a continuous temporal narrative. My conclusion is that the appearance of the ruin, understood phenomenologically, allows us to approach the spatio-temporality of trauma in terms of a logic of hauntings and voids.

The appearing memory: Gilles Deleuze and Andrey Tarkovsky on `crystal-image'

Kozin, A. — 2008-12-22

In this article I examine the concept `crystal-image,' as developed by Gilles Deleuze in the two volumes of Cinema (1986—89). In these texts, Deleuze examines the ways in which phenomenality of time discloses itself through the semiotic dimension of cinema. Subsequently, Deleuze identifies three distinctly different senses of cinematographic time: (1) time as the movement of image; (2) the movement of time-image; and (3) the appearance of time itself. In this article I elaborate the latter via the concept of `crystal-image'. The main objective behind my examination is two-fold: demonstrate that cinema can be approached as a special kind of phenomenological inquiry (semiotic phenomenology) and, on the strength of this hybrid method, further our understanding of memory and its materiality. An analysis of Andrey Tarkovsky's film Solaris provides an illustration.

Afterword (Memories are made of this)

Bowker, G. C. — 2008-12-22

Nostalgia and the Shapes of History A conference held at Queen Mary, University of London, 13--14 June 2008

Davies, J. — 2008-12-22

Book Review: Religion and Cultural Memory: Ten Studies Jan Assmann, trans. Rodney Livingstone Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006. 240 pp. US$63.00. ISBN 0804745226 (hbk); US$22.95. ISBN 0804745234 (pbk)

Snyder, B. H. — 2008-12-22

Book Review: The Politics of Regret: On Collective Memory and Historical Responsibility Jeffrey Olick New York: Routledge, 2007. 240 pp. US$32.95. ISBN 9780415956833

Celermajer, D. — 2008-12-22

Book Review: Remembering the Year of the French: Irish Folk History and Social Memory Guy Beiner Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2007. 488 pp. US$49.95. ISBN 9780299218201

Tober, T. L. — 2008-12-22

Book Review: Memory, Masculinity and National Identity in British Visual Culture, 1914--1930: A Study of `Unconquerable Manhood' Gabriel Koureas Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2007. 217 pp. {pound}55.00. ISBN 9780754660170

Scott, D. M. — 2008-12-22

Book Review: Re-envisioning the Chinese Revolution: The Politics and Poetics of Collective Memories in Reform China Ching Kwan Lee and Guobing Yang (eds) Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2007. 330 pp. $25.00. ISBN 9780804758536

Haiming Yan, — 2008-12-22

Editorial

Hoskins, A., Barnier, A., Kansteiner, W., Sutton, J. — 2008-08-12

The quotation marks have a certain importance: Prospects for a 'memory studies'

Brown, S. D. — 2008-08-12

There are parallels between the emergence of 'memory studies' as a domain of enquiry and the development of 'sexuality studies'. Both confront the difficulty of engaging with a central referent whose historical, cultural and ontological status is indeterminate. Reviewing a selection of articles from the first issue of Memory Studies, three sets of obstacles to be addressed in the area are identified. First, there is the difficulty of arriving at a common conception of memory. It is suggested that inclusive support for rival and conflicting conceptions may be appropriate. Second, the common interdisciplinary dilemma of creating links between distinct levels of analysis is particularly acute. Transversal concepts and links may be more productive here. Third, there is the challenge of building academic community across disciplines and traditions. Rather than seek to substantivize 'memory' further, the notion of mediation is offered in its place as the basis for such a community-to-come.

Forgetting and remembering in psychology: Commentary on Paul Connerton's `Seven Types of Forgetting' (2008)

Erdelyi, M. H. — 2008-08-12

In this commentary, I compare psychology's treatment of forgetting, especially the works of Ebbinghaus, Bartlett, Ballard, Freud, and modern researchers, to Connerton's approach. I suggest that as the stimuli have become more complex (moving from nonsense syllables and lists of words to stories and real-life events, as found, for example, in clinical and forensic settings), memory theory in psychology becomes increasingly constructivist and motivational, and converges in significant respects with historical-sociological formulations of forgetting, such as Connerton's.

