SOCIAL MEMORY

Fall 2008

Vlad Naumescu

MA level

2 CEU credits / 4 ECTS credits

Office hours: Tuesdays 11.00-13.00 and by appointment

E-mail: naumescuv@ceu.hu

Course description

This course explores the growing field of memory studies with the aim of understanding the role memory plays in contemporary societies. From the remembrance (as aufarbeitung) of the Holocaust to the recovery of suppressed and counter-memories during socialism and the role of memory in reconciliation processes in post-dictatorial societies the world uses and abuses ‘memory’. The increased presence of memory in public discourse has also altered significantly individual remembrance constantly shaped by politics of memory. And since ‘memory’ has become an obsession of the modern world social scientists have also shared from it.

The course offers a critical appraisal of ‘memory’ within social sciences. Memory studies provide an excellent opportunity for crossing disciplinary boundaries and engaging in a genuine interdisciplinary endeavor. We will start by defining our field of research at the intersection of history, anthropology, sociology and psychology. We will examine the emergence of ‘memory’ as an object of study within these disciplines and focus on the interplay between individual and collective memory. Following a series of case studies we will then analyze the processes through which individual memories are shared by larger collectivities and the ways in which practices, spaces and objects become means to articulate, legitimate and construct individual and collective identities. We will then turn to the role of memory in cultural transmission and the ways in which collective concerns shape commemorative practices in various cultural contexts.

Learning outcomes

Upon completion of the course students should: a) gain knowledge of various theoretical and practical approaches to memory in historical and social sciences b) develop methodological skills for social research c) practice an interdisciplinary approach by bringing together the conceptual and methodological tools of the four disciplines in concrete case studies d) develop their own understanding of social theory by becoming aware of the advantages and limitations of each field of study e) learn to formulate research questions and strategies for approaching a particular subject in the field of memory studies and beyond.

Course Requirements

This course is based on weekly seminars which rely heavily on your contributions and general discussions based on the assigned readings and films screened in class. You have to do your readings, prepare questions and reflections and be actively involved in every class. Ideally you should work on a case study or be ready to engage with a specific topic from the field of memory studies. This way you can benefit most from seminars, screenings, discussions and the extensive literature available. The final grade is based on class participation (25%), student presentations (25%) and a final paper (50%).

Recommended background readings (available in the CEU Library)

Antze, P. and M. Lambek. 1996. Tense past: cultural essays in trauma and memory. New York ; London, Routledge.

Connerton, P. 1989. How societies remember. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 1989.

Matsuda, M. K. 1996. The memory of the modern. New York ; Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Misztal, B. A. 2003. Theories of Social Remembering. Theorizing Society. Maidenhead Philadelphia: Open University Press.

Olick, J. K. 2003. ed. 2003. States of Memory. Continuities, Conflicts and Transformations in National Retrospection. Durham, London: Duke University Press.

Pine, F., D. Kaneff, and H. Haukanes. 2004. Memory, politics and religion: the past meets the present in Europe. Halle studies in the anthropology of Eurasia; v. 4. Munster: Lit.

Watson Rubie and S. Watson. 1994. Memory, history, and opposition under state socialism.

Sante Fe , N.M. ; [Seattle], School of American Research Press: distributed by University of Washington Press.

Wertsch, J. V. 2002. Voices of collective remembering. Cambridge, U.K.;

New York: Cambridge University Press.

Wood, N. 1999. Vectors of Memory. Legacies of Trauma in Postwar Europe. Oxford, New York: Berg.

Yates Frances, A. 1994. The art of memory. London, Pimlico.

Recommended journals

History and Memory , Indiana University Press (EBSCOHost)

Representations , UC Press (JSTOR): see special issues on Memory and Counter-Memory vol. 26 (Spring 1989); Monumental Histories vol. 35 (Summer 1991); also vol. 69 (Winter 2000).

