Memory

Henri Lustiger Thaler Ramapo College of New Jersey, USA and

C.A.D.I.S. of the Ecole des hautes études en science sociales, Paris, France

abstract The study of memory has emerged in the early 21st century as a broad interdisciplinary
endeavor across the social and physical sciences. This review critically examines the wide literature and
its relevance to the developing sociology of memory. It assesses as well the impact of globalization on
mnemonic based practices. The concluding section considers the interplay between individual and col-
lective memory, deeply embedded in memory studies, as it evaluates future directions and challenges.
keywords collective memory ◆ cosmopolitanism ◆ individual memory ◆ intersubjectivity
◆ mnemohistory

Introduction
In a review of Edward Shils’ (1981) book Tradition, inspects the social, physical, individual/subjective,
Lewis Coser (1982: 608) reminds us of Shils’ lament cultural, medial, political, collective and increasingly
that the social sciences were preoccupied by an exces- global associations with the past(s), from the multiple
sive present mindedness, a state of consciousness that vistas of the present, depending on the discipline of
has ‘kept scholars from recognizing the past roots of origin which bears its impress. This offers an opportu-
the present’. Shils’ point was that the Enlightenment nity for a sociology ready to venture beyond its classi-
birthright of sociology equated tradition with igno- cal boundaries and accompanying theoretical
rance, leaving little room to assess the impact of the inscriptions to engage themes that necessitate interdis-
past upon present thought. Shils was prescient in his ciplinary collaboration. Indeed, memory is now an
discontent. The current wave of memory research in established area of scholarly interest in philosophy,
sociology, the broader social sciences, the physical sci- comparative literature, poststructuralist psychoanaly-
ences and the humanities confirms his intuition. The sis, social psychology, psychology, anthropology and
early 20th-century impulsion in sociology to frame architecture. Debates in history have been particular-
the ‘past in the present’ began with Maurice ly pertinent in that they deal with methodological and
Halbwachs’ seminal research on collective memory. In theoretical problems poised at the intersection of col-
the late 20th century, the works of historians Josef lective and individual or personal memory: the sub-
Yerushalmi’s (1982) Zakkor and Pierre Nora’s (1984) stance of sociological inquiry. But, the relation of
Lieux de mémoire reinvigorated scholarly research in history to sociology is more profoundly reflexive and
memory as a topos in and of itself. Both explored the dynamic than this alone. Michel Wieviorka (2008)
eclipse of spontaneous as well as selective forms of col- has argued that the point of departure for historical
lective memory in addition to – and as a critique of – analysis, long associated with the nation-state, is fast
conventional history, its methodological techniques, becoming a societal form of contemplation, evinced
narrative exposition and didactic representations of by the reflexivity of new political and cultural actors,
the past. These historians of memory, like the first without any concessive clause to history as a dedicat-
sociologist of memory, Maurice Halbwachs, were doc- ed expertise about the past. The emergence of a glob-
umenting characteristics of a cultural shift: the open- al public, the information revolution and the inflated
ing once again of societal consciousness to the past as arena of self-narrating individuals – as witnesses and
it is remembered as opposed to the past as an object of victims – has reshaped contemporary historiography.
historical inquiry (Assmann, 1995). As a modern Wieviorka (2008: 217) rightly argues, ‘It is no longer
interdisciplinary inquiry, the study of memory society that is encased in history, but rather history is

Sociopedia.isa
© 2011 The Author(s)
© 2011 ISA (Editorial Arrangement of sociopedia.isa)