Should we forget forgetting?

Singer, J. A., Conway, M. A. — 2008-08-12

Paul Connerton's inquiry in Memory Studies into the seven types of forgetting highlights forgetting as an active rather than passive process in both individual and larger cultural memory. The present article suggests that `forgetting' may be re-interpreted as a problem of relative accessibility from a larger store of available memory. Seen in this light, emotion, meaning and goal relevance are likely to affect a given memory's personal or cultural accessibility. Each of the seven types of forgetting is re-evaluated with these three critical factors' role in memory accessibility given greater attention and prominence.

How many types of forgetting? Comments on Connerton (2008)

Wessel, I., Moulds, M. L. — 2008-08-12

In his Memory Studies article `Seven Types of Forgetting', Connerton argues that forgetting on a cultural level is not a unitary phenomenon and that at least seven distinct types can be distinguished. In this commentary, we explore the potential utility of an alternative conceptualization from a psychology perspective. More specifically, we consider how a theoretical framework on individual autobiographical memory may be employed as a metaphor for exploring Connerton's ideas about the forgetting of cultural groups. This metaphor concentrates on commonalities rather than differences between the types of forgetting proposed.

Technologies of memory: Key issues and critical perspectives

Van House, N., Churchill, E. F. — 2008-08-12

Past, present and emerging technologies of memory are important concerns for memory studies. What is remembered individually and collectively depends in part on technologies of memory and socio-technical practices, which are changing radically. We identify specific concerns about developments in digital memory capture, storage and retrieval. Decisions are being made now that may have far-reaching consequences. Systems are being designed based on models and metaphors in which human memory works much like the computer. We bring to this discussion a critical perspective from science and technology studies (STS) and a grounding in human—computer interaction (HCI) and computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW). We argue that, while these developments are significant for memory studies research, even more important is the need for memory studies to remind and inspire designers of what is possible and useful, and help expand the understanding of human memory on which these systems are based.

Placing journalism inside memory -- and memory studies

Kitch, C. — 2008-08-12

This article contends that it is important for scholars to ask what it matters that certain memory stories are told in journalistic prose and format and are received by audiences as `news'. Yet it also suggests that we must understand that journalism works within (not apart from) other cultural memory forms, and that it constructs memory not just with regard to discrete events, but across time and place. Finally, considering parallel debates across disciplines, this article is a call to reassess our definitions of legitimate subjects of study. It argues that scholars should pay attention to forms of journalism beyond elite news organizations and to recognize that journalism is a site of memory construction not only about shocking events, but also about everyday life. Indeed, if we expand our definitions of journalism and of memory, we broaden the relevance and the uses of journalism in memory studies.

Bergson's non-archival theory of memory

Burton, J. — 2008-08-12

Literal and metaphorical associations between memory and archives are found throughout traditional and contemporary thinking about memory. Despite a long-running tendency in the western tradition to doubt the adequacy of archival metaphors for memory, and despite much recent research that implicitly treats memory in terms of dynamic mnemonic and memorial processes, imprint/substrate models epitomized by Plato's wax tablet seem extraordinarily resistant to attempts to think memory beyond them. Henri Bergson's Matter and Memory, in which he makes a radical separation between the processes of recollection and `pure memory', provides both an argument for the tenacity of the memory—archive relation and an alternative, non-archival model of memory. In this article, I suggest the possible implications of this model for the way we think about both memory and the archive, and on the basis of this point towards Bergson's potential significance for the emergent field of memory studies.

Book Review: Theories of Memory: A Reader: Michael Rossington and Anne Whitehead (eds) Edinburgh University Press, 2007, 310 pp. f19.99. ISBN 0748625038

Bramall, R. — 2008-08-12

Rites of Return: Poetics and Politics A conference sponsored by The Center for the Humanities, The Graduate Center, CUNY and The Center for the Critical Analysis of Social Difference, Columbia University, 10--11 April 2008

Thakkar, S. — 2008-08-12