What Place Is This? Transcultural Memory and the Locations of Memory Studies

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1 The title for this essay includes Richard Terdiman's question ‘[w]hat place is this?’; see Richard Terdiman, ‘Given memory: on mnemonic coercion, reproduction and invention’, in Regimes of Memory, ed. Susannah Radstone and Katharine Hodgkin (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), p.190; re-printed as Radstone and Hodgkin, eds, Memory Cultures (Piscatawny, NJ: Transaction, 2005). 2 William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act IV Scene VII. 3 See for instance Nadia Atia and Jeremy Davies, eds, ‘Nostalgia and the Shapes of History’, special issue, Memory Studies, 3:3 (2010); Svetlana Boym, The Future of Nostalgia (New York: Basic Books, 2001); Susannah Radstone, The Sexual Politics of Time: Confession, Nostalgia, Memory (London and New York: Routledge, 2007). 4 Ghassan Hage points, for instance, to the ‘“miserabilist” tendency in the study of migration that wants to make migrants passive, pained people at all costs.’ Ghassan Hage, ‘Migration, Food, Memory and Home-Building’, in Memory: Histories, Theories, Debates, ed. Susannah Radstone and Bill Schwarz (New York: Fordham University Press, 2010), pp.416–427; p.417. 5 Edward Casey, Remembering: A Phenomenological Study (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1987), p.290. 6 Richard Terdiman, ‘Given Memory’, p.187. 7 Richard Terdiman, ‘Given Memory’, pp.188–9; emphasis in the original. 8 Richard Terdiman, ‘Given Memory’, p.186. 9 Richard Terdiman, ‘Given Memory’, p.189. 10 Richard Terdiman, ‘Given Memory’, p.192. 11 For more on metaphors of memory and their links with technology and the media see Douwe Draaisma, Metaphors of Memory: A history of ideas about the mind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). 12 Ann Rigney, ‘The Dynamics of Remembrance: Texts Between Monumentality and Morphing’, in Cultural Memory Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook, ed. Astrid Erll and Ansgar Nunning (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2008), pp.345–353. 13 Astrid Erll and Ann Rigney, eds, Mediation, Remediation and the Dynamics of Cultural Memory (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009). 14 Astrid Erll, ‘Literature, Film and the Mediality of Cultural Memory’, in Cultural Memory Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook, ed. Astrid Erll and Ansgar Nunning (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2008), pp.389–398, p.392. 15 This shift to the spatial tracking of cultural memories can be discerned, as I've suggested, in the titles and themes of recent conferences, two examples of which are the ‘Transcultural Memory’ conference from which many of this special issue's essays have been drawn, and the ‘Memory on the Move’ conference, Utrecht University, December 2–3 2010. 16 See < http://www.kigalimemorialcentre.org/old/index.html>; < http://www.yadvashem.org>; < http://www.robben-island.org.za> 17 Richard Terdiman, ‘Given Memory’, p.192. 18 Richard Terdiman, ‘Given Memory’, p.188. 19 Richard Terdiman, ‘Given Memory’, p.188; emphasis in the original. 20 Richard Terdiman, ‘Given Memory’, p.189; emphasis in the original. 21 Richard Terdiman, ‘Given Memory’, p.189. 22 Richard Terdiman, ‘Given Memory’, p.195. 23 For a comprehensive list of Stuart Hall's publications see < http://www.mona.uwi.edu/library/stuart_hall.html>. A series of interviews between Stuart Hall and Bill Schwarz is currently in preparation, to be published as Stuart Hall and Bill Schwarz, Conversations with Stuart Hall (Oxford: Polity Press). 24 See, for instance, Popular Memory Group, ‘Popular Memory: Theory, Politics, Method’, in Richard Johnson, Gregor McLennan, Bill Schwarz, and David Sutton, eds, Making Histories: Studies in History-writing and Politics (London: Hutchinson, 1982), pp.205–252. For a fuller bibliography of these publications and a discussion of the problematic attempt, by one group, to undertake a form of self-reflexive research they termed ‘memory work’, see Mariette Clare and Richard Johnson ‘Method in our Madness: Identity and Power in a Memory Work method’, in Memory and Methodology, ed. Susannah Radstone (London and New York: Berg, 2000), pp.197–224. 25 Juliet Mitchell, Psychoanalysis and Feminism (London: Allen Lane, 1974). 26 For a seminal discussion of oral history practice by one of its foremost practitioners see Paul Thompson, The Voice of the Past: Oral History, Third Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). The book series Memory and Narrative (Transaction Publishers) contains many of the most interesting recent interventions into the theory and practice of oral history. 27 Joanna Bornat, ‘Oral history as a social movement: Reminiscence and older people’, Oral History, 17:2 (1989), p.16. 28 A term used to describe that amalgamation of Marxist, feminist and psychoanalytic theories developed by the British cinema studies journal Screen in the 1970s and 1980s. 29 I hesitate to use the term ‘historical’ because, in the UK, one of the most long-lasting and central lines of debate and enquiry has centred on the relations between history and memory. For discussions of history's relations with memory see, for instance, Katharine Hodgkin and Susannah Radstone, ‘Introduction’, in Contested Pasts: The Politics of Memory, ed. Katharine Hodgkin and Susannah Radstone (London: Routledge, 2003); reprinted as The Politics of Memory: Contested Pasts, (Piscatawny, NJ: Transaction, 2005); Susannah Radstone and Katharine Hodgkin, ‘What History Forgets: Memory and Time’, in Regimes of Memory, ed. Susannah Radstone and Katharine Hodgkin (London: Routledge, 2003), pp.131–4; Karl Figlio, ‘Getting to the beginning: identification and concrete thinking in historical consciousness’, Regimes, pp.152–166; Bill Schwarz, ‘“Already the Past”: memory and historical time’, Regimes, pp.135–151. 