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now in society. History is, as never before, a stake The recent launch of the journal Memory
within society.’ Studies, dedicated to an interdisciplinary engage-
A particularly rich debate unfolded in journals ment with the field, as well as numerous edited col-
from the 1980s to the mid-1990s, in History and lections and overviews make available an enigmatic
Memory, History and Anthropology, American and wide-ranging bibliography, covering diverse the-
Historical Review and the interdisciplinary journal oretical and methodological questions: see, for exam-
Representations (Baker, 1985; Confino, 1997; Crane, ple, Thelen (1989), Kammen (1995), Assmann
1997; Davis and Starn, 1989; Funkenstein, 1989; (1995), Zerubavel (2003), Olick and Robbins
Nora, 1989). More recently, we see mnemonic inves- (1998), Erll and Nunning (2010), Kansteiner
tigations in media and communication studies, (2002), Hirst and Echterhoff (2008), Whitehead
museum studies, heritage and architecture, global (2009) and Radstone and Schwartz (2010).
studies as well as the physical and natural sciences, Noteworthy is The Collective Memory Reader by
particularly recent efforts to associate new discover- Olick et al. (2011). The lead editor Jeffrey Olick has
ies in brain science, linking neural physiology to cul- been an exemplar in advancing an ambitious theoret-
ture and socialization (Markowitch, 2005, 2010). ical project for reclaiming memory studies to its soci-
The interdisciplinary study of memory, in this broad ological roots. He and his co-editors perform a
sense, covers themes and topics as diverse as cogni- canonical task of bringing together classical and con-
tion to ‘myth, monuments, historiography, embod- temporary interdisciplinary texts to the topic, while
ied ritual and its symbolic structure of emotional strategically positioning sociology within its
intensity, conversational remembering, configura- expressed concerns. And indeed, as they rightly
tions of cultural knowledge and neuronal networks’ argue, the study of collective memory, without being
(Erll and Nunning, 2010: 1). A cottage industry of referred to as such, was already evident in the semi-
appended nomenclature – difficult to keep up with nal insights of 19th- and 20th-century sociological
– has emerged in Weberian ideal-type frames: terms thought, particularly in the problematique enunciat-
such as ‘prosthetic memory’ (Landsberg, 2004), ‘post ed in Emile Durkheim’s (1974) theory of collective
memory’ (Hirsch, 2008), ‘public memory’ (Philips, representations. Durkheim, the prima theorist of ‘the
2004), ‘cultural memory’ (Erll and Nunning, 2010), collective’ articulated at least one foundational plat-
‘embodied memory’ (Connerton, 1989), ‘recovered form for contemporary memory studies. Durkheim
memory’ (Sturken, 1997) ‘visual memory’ (Zelizer, (1974: 23) argued: ‘If representations, once they
1992), and so on. Some of these have become theo- exist, continue to exist in themselves, without their
retical signposts in research programs associated with existence being perpetually dependent upon the dis-
war memorials, Holocaust memory, the study of position of the neural centers, if they have the power
generational memory, reputational studies of historic to act directly upon each other, and to combine
figures and the development of national commemo- according to their own laws, they are then realities
rative practices (Lang and Lang, 1988; Lowenthal, which, while retaining an intimate relation with
1985; Wagner-Pacifici and Schwartz, 1991; Winter their substratum, are to a certain extent independent
and Sivan, 1999; Young, 1993). Research in the area of it.’ Daniele Hervieu-Leger (2000) states that
of memory and globalization is growing Durkheim’s work on religion underscores in no
(Appadurai, 1996; Bauman, 1998; Beck and uncertain terms the central role of ecclesiastical
Sznaider, 2006; Conway, 2008; Gentz and Kramer, memory as a ‘social fact’, and the very basis for cul-
2006; Hayes and Tombes, 2001; Huyssen, 2003; tural normativity. Hervieu-Leger furthermore argues
Nederveen Pieterse, 2010; Philips and Reyes, 2011). that the breakdown of traditional religious sentiment
Some of this work has been influenced by Ulrich opened the proverbial door to rationalization – the
Beck’s (2005, 2006) critique of methodological entry into early modernity – through the decon-
nationalism, the advent of modern cosmopolitanism struction of long-held religious beliefs that were until
and the latter’s effects upon the mnemonic founda- then definatory of human consciousness. Many of
tions of the nation-state (see Levy and Sznaider, these concerns, without the declarative mention of
2002). New research on the intersection of cos- the word ‘memory’, were already present in Karl
mopolitanism and geography (Harvey, 2009) as well Mannheim’s (1957) sociology of knowledge,
as a postcolonial critique internal to the cosmopoli- through his investigations of generations and gener-
tan approach, which argues that a global nomencla- ational units as containers for transmitting social
ture cannot be solely reserved for the ‘privileged experiences (see Schuman and Scott [1989] on
location of European thought’ (Breckenridge et al., memory transference in Mannheim’s work). Clearly,
2002), revealing yet another critical framework for the field of inquiry is wide, precipitating some schol-
memory studies, located in the conflict-laden past ars to express skepticism as to ‘terminological confu-
between East and West. sion’ and ‘semantic overload’ (Kansteiner, 2002;

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Klein, 2000). This review is limited in scope and which we build and share memories. Once again, the
intent, in that it focuses on issues directly pertinent dynamics behind this dual process are the presence
to a more general sociology, and the analytical and and/or temporal loss of culturally embodied mean-
empirical problem of memory studies within it. In ings. The study of memory provides the temporal
the ‘Future directions’ section, I examine the highly dimension often undertheorized in sociology
socialized construction of collective memory – and (Jedlowski, 2001). The sociology of culture
challenges to it in the epoch of globalization – (Spillman and Conway, 2007) has perhaps been the
through a reinscription of the individual within the one exception to this tendency. In the interests of
collective, and a recognition of the ‘mnemonic theorizing historical continuity, Barry Schwartz
moment’ as a core problem of intersubjectivity. (2008) contends that collective memory is integral to
culture’s meaning-making apparatus and therefore
part of a meaning-conferring cultural system embed-
Overview of theoretical approaches ded in time, place and historical consciousness. This
underscores what for Schwartz is the basic impulse
Theories of memory exist under multiple hats. for collective memory: the need to transcend and
Movement between these disciplinary vernaculars, transfigure individual existence.
while making memory a ‘travelling concept’ (Bal, The closely parsed relation between individual
2002: 24), must also come with some cautionary and collective memory was at the center of Maurice
provisos in that these wellsprings are constructed Halbwachs’ (1992) sociological insight, which
with different goals in mind. While variegated remains largely undisputed today. Individual memo-
sources of origin increase the intellectual weight of ry always occurs through mediated forms of group
the field, they also create theoretical disorder (Olick membership: or, stated differently, without group
and Robbins, 1998) by confusing levels of analysis membership there is no individual memory. Both
through ‘category mistakes’ (Irwin-Zarecka, 1994). Maurice Halbwachs and the less recognized scholar
Aside from the contemporary abundance of memo- of memory, art historian Aby Warburg (in
ry-based research, another source for the current Gombrich, 1970), addressed similar concerns sur-
ascent is that memory has increasingly become a pro- rounding social memory in the 1920s. Both were
fessional curatorial practice in the interests of nation- instrumental in detaching memory from the then
states, their state museums, Foundations, memorials, prevalent phylogenetic framework, by basing it upon
Truth and Reconciliation Committees, heritage- socialization and culture (Assmann, 1995). Jeffrey
based groups and organizations, global movements, Olick (1999) offers an insightful analysis of the con-
human rights forums, even highly aesthetic global- ceptual disorder that exists between different itera-
ized art forms – more inspired by Emmanuel tions of individual and collective memory. He
Levinas, Jacques Derrida and the force of the inter- underlines two distinct yet interrelated cultures of
national art market, than Maurice Halbwachs, wit- memory analysis: one focused on the aggregation of
nessed by the recent success of the artist Anish socially framed individual memories, and the other
Kapoor’s Memory project (Chakravorty Spivak, referring to collective phenomena. Olick identifies a
2009; Lustiger Thaler, 2009). In the ‘global rush tension in Halbwachs’ work wherein separate
to commemorate’ (Williams, 2007) these practices streams of individual and collective memory are left
develop through vastly different logics and audi- underrelated. He argues that identifying the individ-
ences, than analytical work per se in the social ual or collective focus of memory research is critical
sciences. for both conceptual and methodological clarity:
How the memory of collectives is sustained over ‘This is because two radically different concepts of
time was posed by Paul Connerton, in his now clas- culture are involved here, one that sees culture as a
sic How Societies Remember (1989). Connerton subjective category of meaning contained in people’s
argued that societies recall through acts of physical minds versus one that sees culture as patterns of
embodiment. Embodiment, as cultural performance, publically available symbols objectified in society’
is central to the process of memory in that physical- (1999: 336). These are expressed as ‘collected mem-
ly incorporated practices are transmitted in and as ories’ (an aggregate of individual memories) and ‘col-
traditions (see also Hobsbawm and Ranger, 1983). lective memories’ (aggregate effects which cannot be
In a more recent work, entitled How Modernity reduced to individual memories). Wulf Kansteiner
Forgets (2009), Connerton explores the contrary the- (2002) using these same two categories of collected
sis of how changes in modern society affect our abil- and collective memory makes the logical extension
ity to socially remember. Memory depends on the of this argument. While Halbwachs’ insight that
stability and sociability of place, as well as clearly individual memory cannot be conceived outside of
defined social relationships, the foundations upon collective memory, the opposite is not the case.

