apologies for crossposting
A special issue of the journal of Media and Cultural Politics (http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-journal,id=122/) is dedicated to the studies on cultural memory
Guest editors of the issue are
Ourania Kosmidou (University of Manchester), and
Christos Dermentzopoulos (University of Ioannina)
CFP
Studies in Cultural Memory
In his 1988 essay ‘Collective Memory and
Cultural Identity’, translated in 1995 by John Czaplicka, the Egyptologist Jan Assmann separates collective memory
(which he calls communicative memory) and its social basis from cultural memory
and its cultural basis. Cultural memory differs from collective memory in two
ways: first, it focuses on cultural characteristics that ‘communicative’ or
‘everyday memory’ lack. Second, it is different from history, which does not
have the characteristics of memory (Assmann 1995: 126). Assmann’s focus on the
first distinction, namely the distinction between collective/communicative
memory and cultural memory, has its grounds on the fact that
communicative/collective memory is characterized by its proximity to the
everyday. When we move from the everyday, we have cultural memory. While
communicative memory has a three-generation cycle, cultural memory is anchored
in the ancient world. As he asserts: ‘Cultural memory has its fixed point; its
horizon does not change with the passing of time’ (Assman 1995: 129). For
Assmann, cultural memory is based on fateful events of the past, on fixedc
points which he calls figures of memory’ and whose ‘memory is maintained
through cultural formation (texts, rites, monuments) and institutional
communication (recitation, practice, observance)’ (Assmann 1995: 129). Cultural
memory’s function is to unify and stabilize a common identity that spans many
generations and it is not easy to change, as opposed to collective memory that
has a three-generation cycle. Hence the representation of history through
institutions and the arts becomes a matter of praxis, of transformation
of the solidified narrative for the sake of society’s stability.
Since Assmann’s
seminal essay, the interrelationship between culture and memory has come forth
as an essential and central issue of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary
research, involving fields such as history, literary studies, film and media
studies, digital humanities, memory studies, archaeology, sociology, cultural
studies, trauma studies, philosophy as well as neurosciences, psychology and
psychiatry. The importance of the notion of cultural memory is not only
documented by the recent growth, since the late 1980s, of publications, but
also by the more recent trend to integrate different research methods of this
emerging field, that assert to the need to bring focus to this debate and to
examine the theoretical and methodological challenges of this field. With this
special issue of Studies in Cultural Memory we wish to offer a space for
scholarly debate and dialogue on cultural memory, in a European context and internationally (mainly the
USA) that assumes a distinctly cultural and social perspective.
This special
issue welcomes research across disciplines in the humanities and social
sciences and seeks to provide a critical forum for dialogue and debate on the
theoretical, methodological, and empirical issues central to an understanding
of cultural memory today. Papers should address the ways in which cultural
memory is formed, used, presented and represented, appropriated, and changed
while being committed to the broad understanding of cultural memory as the
interplay of past and present in socio-cultural and historical contexts. In
particular, the volume encourages papers that examine questions of cultural
memory, its manipulation and its understanding as a methodological and epistemological
tool as well as papers that investigate the relation between cultural memory
and new media (including the Internet, social media etc) as well as old media
(cinema, TV etc).
Topics might
address, but are not in any way limited to, the following:
1) What can critically engaged
scholars, theorists and artists learn through Assmann’s essay?
2) What role does cultural memory
play today?
3) What is being done to critique
it?
4) How is cultural memory embedded
in film, television, literature, comic books and graphic novels, visual art,
theatre?
5) Can cultural memory be
manipulated?
6) What issues does post-memory raise?
7) How are memories used to mobilize groups and
form identities?
8) What is the role of social
media and the Internet if any?
MCP invites interested
contributors to send (6,000-7,000 word) essays incl. references, short
commentaries (2,500-3,000), and book reviews (1,000-2,500) on Cultural Memory to
the Guest Editors at the following addresses: [log in to unmask] and [log in to unmask] on or before January 31st 2015. Contributors should also include their
affiliation, contact details and a short biographical note of approximately 200
words.
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