Theories of Memory: Developing a Canon

Abstract

Editing anthologies is daunting and frequently thankless task. Hie editors are faced with strict space limitations and tremendous amount of material for potential inclusion; the work is like having to create representative puddle out of boundless sea. When the anthology represents both the history of an idea and new theoretical focus, as Theories of Memory: A Reader does, the difficulty is compounded by the relative novelty of the endeavor. Michael Rossington and Anne Whitehead, the editors of the anthology, present the book as a compre hensive survey of theories of from the classical period to the present day (13), giving themselves the task, in just over three hundred pages, of identifying and representing the canonical works on in the Western tradition, and outlining the cutting edge of studies today. Theories of Memory is published as consequence of and in response to what the editors call the of the last decades of the twentieth century. In the 1980s and 1990s, new interdisciplinary scholarly in began to have significant impact on literary studies. The boom of the eighties and nineties has, in the new century, begun to see signs of institutionalization and canonization. In addition to the many books and articles published on the subject of memory, large number of university classes at the undergraduate and graduate levels have taken as their focus. Many academic programs and institutes now offer studies as concentration. In fact, this anthology is prefaced with trace of its pedagogic origin, as the editors note its emergence from the MA in Literary Studies: Writing, Memory, Culture, taught in the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics at Newcastle University. The editors offer number of explanations for this surge of interest (5) in memory: an emergent re-engagement with theories of in the fields of holocaust studies, post colonialism and poststructuralism; technological developments that have led to sophisticated engagement with and theorization of virtual memory (5); new archival access to the suppressed histories of the Cold-War era in the former Soviet Union and the United States; the debates around false syndrome in the early 1990s; and Truth and Reconciliation commissions founded in South Africa,