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Collective memories cannot be accessed through (1925) a conceptual space for multiplicity, and hence
individual memory. Collective memory, he argues, is multiple collective memories. At any rate, the above
more dependent on the political interest and oppor- theoretical reformulations represent but a layering of
tunities of the present. It will, eventually, through some of the theoretical issues, elicited by an interdis-
the passage of time and generational change become ciplinary field of inquiry, which views as its task to
disembodied and reappear as ‘low intensity memo- explain mnemonic processes. In this next section, I
ries’ which are composed of widely shared represen- concentrate on two areas of empirical research: (1)
tations and supported by political and cultural the intersection of memory, politics and reputation
interests, till the next process of generational change studies and (2) the nation-state and sites of memory.
unfolds and comes to fruition.
An expansion of Halbwachs’ concept of collective
memory is found in Jan Assmann’s (2005) corrective. Empirical evidence
Assmann develops the concept mnemohistory as the
study of how the past is remembered as opposed to Scholarly production in the politics of memory
the past as and object of inquiry as such. explores the compendium of ‘available pasts’ for
Mnemohistory examines diachronic and synchronic individuals, groups, local and global movements,
continuities and discontinuities: referring to narrato- memory choreographers and entrepreneurs as well as
logical changes within the course of time, posi- national and religious institutions (Conway, 2008;
tioned against things as they exist within a given Jansen, 2007). It was again Halbwachs who theo-
period of time. Assmann theorizes two mnemonic rized the departure point for many of these explo-
layers within collective memory: cultural memory rations, through his notion of ‘presentism’ referring
and communicative memory. Communicative mem- to the use of a highly malleable past in the service of
ory – synchronic memory – is distinguished by its the present. Views on presentism vary widely. Barry
temporal horizon. Limited in nature, it lasts around Schwartz (1982) and Lewis Coser (1992: 26) have
four generations. It is further distinguished by prox- indicated that Halbwachs’ ‘presentist’ approach,
imity to the everyday. Cultural memory – diachron- pushed to its limit, would offer little sense of conti-
ic memory – functions in a diametrically opposite nuity to history, indicating the need for a more
manner. It is marked by distance from everyday life. measured position wherein ‘historical memory has
It has a capacity to reconstruct the past, through self- both cumulative and presentist elements’. Hutton
objectification, and thereby produce a normative (1993) has argued that Halbwachs’ decentering
self-image that is reflexive. Cultural memory there- notion of presentism (the power of the present to
fore requires preservation, the archive, the canon as frame/interpret the past and then redirect it as a rep-
well as a ritualized embodiment of the commemora- resentation of the past) anticipated the fragmenta-
tive act itself. It is therefore part of the way remem- tion of master narratives, presaging the postmodern
bering, as a cultural process, is mediated across time turn in the social sciences and humanities.
and space, as it gathers and engenders meaning. Both Presentism, in this regard, has been an operational as
comprise the realm of collective memory and there- well as sensitizing concept (Blumer, 1954), for both
by broaden Halbwachs’ early conceptualization. instrumentalist and constructionist/meaning-mak-
Alon Confino (2010) argues that Halbwachs’ ing approaches. As Olick and Robbins (1998) argue:
came to the conclusion that individual memory was ‘The former see memory entrepreneurship as a
composed of a multiplicity of pasts residing within manipulation of the past for particular purposes,
the consciousness of the social actor. Individuals are where the latter see selective memory as an inevitable
the carriers of multiple memories based on nation, consequence in that we interpret the world – includ-
family and religion. It is group membership, howev- ing the past – on the basis of our own experience and
er, that maintains the living link to memory, with within cultural frameworks.’ The now classic state-
individuals as conduits for remembering. Not every- ment of Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983) on invented
one has such a sanguine view of Halbwachs’ legacy tradition, in the service of political expediency and
(Gedi and Elam, 1996). Halbwachs’ approach also legitimacy after the Great War, is an example of the
remains problematic for critics such as Erll and instrumentalist position (see the research on invent-
Nunning (2010). Erll and Nunning (2010: 4) are ed traditions in contemporary Israel; Yael Zerubavel,
wary of the residual power of the ‘collective’ idiom in 1995). The cultural analysis of Spillman and
Halbwachs’ work, and prefers the term cultural Conway (2007) on the intersection of memory,
memory – understood as ‘accentuating the connec- embodiment and text is an example of the construc-
tion of memory on the one hand to socio-cultural tionist tendency. Schwartz (1996) in reference to this
contexts on the other’. In spite of this broader cri- division stresses that both positions (instrumentalists
tique, Halbwachs did articulate in a later work and cultural constructionists) have more in common

