Memory and the Future Transnational Politics, Ethics and Society

For those who study memory, there is a nagging concern that memory studies are inherently backward-looking, and that memory itself hinders efforts to move forward. Unhinging memory from the past, this book brings together an interdisciplinary group of prominent scholars who bring the future into the study of memory.

Yifat Gutman is in the Department of Sociology at the New School for Social Research, New York, USA, where she researches memory politics in a transnational context. She has published articles in the journals Memory Studies and International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, and has co-written an essay in The Handbook of Cultural Sociology. Adam D. Brown is in the Department of Psychiatry at New York University Medical Center, USA, where he conducts research in the social, cognitive and neural properties of memory and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He co-edited Interdisciplinary Analyses of Terrorism and Political Aggression (2010). He is also an Australian-American Fulbright Senior Scholar. Amy Sodaro is in the Department of Sociology at the New School for Social Research, New York, USA, where she researches memorialization of genocide and atrocity. Her publications include 'Whose Holocaust: The Struggle for Romany Inclusion in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum' (International Journal of the Inclusive Museum, 2008), and 'Sixteen Years Later: Remembering the Rwandan Genocide in the Kigali Memorial Center'.

List of Illustrations
Note on the Contributors
Introduction: Memory and the Future: Why a Change of Focus is Necessary; Y.Gutman, A.Sodaro & A.D.Brown
PART 1: MEMORY THROUGH SPACE AND TIME
The Internationalization of Memory - How Meanings and Models Travel the World
Changing Temporalities and the Internationalization of Memory Cultures; D.Levy
Misremembering the Holocaust; R.Poole
Memory and History from Past to Future: A Dialogue with Dori Laub on Trauma and Testimony; A Conversation Between Dori Laub and Federico Finchelstein
Remembering Yesterday to Protect Tomorrow: How the Current Paradigm of Memorialization Relies on Assumptions about the Relationship between Past and Future; L.Bickford
Part 2: FORMS AND GENRES
Narrative, Oral History and Visual Memory - How the Form Serves the Aim
The Role of Conversations in Shaping Individual and Collective Memory, Attitudes and Behavior; J.Koppel & W.Hirst
Re-Presenting Victim and Perpetrator: The Role of Photographs in US Service Members' Testimony Against War; K.Spring
How Shall We Remember Srebrenica? Will the Language of Law Structure our Memory?; S.Leydesdorff
PART 3: TEMPORALITY AND THE POLITICAL
Temporality and the Political I: Utopia
Refugees from Utopia: Remembering, Forgetting, and the Making of the Feminist Memoir Project; A.Snitow
Happy Memories under the Mushroom Cloud: Utopia and Memory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee; L.Freeman
Temporality and the Political II: Revenge
Authorizing Death: Memory Politics and States of Exception in Contemporary El Salvador; G.Santamaria-Balmaceda
Enacting Past and Future at Yasukuni Shrine, Japan; D.P.Janes
Afterword: J.Olick
Index