Abstract
AbstractGeorge Orwell's novel 1984 raises a key question in the politics of memory: how far can the nation‐state reach into minds and reshape personal memories? Addressing it requires a theoretical framework that can encompass public and personal representations of the past. I develop the concept memory field, defined as the set of public and personal memories associated with a putatively past event, object, or situation. The memory field associated with the Kent State University massacre of May 4, 1970 exemplifies the diversity of memory, its constructed nature, its political uses, its brute qualities, and its implications for identities. I compare several additional cases drawn from the ethnographic and historical literatures, assessing the impact of the state's memory‐control tactics on personal memories. I close with a reflection on the emergent politics of memory in Donald Trump's United States.
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