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than is apparent, in that they equally accept the Thaler, 2008; Winter, 2006).
premise of the past as a dependent variable, that is to The study of historical figures has been a strong
say a product of presentist interests, as opposed to focus in memory research, certainly in the United
the more productive concern with degrees and varia- States (see Larson and Lizardo [2007] on Che
tions of malleability. Scholars analyzing the mal- Guevara). Barry Schwartz (1997), an early and cen-
leability of the past have reframed the discussion of tral contributor to the memory literature in sociolo-
memory as a processual phenomenon, thereby his- gy, has looked at commemorative symbolism in the
toricizing the question of constraints as well as African American community through which
opportunities (Olick, 1999; Olick and Levy, 1997; Lincoln was transformed from a conservative in the
Olick and Robbins, 1998; Zelizer, 1992). Jim Crow era to the personification of racial justice.
Schudson (1989) has argued, in his investigation Commemorative practice has the power to transcend
of the Watergate Affair, that regardless of the recon- ‘the complexities of actual history’. Quoting the
figuring power of memory, the past remains durable. philosopher Susanne K Langer (1957: 133),
The re-representation of history by collective memo- Schwartz states that the commemorative impulse
ry does not occur without resistance. History, like resides in the power of ‘formulating experience, and
remembrance, is a selective process, as well as being presenting it objectively for contemplation’ (1997:
an ideological resource for groups in the present. 473). He cautions, however, against the reduction
Iconic historical events and personalities in the histo- of social or collective memory to a politics of mem-
ry of the nation-state are examples of this phenome- ory. Schwartz insists that the temporal essence of
non: for example, the history of slavery in the United memory is associated with how the past is woven
States, the assassination of President John F Kennedy into an ongoing process of change. Wagner-Pacifici
in American public consciousness, or the je me sou- and Schwartz (1991) examine the mnemonic associ-
viens dictum printed on car license plates in the ations surrounding the Vietnam War Memorial.
Canadian province of Québec, recalling the loss of They look at processes through which meaning and
French sovereignty to the British, on the Plains of culture are produced as a backdrop for expressing
Abraham. Every society performs its cultural recol- dissenting views and their validation in public con-
lections in distinctive and diagnostic ways sciousness. The memorial has emerged as a narrato-
(Terdiman, 1993), suggesting an array of diverse logical search for the multiple meanings of the war.
political interests, shifts in the temporal meanings of For Wagner-Pacifici and Schwartz, efforts to memo-
historical figures and events and their incorporation rialize a difficult history calls into question
within a variety of present-oriented mnemonic Durkheim’s position that moral unity is the penulti-
strategies and techniques. These determine the mate goal of commemoration. For Marita Sturken
valiance of constraints and opportunities in any (1991) the Vietnam War Memorial is indicative of
given situation, which rely on specific readings of the two contesting ethics in conflict, played out within
past. The history of conflicts around memorials, the memorial itself; one an imperialist masculine
wartime sites of destruction and sites associated with representation of the soldier, the other a discourse of
gross human rights violations, such as the Great War, remembrance of the veterans and their families. The
the Second World War, the Holocaust, genocide, the memorial therefore legitimates two mnemonic nar-
Vietnam War, attest to the value of the processual ratives, as they ‘attempt to conceal and to offer them-
approach outlined by Olick (1999; Olick and Levy, selves as the primary narrative, while they provide a
1997; Olick and Robbins, 1998) and empirically screen for projections of a multitude of memories
confirmed in the works of Young (1993) and and individual interpretations’.
Lustiger Thaler and Wiedemann (in press). This sug- War memorials have been a rich subject of mem-
gests that historicizing memory provides a temporal ory research (Evans and Lunn, 1997; Mayo, 1988;
tableau of knowledge about human agency, or what Mosse, 1986). Winter (2006) argues that modern
Assmann has called mnemohistory (the study of warfare has created the conditions wherein the histo-
how the past is remembered as opposed to the past rian or social scientist is no longer the sole actor
as an object of inquiry as such). It is through an determining representation. Victims narrate them-
examination of mnemonic discourses and agencies, selves into mnemohistory, recounting personal sto-
over time, that we come to understand the intersub- ries at the crossroads of powerful collective
jective meanings associated with past mental frame- representations. These personal recollections are cap-
works, the role of historical figures, events, as well tured in witness genres, through video and audio-
the mnemonic materiality and cultural lives of arti- based testimony (Holocaust-based testimonies as
facts, now the common coin of debate in memorial well as the Latin American tradition of testimonia
museums (on conflicts surrounding memorial muse- have been exemplars of this) and memoir
ums, see Appadurai, 1986; Crane, 2000; Lustiger (Friedlander, 1993; Hartman, 1993; Hirsch, 2008;

