Memory in Culture

This book questions the sociocultural dimensions of remembering. It offers an overview of the history and theory of memory studies through the lens of sociology, political science, anthropology, psychology, literature, art and media studies, documenting current international and interdisciplinary memory research in an unprecedented way.

ASTRID ERLL is Professor of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures at Goethe-University Frankfurt/Main, Germany. She has published on memories of the First World War and on fiction, cinema, media culture, transculturality and narratology. With A.Nuenning she is general editor of the series Media and Cultural Memory.

Acknowledgements
PART I: INTRODUCTION: WHY ‘MEMORY’?
Why ‘Memory’?
Why Now?
What Is Meant by ‘Memory’?
Memory, Remembering, or Forgetting?
Goals and Structure of this Book
PART II: THE INVENTION OF CULTURAL MEMORY: A SHORT HISTORY OF MEMORY STUDIES
Maurice Halbwachs: Mémoire collective
Aby Warburg: Mnemosyne – Pathos Formulas and a European Memory of Images
Pierre Nora’s Lieux de mémoire - and Beyond
Aleida and Jan Assmann: The Cultural Memory
PART III: THE DISCIPLINES OF MEMORY STUDIES
Historical and Social Memory
Material Memory: Art and Literature
Mind and Memory: Psychological Approaches
PART IV: MEMORY AND CULTURE: A SEMIOTIC MODEL
Metaphors - Productive, Misleading, and Superfluous, or: How to Conceive of Memory on a Collective Level
Material, Social, and Mental Dimensions of Memory Culture
Autobiographical, Semantic, and Procedural Systems of Cultural Memory
Related Concepts: Collective Identity and Cultural Experience
PART V: MEDIA AND MEMORY
Media and the Construction of Memory
The History of Memory as the History of Media
Medium of Memory: A Compact Concept
Functions of Media of Memory
Concepts of Media Memory Studies
PART VI: LITERATURE AS A MEDIUM OF CULTURAL MEMORY
Literature as a Symbolic Form of Cultural Memory
Literary Text and Mnemonic Context: Mimesis
Literature as a Medium of Collective and Individual Memory
PART VII: AFTERWORD: WHITHER MEMORY STUDIES?
Index