Week 1 The emergence of Memory Studies

Klein, Lee. 2000. On the Emergence of Memory in Historical Discourse. Representations 69: 127-150.

Olick, J. and J. Robbins. 1998. “Social Memory Studies: From "Collective Memory to the Historical Sociology of Mnemonic Practices".” Annu. Rev. Sociol.24: 105-140.

Additional readings

Huyssen, A. 1995. Twilight memories : marking time in a culture of amnesia. New York ; London: Routledge. Read Introduction pp. 1-9.

Winter, Jay. 2000. The Generation of Memory. Reflections on the Memory Boom in Contemporary Historical Studies. German Historical Institute 27.

Week 2 From Collective to Social Memory

Halbwachs, Maurice. 1992. On Collective Memory. Pp. 37-51. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Connerton, Paul. 1989. Social Memory. In: How Societies Remember. Pp. 6-40. Cambridge/ New York: Cambridge University Press.

Additional readings

Assmann, J. 1995. Collective Memory and Cultural Identity. New German Critique 65:125-133.

Jedlowski, P. 2001. “Memory and Sociology.” Time & Society10(1): 29-44.

Olick, J. 1999. "Collective memory: The Two Cultures." Sociological Theory17(3): 333-348.

Week 3 Memory and History

Nora, Pierre. 1989 Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire. Representations 26 : 7-24.

Burke, P. 1989. "History as Social Memory," in Memory, History, Culture and the Mind. Edited by T. Butler, pp. 97-113. Oxford, New York: Basil Blackwell.

Hutton, P. 1993. Placing Memory in Contemporary Historiography. In History As An Art Of Memory. P. Hutton. Hannover/London, University Press of New England: 1-26.

Additional readings

LeGoff, J. 1996 Memory. In History and memory. New York, Columbia University Press. Pp. 51-100.

Wood, N. 1999. Memory's Remains: Les Lieux de mémoire. In Vectors of Memory. Legacies of Trauma in Postwar Europe. pp. 15-38. Oxford, New York: Berg.

Week 4 Critical appraisal of the memory boom: theoretical & methodological questions

Gedi, Noa and Yigal Elam. 1996. Collective Memory: What Is It? History and Memory 8(1): 30-50.

Kansteiner, Wolf 2002. Finding Meaning in Memory: A methodological critique of collective memory studies. History and Theory41: 179-197.

Additional readings

Berliner, David 2004. “The abuses of memory: Reflections on the memory boom in anthropology.” Anthropological Quarterly78(1): 183-197.

Confino, Alon. 1997. Collective Memory and Cultural History: Problems of Method. AHR Forum. American Historical Review. Dec 1997, Vol. 102 Issue 5. Pp. 1386-1403.

Wertsch, J. V. 2002. Voices of collective remembering. Cambridge, U.K.; New York: Cambridge University Press. Read Chapters 2 and 3. pp. 30-66.

Week 5 Multiple and contested pasts

Appadurai, Arjun. 1981. The past as a scarce resource. Man 16: 201-219.

Bloch, Maurice. 1998. Time, Narrative and the Multiplicity of Representations of the Past. In How we think they think: anthropological approaches to cognition, memory, and literacy. Bloch, M. pp. 100-113. Boulder, Oxford: Westview Press. (also Chapter 6. The Resurrection of the House Amongst the Zafirmaniry of Madagascar; pp. 85-95).

Esbenshade, R. (1995). "Remembering to Forget: Memory, History, National Identity in Postwar East-Central Europe." Representations 49 (Winter 1995): 72-96.

Additíonal readings

Boym, S. (2001). Nostalgia and Post-Communist Memory. In The future of nostalgia. New York, Basic Books. Pp. 57-74.

Rappaport, Joanne. 1990. Introduction: Interpreting the Past. In: The Politics of Memory. Native historical interpretation in the Colombian Andes. Pp. 1-25. Cambridge/ New York: Cambridge University Press.