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Langer, 1991). The cultural historian and critic memories of the aggrieved, which these Committees
Andreas Huyssen (2003) argues that much of his cannot fully share, and indeed presage a growing
own thinking about memory is driven by skepticism concern about the effectiveness of TRCs up against
as to the overstated role of victim trauma in the the predicament of ‘pardoning the unpardonable’
memory literature. Huyssen (2003: 8) argues: ‘too (Derrida and Wieviorka, 2001).
much of the contemporary memory discourse focus- The conflict-laden process inherent to the trans-
es on the personal – on testimony, memoir, subjec- ference of memory has been examined by Ducharme
tivity, traumatic memory – either in poststructuralist and Fine (1995) in an investigation of negative
psychoanalytic perspectives or in attempts to shore- sources for societal cohesion. The authors examine
up a therapeutic popular sense of the authentic and how the commemoration of negative events and dis-
experiential’. Huyssen, however, ignores how subjec- reputable reputations, in this case the treason narra-
tive invocations of memory – through the continuity tive of Benedict Arnold, contributes to American
and discontinuity of historical processes, as well as social solidarity. Schudson’s (1989) study of the
the experiential shaping of the past endemic to gen- Watergate Affair in American memory documents
erational transformation – create novel contexts for multiple versions of the scandal in the public’s collec-
empathy, sympathy, intuition and intentionality, all tive memory. Zelizer (1992) examines the Kennedy
critical components of an intersubjective world. The assassination in American consciousness, through
work of cartoonist Art Spiegelman’s Maus: A the lens of the cultural authority of the media as an
Survivor’s Tale as second-generation Holocaust mem- exemplar of mnemonic management. Vinitsky-
ory is a case in point, in which antagonists (Nazis) Seroussi (2010) examines the fragmented process of
and protagonists (Jews) are imagined as cats and commemorating difficult pasts that hold little collec-
mice, and narrated within a genre from Spiegelman’s tive resolution as in the commemorative date of the
youth, the golden age of the comic book. Lastly, sur- Yitzak Rabin assassination. The author brings to the
vivor testimony, now part of the canonical archive, Israeli case what Wagner-Pacifici and Schwartz
deposits unique individual traces within broad his- (1991) and Sturken (1997) have similarly brought to
torical and mnemonic processes, and represents in an understanding of the mnemonic navigation of
many cases the sole counterpoint to the overt collec- difficult pasts in the USA. A particularly astute crit-
tivization of events, wherein individual memory ic of memorials, James Young (2000), in his capacity
becomes subsumed within the politics and identity as an appointed member of the Findungskommission
concerns of collective memory (Lustiger Thaler, for the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, has argued
2008, 2009). whether the then intended site in the Potsdamer
In a consideration of the generational transfer- Platz would not so much mark the memory of the
ence of mnemonic knowledge within feminism, murders, as bury it altogether. For Young, the value
Luisa Passerini advances the discussion by invoking of the German national debate around the Memorial
the othered voice and its relation to memory, brings to the fore the labyrinthine complexity of his-
through an appeal to an intersubjectivity that is both torical amnesia, regarding the Holocaust, within the
articulated and fragmented in one and the same context of the current German nation-state.
moment. She argues for ‘sending a message which is Memory and the nation-state are closely articu-
neither authoritarian nor authoritative but rather lated and represent a baseline for thinking through
suspended, incomplete – the opposite of the message the problem of collective remembrance. Gillis
of the veteran or the survivor. Not: you who have not (1994), in an excellent edited collection on com-
lived that experience cannot understand – unless you memoration and the nation-state, brings together
listen to me, but: I cannot understand my experience writers such as John Bodner, David Lowenthal, Yael
unless you take it up and propose your meaning for Zerubavel, Claudia Koonz and others. In his
it’ (Passerini, 2000; see also Passerini, 2007). This Introduction, Gillis argues that the development of
returns us to the centrality of the individual voice as memory, commemorative practices and mnemonic
a critical interpreter/interlocutor within an intersub- techniques, across a wide berth of nations, were fun-
jective/intergenerational field, and not as a mere damental to the rebuilding of Western European
proxy for the veteran or survivor, nor as a surrogate national identities. One can also argue the accompa-
for a ‘therapeutic popular sense of the authentic and nying thesis, that the memory boom unleashed in
experiential’, but a separate field of ongoing mean- 1989, particularly in Mitteleuropa contributed to
ing-making about the past in the present. Androff the complexities of currently unresolved and com-
(2008) has shown how the individual voice within peting national identities. The problem of memory
the political sphere of reconciliation, taking place and the nation-state was perhaps most definitively
before Truth and Reconciliation Committees posed by Pierre Nora (1984) in his magisterial state-
(TRCs), stands as a stark reminder of the difficult ment on French memory in his Lieux de mémoire

