History Contra Collective Memory: Collective Memory’s Finite Province

Abstract

In the humanities and social sciences, with the rise of memory studies, there has been an important theoretical shift in how we engage the past. What used to be studied with the methodically elaborate field of history no longer seems adequate. With memory becoming an ever-present framework with which to look at culture, literature, social phenomena, politics, and the arts, a theoretical conviction has come to prevail that says collective memory is a larger framework within which history and other approaches to the past must be situated. This paper tries to address this theoretical conviction of conflating history with collective memory by arguing that collective memory cannot be a be-all umbrella term encapsulating historical representation or other approaches to the past such as tradition. It does so by uncovering the ground for such a conviction, during which a clearer view of the role of history and the limits of collective memory emerge. The investigation shows that indiscriminate application of the concept of collective memory in every approach dealing with the past makes the concept almost meaningless and betrays its two crucial characters, or limits: that of i) temporal finiteness and ii) fragmentariness. In so doing, it restores the vital role history plays in trying to get at the truth of the past. The article concludes by calling for deeper engagement with foundational conceptual and theoretical issues in collective memory research if it is to establish itself as a longstanding field of inquiry.