Watson Rubie, S. and R. 1994. Memory, history, and opposition under state socialism. Sante Fe, N.M.; [Seattle], School of American Research Press: distributed by University of Washington Press. Read Introduction (pp. 1-20) and Chapter 5 From Memory to History: The Events of November 17 Dis/membered by Andrew Lass (pp. 87-104).

Week 6 The politics of memory

Burchianti, Margaret. 2004. Building Bridges of Memory: The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and the Cultural Politics of Maternal Memories. History and Anthropology 15(2): 133-150.

Olick, J. K. 2003. "What Does It Mean to Normalize the Past? Official Memory in German Politics since 1989," in States of Memory. Continuities, Conflicts and Transformations in National Retrospection, Politics, History & Culture. Edited by J. K. Olick, pp. 259-288. Durham, London: Duke University Press.

Additional readings

Kansteiner, Wolf. 1999. "Mandarins in the Public Sphere: Vergangenheitsbewaltigung and the Paradigm of Social Memory in the Federal Republic of Germany." German Politics and Society17(52): 84-117.

Zerubavel, Y. 1994. The Death of Memory and the Memory of Death: Masada and the Holocaust as Historical Metaphors. Representations45: 72-100.

Wood, N. 1999. Public Memory and Postconventional Identity. In Vectors of Memory. Legacies of Trauma in Postwar Europe. Nancy Wood, pp. 39-59. Oxford, New York: Berg.

Week 7 The politics of memory - part II: Memory Projects

Memory and Commemoration: The Case of Jedwabne. In History and Memory,

Volume 18 (1), Spring/Summer 2006.

Additional readings

Irwin-Zarecka, I. 1994. Frames of remembrance: the dynamics of collective memory. New Brunswick [N.J.], Transaction Publishers. Read chapters 3 and 8 (pp. 47-65; 133-144).

Gross, J. T. 2001. Neighbors: the destruction of the Jewish community in Jedwabne, Poland. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Week 8. Trauma and memory: from individual to social

Kirmayer, L. 1996. Landscapes of Memory: Trauma, Narrative, and Dissociation. In Tense past : cultural essays in trauma and memory. P. Antze and M. Lambek. New York ; London, Routledge: 173-198.

Polandt-McCormick, Helena. 2000. “I Saw a Nightmare...” Violence and the Construction of Memory (Soweto, June 16,1976). History and Theory 39: 23-44.

Foxen, P. 2000. “Cacophony of Voices: A K'iche' Mayan Narrative of Remembrance and Forgetting.” Transcultural Psychiatry37(3): 355-381.

Additional readings

Kenny, Michael. 1996. Trauma, Time, Illness, and Culture. An Anthropological approach to Traumatic Memory. In: Antze, Paul and Michael Lambek (eds). Tense Past. Cultural Essays in Trauma and Memory. Pp. 151-171, London/ New York: Routledge.

Wood, N. 1999. Memory by analogy: Hiroshima, mon amour. In Vectors of Memory. Legacies of Trauma in Postwar Europe. Nancy Wood, pp. 185-196. Oxford, New York: Berg.

Week 9 Autobiographical memory: narrativity and cognition

Cappelletto, F. (2003). “Long-Term Memory of Extreme Events: From Autobiography to History.” JRAI (N.S.) 9: 241-260.

Bloch, M. 1998. Autobiographical Memory and the Historical Memory of the More Distant Past in How we think they think: anthropological approaches to cognition, memory, and literacy. Boulder, Colorado; Oxford, Westview Press; pp 114-127. plus Intro.

Additional readings

Neisser, U. 1994. Self-narratives: True and false. In The remembering self: Construction and accuracy in the self-narrative. U. Neisser and R. Fivush. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Skultans, V. 1998. Order in Narrative Experience. In The testimony of lives: narrative and memory in post-Soviet Latvia. London; New York, Routledge. Pp. 17-34.