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series. For Nora, the milieux de mémoire – as a form society, expressed at the national level, and examine
of naturalized collective memory – has become self- mnemonic divisions on the local and regional levels.
consciously externalized as a site, a lieu, which has These authors (Lustiger Thaler and Wiedemann, in
since expired. Memory is now contained in con- press: 47) focus on the gaming of constraints within
scious preservationist techniques: national heritage German civil society, wherein successful efforts were
sites, the canonical archive, museum and speeches. made by right-wing forces to memorialize ‘the names
Memory as living experience has been overcome by of the fallen or missing German soldiers, women
the professionalization of the past, with history as its who assisted the German “defence forces”, Red Cross
authoritative voice. Nora has influenced a vast array workers, victims of Allied air-strikes as well as those
of comparative international research on sites of who were part of the forced relocation campaign’.
memory. His work has been useful in understanding Indeed, these amnesiac-like proclivities in German
19th-century identity politics, particularly in Europe civil society impeded the funding and development
and the rise of contemporary ethnic identity claims of memorials at sites of destruction – associated with
(see Isnenghi [2010] for the application of the Lieux former concentration camps – to the victims of the
de mémoire for the Italian case; Jacques Le Rider Holocaust.
[2010] for the case of Mitteleuropa; and Hebel As mentioned earlier, in reference to Lewis Coser
[2010] for the American case). For Nora, what dissi- and Barry Schwartz’s correctives, memory is a politi-
pates is spontaneous memory – the lived experience cal, cultural and social phenomenon produced by
of a relationship to the past – crowded out by preser- dynamics in the present – political pragmatism – as
vationist representations: recalling Halbwachs’ chill- well as selective memory constructs from the past(s).
ing image of history as a crowded cemetery, with These carry both constraints and enablers, and are
room constantly made vacant for new tombstones deeply tied to processes, unfolding differentially,
(quoted in Crane, 1997). In spite of the important dependent on time, place and political/cultural con-
critique of history offered by Nora, Lieux de text. Memory, in this sense, remains an open
mémoire also underlines a self-conscious conserva- inquiry as to which remembrances are being accessed
tive valorization of a nation-state in crisis. Nora’s for use in the present, particularly within a global
Lieux de mémoire inevitably emerges as a melan- context. Research questions abound. Can there be
cholic narrative for French memory and identity. As something like a universalist memory which escapes
Pim den Boer (2010: 21) rightly argues, ‘Most Lieux Western or Eastern reductionism, a global ethical
de mémoire were primarily part of the identity poli- space for successful recognition and forgiveness
tics of the French nation and functioned to imprint (Margalit, 2002: 208)? And, if so, which life experi-
the key notions of national history on the outillage ences are being recognized and retrieved? These cat-
mental (set of mental tools) of French citizens’. egories themselves have become reanimated as a
Indeed, it was the prospect of future European inte- result of the differentiated effects of uneven global
gration that spurred Nora to begin the project of cre- processes, challenges to both democratic and despot-
ating a mnemonic inventory. The study of memory, ic systems, weaker systems of hegemony, growing
as the empirical research demonstrates, allows us to multi-polarity, new geographies of trade and a grow-
view the malleability of identities and their possible ing public ‘social distrust’ surrounding weakened
iterations. Debates in the sociology of memory, its sovereign states. From the standpoint of a global per-
cultural constraints and opportunities, are empirical spective, particularly in contemporary post-conflict
examples of this broader question. Olick and Levy societies (Africa, Latin America), one can speak of
(1997) have made the case that the memory of the ‘too much memory’, or alternatively not enough.
Holocaust constrained and limited political claims- Certainly, most would agree that we are in the throes
making in the Federal Republic of Germany. While of several competing globalizations underscoring
certainly this has been true for a portion of the highly differentiated spatial, economic, cultural and
German postwar political experience, the opposite personal subject positions and locations. The inter-
thesis presents itself as well. Brian Conway (2008), section of memory and the cosmopolite heralds a
in an examination of the case of Bloody Sunday in new research field in the conflict-laden globalization
Ireland, is more circumspect as to the weight of past of memory (Beck, 2006). This intersection has his-
constraints in highly politicized contexts. In the torical precedents. Karl Jaspers’ insights regarding
Bloody Sunday case, Conway argues that it was the the Axial Age, 800–200 BCE (Armstrong, 2006),
political pragmatism of the times, and its selective characterized by transregional cultural transforma-
drawing upon the past, which trumped constraints tion and hybridity, brings our current moment into
of the past and the Republican memories of that focus. Eric Voegelin (see Price and Von Lochner,
terrible day. Other assessments of the German case 2000) has similarly called the Axial Age the ‘Great
focus less on strategic constraints within political Leap of Being’ precipitated by a shift from societal to

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individual values and freedoms (see also Sheldon problematic of empirical history, and develops inter-
Pollack’s [2006] discussion of Sanskrit cosmopoli- subjective epistemologies and imaginaries for receiv-
tanism and the much later ascent of Latin in Europe, ing history as it is remembered. As an empirical
which radically changed local, regional, national and concept, the closely parsed relationship of individual
international vernaculars, culture and mnemonic subjectivity, intersubjectivity and ‘the collective
processes). These earlier non-Western indices have a memory’ – mediated by power differentials, politics
sobering effect on the European problematic of and cultural specificity – underscores innovative
modernity and its ‘universal’ quality, as we move for- research questions pertaining to the mobile mean-
ward in yet a new era of cosmopolitan ing(s) of the past in the context of the present.
globalization(s) between East and West (Dudden, This begs a broader issue, in terms of the analyt-
2008; Gallicchio, 2007; Kwon, 2008; Nederveen ical component alluded to above and how it critical-
Pieterse, 2006; Norindr, 1996; Rozman, 2004). In a ly addresses the oversocialized understanding of
critical assessment of cosmopolitanism, Jan collective memory, and the abstracted personhood it
Nederveen Pieterse (2007) has argued, ‘there is no tables. Let us turn for a moment to the insight of the
cosmopolitanism without access to the collective moral philosopher Wilfried Sellers’ (1977) and his
memory of others. A cosmopolitanism that is notion of the ‘we-intention’. For Sellers the ‘we-
informed from one part of the world only, that intention’ underscores a process of historical narra-
monopolizes the world in a single language such as tion that poses the question: ‘who are we, how did
Human Rights or a single cultural system, is not cos- we come to be what we are, and what might we
mopolitan but hegemony.’ become’, rather than an answer to the question,
‘what rules should dictate my actions’ (Sellers,
1989). The ‘we-intention’ offers a useful critique of
Future directions: globalization, Durkheim’s notion of solidarity. The latter carries
intersubjectivity and collective within it the ‘we’ locution – ‘as one of us’ – but dra-
memory matically understates the ‘they’ accusation, which
defines one as not belonging. The work of Luisa
It is at precisely this juncture that we see future direc- Passerini (2000, 2007) on the recognition of shared
tions for memory research within a global context. or shareable narratives (shared referring to the past
Allan Megill (2007) has identified an interesting and shareable referring to the proleptic character of
conduit linking memory to the increasingly insecure memory to be future oriented) offers not only a way
identities of the nation-state and the rise of individ- to think about globalized applications of local or
ualism. Relying on Benedict Anderson’s (1983) national memories, but also a way forward in the
notion of ‘imagined communities’, he argues the individual/collective dilemma of ‘memory as exclu-
converse of Halbwachs’ dictum – which intimates sion’ posed by Sellers. Sharable narratives reintro-
that identities create collective memory. Megill’s duce the ‘remembering individual’ into a state of
(2007) point is that in a period of an increasing non- tension with the narrative of collective memory, as
fixity of identity, memory emerges as a practice that the dialectic of subjectivity and intersubjectivity are
constitutes identities, rather than being constituted mapped onto cultural and political memory through
by it. Perhaps more germane, he addresses the ten- the transference of generational knowledge. What
sion between history and memory by reframing the can be shared, narrated and critically renarrated
relationship of individual to collective memory (sharable) emerges as an empirical question (see
through the problem of subjectivity. Megill (2007: Armstrong [2002] on the gay and lesbian move-
196) states, ‘far from being history’s raw material, ments and their variegated remembrances in differ-
memory is an “other” that haunts history. It is thus ing spatially located communities regarding
by definition subjective; it may also be irrational and selfhood). It potentially captures multiple individu-
inconsistent.’ Indeed, one can make the argument alized memories of ‘the other’ in conflict with the
that what Megill identifies as subjective is more accu- collective representation. Passerini gives an example
rately intersubjective, insofar as subjectivity emerges worth briefly mentioning. She cites the work of
from intersubjective fields, which frame our cultural Shalid Amin (1995) on the Chauri Chaura con-
experiences. Memory as such occupies two distinct frontations between police and peasants in 1922,
horizons: the analytical and the empirical. First, it is wherein the peasants resorted to violence in the
an analytical concept, in that it is immersed at the name of Ghandi, forcing Ghandi to call off the
very core of social transformation and the constitu- Noncooperation movement in order to restore non-
tion of self, abetted by the cultural capacity to pro- violence. Amin challenges both the colonial version
duce new knowledge about differentiation and of the event, as well as the commonly held narrative
conflict, as it separates itself from the positivist of the Great Freedom Struggle in postcolonial