30 I have placed quote marks around ‘the past’, here, because there is much more to be said and understood about what might be meant by that term in this context. Memory's complex temporalities impel us to interrogate our common sense understandings of historical temporality's linearity and to ponder the relation between memory and history (see Schwarz, ‘“Already the Past”’). 31 To find out more about our research centre visit < http://www.raphael-samuel.org.uk>. 32 Raphael Samuel, Theatres of Memory 1: Past and Present in Contemporary Culture (London: Verso, 1995). 33 See Susannah Radstone, ‘Memory Studies: For and Against’, Memory Studies, 1:3 (2008), pp.31–39. 34 For different accounts of what Memory Studies is, ought, and might be, see, for instance recent contributions to the new journal Memory Studies, including Steven D. Brown, ‘The quotation marks have a certain importance: Prospects for a “memory studies”’, Memory Studies, 1:3 (2008), pp.261–71; Andrew Hoskins, ‘Flashbulb memories, psychology and media studies: Fertile ground for interdisciplinarity?’, Memory Studies, 2:2 (2009), pp.147–50; Nancy Van House and Elizabeth Churchill, ‘Technologies of Memory: Key issues and critical perspectives’, Memory Studies, 1:3 (2008), pp.295–310; Carolyn Kitch, ‘Placing journalism inside memory – and memory studies’, Memory Studies, 1:3 (2008), pp.311–320; Radstone, ‘Memory studies: For and Against’; Henry L Roediger III and James V. Wertsch, ‘Creating a new discipline of memory studies’, Memory Studies, 1:1 (2008), pp.9–22; Marita Sturken, ‘Memory, consumerism and media: Reflections on the emergence of the field’, Memory Studies, 1:1 (2008), pp.73–78; John Sutton, ‘Looking beyond memory studies: Comparisons and integrations’, Memory Studies, 2:2 (2009), pp.299–302. 35 The recent international conference ‘Transcultural Memory’ included much discussion of transnational memory. Its website is at < http://igrs.sas.ac.uk/research/transculturalmemory.htm>. Meanwhile books and essays are appearing on the topic of transnational memory; see, for instance, Aleida Assmann and Sebastian Conrad, eds, Memory in a Global Age (Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010); Udo J. Hebel, ed., Transnational American Memories (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2009). 36 Here, I am quoting from Astrid Erll's keynote lecture at the ‘Transcultural Memory’ conference. This lecture and my response are currently available online at < http://igrs.sas.ac.uk/research/transculturalmemory.htm>. 37 I take this term from Erll's keynote lecture (see note 36). 38 This project's website is at < http://www.cfe.lu.se/towards-a-common-past>. 39 See, for instance, Aleida Assmann, ‘Four Formats of Memory: From Individual to Collective Constructions of the Past’, in Cultural Memory and Historical Consciousness in the German-Speaking World Since 1500, ed. Christian Emden and David Midgley (Bern: Peter Lang, 2004), pp.19–37; and Jan Assmann, Religion and Cultural Memory: Ten Studies (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005). 40 Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory [1925], ed., trans. and intr. Lewis A. Coser (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992). 41 With thanks to one of my anonymous referees for pointing this out. 42 For a study of German memory and memory studies see Wulf Kansteiner, In Pursuit of German Memory: History, Television and Politics After Auschwitz (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2006); see also Miriam Hansen and Andreas Huyssen, ‘Introduction’, New German Critique, 71 (1997), pp.3–4; Michael Geyer, ‘The place of the Second World War in German memory and history’, trans. Michael Latham, New German Critique, 71 (1997), pp.5–40. 43 See Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub, Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis and History (New York: Routledge, 1992); Cathy Caruth, ed., Trauma: Explorations in Memory (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995); Cathy Caruth, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996). 44 See, for instance, Dori Laub's analyses of Holocaust testimony in Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub, Testimony, pp.57–92. 45 See Erika Apfelbaum, ‘Halwachs and the social properties of memory’, in Memory: Theories, Histories, Debates, ed. Susannah Radstone and Bill Schwarz (New York: Fordham University Press, 2010), pp.77–92. 46 See note 40. 47 See, for instance, Erika Apfelbaum, ‘And now what, after such tribulations: memory and dislocation in the era of uprooting’, American Psychologist, 55:9 (2000), pp.1008–13. 48 This point has been well made in Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer, ‘The witness in the archive: Holocaust Studies/Memory Studies’, in Memory: Histories, Theories, Debates, ed. Susannah Radstone and Bill Schwarz (New York: Fordham University Press, 2010), pp.390–405. 49 Catherine Merridale, ‘Soviet memories: patriotism and trauma’, in Memory, ed. Susannah Radstone and Bill Schwarz, pp.376–389. 50 Catherine Merridale, ‘Soviet memories’, p.376. 51 Catherine Merridale, ‘Soviet memories’, p.376. 52 Catherine Merridale, ‘Soviet memories’, p.377. 53 Catherine Merridale, ‘Soviet memories’, p.378. 54 Catherine Merridale, ‘Soviet memories’, p.377. 55 Catherine Merridale, ‘Soviet memories’, pp.379–80. 56 Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer, ‘The witness’, p.391. 57 Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer, ‘The witness’, p.403. 58 Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer, ‘The witness’, p.403. 59 Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer, ‘The witness’, p.404. 60 Kelly Jean Butler, Witnessing Australian Stories: history, testimony and memory in contemporary culture, unpublished PhD thesis (Melbourne: University of Melbourne, 2010). 61 Michael Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009). 62 Michael Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, p.5. 63 Michael Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, p.20. 64 Michael Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, p.5.