Week 10 Embodied and Performative Memories

Cole, J. 1998. The Work of Memory in Madagascar. American Ethnologist25(4): 610-633.

Stoller, Paul. 1994. Embodying Colonial Memories. American Anthropologist 96(3): 634-648.

Strathem, Andrew. 1996. Habit or Habitus? Theories of Memory, the Body, and Change. In: Body Thoughts. Pp. 25-39. Ann Arbor; The University of Michigan Press.

Additíonal readings

Casey, Edward. 2000. Remembering: a Phenomenological Study. Bloomington/Indiana: Indiana University Press. Read Chapters 9 & 10: Body Memory & Place Memory; pp. 147- 215.

Connerton, Paul. 1989. Bodily Practices. In: How Societies Remember. pp. 72-104. Cambridge/ New York: Cambridge University Press.

Week 11 Mediums of memory and the problem of cultural transmission

Radley, Alan. 1990. Artefacts, Memory and a Sense of the Past. In: David Middelton and Derek Edwards (eds). Collective Remembering. Pp. 46-59. London/New Bury/New Delhi: Sage.

Hirsch, M. 1997. Mourning and Postmemory. In Family frames : photography, narrative, and postmemory. Cambridge, Mass.; London, Harvard University Press. Pp. 1-39.

Tschunggnall, Karoline, and Harald Welzer. 2002. Rewriting Memories: Family Recollections of the National Socialist Past in Germany. Culture and Psychology 8(l):130-145.

Additíonal readings

Huyssen, A. 1995. Monuments and Holocaust Memory in a Media Age. In Twilight memories: marking time in a culture of amnesia. Huyssen, A. pp. 249-260. New York; London: Routledge.

Parkin, David. 1999. Mementoes as Transitional Objects in Human Displacement. Journal of Material Culture 4(3): 303-320.

Young James, E. (2000). Introduction: The Holocaust as Vicarious Past. In At memory's edge: after-images of the Holocaust in contemporary art and architecture. New Haven; London, Yale University Press. Pp. 1-11.

Spiegelman, A. 1991. Maus: a survivor's tale. New York: Pantheon.

Week 12 Remembering and Forgetting

Forty, Adrian. 1999. Introduction. In: Forty, Adrian and Susanne Küchler (eds). The Art of Forgetting. Pp. 1-18. Oxford/ New York: Berg.

Brockmeier, Jens 2002. Remembering and Forgetting: Narrative as Cultural Memory. Culture & Psychology 8(1): 15-43.

Additional readings

Auge, M. 2004. Oblivion. Minneapolis, Minn.; London: University of Minnesota Press.

Battaglia, Deborah. 1993. At Play in the Fields (and Borders) of the Imaginary: Melaniesian Transformations of Forgetting. Cultural Anthropology 8: 430-442.

Carsten, Janet. 1995. The Politics of Forgetting: Migration, Kinship and Memory on the Periphery of the Southeast Asian State. Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute 1:3X7-335.

Films screenings related to the course:

Show Me (Mostrame) / Dir: Anneleen Hermans/ Belgium/ 2006/ 47 min.

http://www.dokument-festival.cz/mov_detail.phtml?mov_id=10914

The cemetery club (Mo'adon beit ha'kvarot) / Dir: Tali Shemesh/ Israel/ 2006/ 90 min.

http://www.idfa.nl/idfa_en_filmdescription.asp?filmid=12715

2 oder 3 Dinge, die ich von ihm weiss/ Dir: Malte Ludin / Germany / 2004/ 87 min.

http://www.verzio.ceu.hu/2005/eng/main/m01_23dolog.html

Pripryat ( Припять ) / Dir: Nikolaus Geyrhalter / Austria / 1999 / 100 min.

http://www.verzio.ceu.hu/2005/eng/main/m07_pripjaty.html

Hiroshima mon amour / Alain Resnais / France / 1959 / 90 min.