8
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memory by introducing the internal multiplicity of that same generational cohort, regarding remem-
memory; as it highlights difficult features of conflict brances and meanings assigned to a shared, if not
(ongoing today with tremendous global and region- sharable past. Memory studies, through thick
al impacts and consequences) by internally differen- description, expose the deeply rooted pillars of the
tiated memories of collective action among Muslims, classic dualistic construct in sociology. In contrast to
as well as the externally differentiated intersubjective the latter, is the possibility of thinking through a the-
relations between Muslim and Hindu. ory of memory which examines intersubjective
Most insightfully, Passerini (2000) suggests that mnemonic fault-lines, relations of fixity and non-fix-
individual memories can have different destinies: ‘It ity to an ascribed past, and their local, regional and
can become a weapon within a collective identity, or global forms of containment, within what we today
be subjected to a long elaboration, moving towards a understand as collective memory.
re-definition of the terms, individual and collective.’ As mentioned earlier, memory studies replay the
Passerini’s intuition exposes the internal contradic- 19th-century sociological impulse to privilege the
tions of collective memory particularly in regard to collective over the individual, based on the imma-
how the socialized ‘we’ abstracts individual memory nent critique of methodological individualism. Two
in the construction of powerful collective representa- influential theories in the 20th century, reviewed ear-
tions. Wilfrid Sellers’ point is confirmed by Michel lier in this article, have similar mnemonic logics:
Foucault’s admonition that the only alternative to a Maurice Halbwachs’ transitional category of ‘autobi-
hyper-socialized society is in making the future for- ographical memory’ and Jan Assmann’s similarly
mation of a diversified ‘we’, possible by elaborating transitional notion of ‘communicative memory’.
the question (Rabinow, 1984: 385). Alain Touraine They are transitional in the sense that both are des-
(2010) makes a similar point, but from the perspec- tined to be social or cultural artifices. Memory stud-
tive of systems and subjects. Touraine argues that ies begin with the ‘I’ and very quickly progresses to
subjects are endowed with universal rights, not sys- the normative ‘we’. Our current period of globaliza-
tems, highlighting a wellspring for articulating glob- tion makes many of these premises controversial, as
al concerns about values. Individuals, he argues, are we witness a deep transformation of the nation-state
‘the ultimate warrants of successful societies, charac- and sovereignty, accelerating specificity, reflexivity
terized by a high degree of free participation in pub- and particularism, all indicators of clusters of inter-
lic life’ (2010: 14). Located in the context of subjective relations challenging declining forms of
memory studies, this culturally embedded sense of social solidarity and their associated mnemonic rep-
self – the quest for freedom and social individuation resentations. Globalization has in this sense decen-
as intrinsic values – rests on the dynamics and out- tered individual and collective texts and practices, as
comes of multiple intersubjective relations and their memories become ever more exposed and frictional.
concealed/embedded sets of associations within The sociology of memory, from the legacy of
nations-states, societies and collective memories. Maurice Halbwachs onwards, may indeed discover
This layered multiplicity of mnemonic sources its best efforts to be less draped in the opposition
requires an immanent critique of the dualism inher- between the aggregation of individual mnemonic
ent to the individual and collective dichotomy, practices, on the one hand, and reified mnemonic
through the elaboration of a critical third space of representations on the other, but rather in a critical
mnemonic activity, an intersubjective site for re-evaluation of the subjective and intersubjective
remembering within the cauldron of collective mem- encapsulated in the memory of the collective. A
ory (see Ogden’s [1997: 30] discussion of an ‘inter- repositioning of the individual and collective
subjective analytical third’ in poststructural dichotomy may prove to be a useful direction for a
psychoanalysis; see also Winnicott [1969] for a dis- critical sociology of memory cognizant of the glob-
cussion of a ‘third area of experiencing’). Applied to al/local heterogeneity in which we live, and the shift-
sociological inquiry, this highlights the complex ing paradigms within which we labor. As the
interplay of the ‘individual and collective qua indi- philosopher Richard Rorty (1989) has elegantly rea-
vidual and collective’ in constituting this third space soned in an assessment of a Platonic maxim, one that
of experiencing (see Ogden, 1997: 30) and has likely been lost to memory itself: ‘what is most
mnemonic activity in the face of ongoing intersub- important to each of us is what we have in common
jective relations over time, their cultural iterations, with others: that the springs of private fulfillment
identities, issues of power and conflict, for example; and human solidarity are the same’.
between individuals with more or less cohesive ideo-
logical leanings within a single generational cohort
and highly differentiated subject positions within

9
 Lustiger Thaler Memory

Annotated further reading European context. Important issues investigated

range from the relation of the gendered past to the
Connerton P (2009) How Modernity Forgets. Cambridge: present; feminist theory and the new social
Cambridge University Press. movements; the changing nature of European
This book explores the concept of forgetting. The identity and memory; and the more inclusive
main thesis of the book is that forgetting is environment that has emerged for women since
characteristic of modern capitalist societies. Cities 1968. For Passerini, the emergence of women as
have become so large that they appear unmemorable. subjects is based on the growing intersubjectivity of
In addition, consumerism has been disconnected human relations generally.
from the labor process, creating a gap in how we Schwartz B (2008) Abraham Lincoln in the Post Heroic
share our life memories. Era: History and Memory in the Late 20th Century.
Coser L (ed.) (1992) Maurice Halbwachs: On Collective Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Memory. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Barry Schwartz documents the mnemonic decline of
Lewis Coser, in a widely distributed and authoritative Abraham Lincoln in the post-heroic era. Through
volume, examines the seminal contributions of gathering an enormous array of sources, Schwartz
Maurice Halbwachs. This was the first associates the decline of the memory of heroic figures
comprehensive exposé of Halbwachs’ work in the as concomitant with the cultural changes occurring
English language. Coser underscores Halbwachs’ in America in the decades following the Second
central thesis, which remains powerful today: that World War; the lessening of traditional patriotism
human memory can only function within a collective associated with the Vietnam War; the recognition of
context and evoked by accounts of significant past the plight of minorities; and, a general
events by individuals, groups and collectives. disenchantment with the American state. The
Hirst W (ed.) (2008) Collective memory and collective cultural diversification of America made it difficult
identity. Social Research 77(1). for the broader and more inclusive category of
This issue surveys a broad collection of the foremost Americans to identify with singular heroic figures.
scholars on the subject of collective memory. Jeffrey Wieviorka M (2008) Neuf leçons de sociologie. Paris:
Olick examines the problems of cultural transmission Robert Laffond.
in Freud’s Moses and Monotheism to Jan Assmann’s This is a general book on modern sociology with an
theory of cultural memory to Maurice Halbwachs’ excellent chapter (Ch. 6, ‘History, nation and
grappling with collective memory; Aleida Assmann society’) on memory and history. Wieviorka argues,
looks at the relationship between autobiographical that the interpellation between history and society
and collective memory. She makes an important has fundamentally changed. As history becomes more
distinction between informal and official memory. reflexive, it enters a process of separation from its
Assmann argues that changes have occurred in the founding theme, the nation-state. History is
memory-based literature in the past years: becoming a practice which is more and more
‘characterized by the move from monumental to self- confronted and implicated in the diverse collective
critical narratives and from isolationist narratives to and personal identities that the nation-state has
those that connect to others in a transnational and repressed. This transformation emerges, through the
global perspectives’; William Hirst and Gerald ascent of memory. Historians are in this regard
Echteroff examine the social psychological processes themselves part of a process of social and cultural
of the transference of memory and the convergence fragmentation, and the steady progress of
of individual memories in relation to the collective individualism.
expressions of memory. Many other useful Zerubavel E (2003) Time Maps. Chicago, IL: University
contributions are included in the dedicated issue. of Chicago Press.
Margalit A (2002) The Ethics of Memory. Cambridge, Eviatar Zerubavel offers an original and innovative
MA: Harvard University Press. cognitive approach to how history takes shape in the
Avishai Margalit addresses complex confrontations annals of collective memory. Zerubavel examines the
within memory in terms of ethical and moral structure of collective memory by examining
memory. He divides human relations in terms of cognitive patterns used to organize the past, mental
thick (family, country-men and -women, friends) and strategies to bring lucidity and logic to narratives of
thin relations (relations we keep with remote others, the past, as well investigating the social grammar of
the rest of humanity). He makes an argument that memory that mediates conflicting understandings of
the proper place of memory is in the ‘thin’ relations the past.
of ethics, not morality. Moral memory is reserved for
gross human rights violations such as genocide.
Margalit argues that humanity cannot sustain, at References
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Henri Lustiger Thaler is a cultural sociologist. He is Professor of Cultural Sociology at

Ramapo College of New Jersey and Research Associate at C.A.D.I.S. of the Ecole des hautes
études en science sociales, Paris, France. He is the author of the forthcoming book Orthodox
Memories of the Holocaust to be published by Yale University Press. [email:
[email protected]]

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 Lustiger Thaler Memory

résumé L’étude de la mémoire s’impose au début du XXI ème siècle comme un courant inter-
disciplinaire entre les sciences sociales et les sciences physiques. Cet essai critique examine l’étendue de la
littérature et sa pertinence en rapport avec la sociologie de la mémoire. Il évalue aussi les effets de la
globalisation sur les pratiques à caractère mnémonique. La conclusion se penche sur l’interaction entre la
mémoire collective et la mémoire individuelle, solidement ancrée dans les études de la mémoire, tout en
examinant les perspectives et les défis de l’avenir.
mots-clés inter-subjectivité ◆ mémoire collective ◆ mémoire individuelle ◆ mnémo-histoire ◆ sens
cosmopolitek

resumen El estudio de la memoria se ha convertido en el siglo 21 en un esfuerzo interdisciplinario

amplio de las ciencias sociales y físicas. En este artículo se analiza críticamente la literatura en esta área y
su importancia para el desarrollo de la sociología de la memoria. Se evalua también el impacto de la
globalización sobre las prácticas basadas en los códigos mnemotécnicos basados. La conclusión considera
la interacción entre la memoria individual y colectiva, profundamente arraigada en los estudios de la
memoria, ya que evalua las tendencias futuras y los retos.
palabras clave cosmopolitanismo ◆ intersubjetividad ◆ la memoria colectiva ◆ la memoria
individual ◆ mnemohistory

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