Cultural Memory Studies

 

Cultural Memory Studies

In the past two decades, the intersection of culture and memory has emerged as a central focus of interdisciplinary research worldwide. This exploration encompasses various fields such as history, sociology, art, literature, media studies, philosophy, theology, psychology, and neuroscience, bridging the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences in a unique manner. The significance of cultural memory is evident not only through the substantial increase in publications since the late 1980s delving into specific national, social, religious, or familial memories but also through recent endeavors to offer comprehensive overviews of this burgeoning field and amalgamate diverse research traditions.

 

 

The term "cultural" or "collective" memory is inherently multifaceted and often used ambiguously. It encompasses a wide array of media, practices, and structures including myth, monuments, historiography, ritual, conversational remembering, configurations of cultural knowledge, and neuronal networks. Since its inception in Maurice Halbwachs's studies on collective memory, particularly in the 1920s and 1940s, cultural memory has been a contentious issue.

 

Even today, scholars continue to challenge the notion of collective or cultural memory, arguing that existing concepts like myth, tradition, and individual memory suffice, rendering additional terms unnecessary and potentially misleading. However, these criticisms overlook the umbrella-like quality of these newer uses of "memory," which facilitate understanding the diverse relationships between phenomena such as ancient myths and personal recollections. This broad perspective enables stimulating interdisciplinary dialogues across fields like psychology, history, sociology, and literary studies.

 

Arguably the most crucial and frequently utilized concept in cultural memory studies is the term mémoire collective (collective memory), introduced by Maurice Halbwachs in the 1920s. We opted for "cultural memory" as the title of this handbook primarily due to the contentious nature of Halbwachs's term and the misconceptions it often evokes among newcomers to the field. Additionally, "cultural memory" emphasizes the link between memory and socio-cultural contexts, without necessarily aligning with the specific framework of Cultural Studies as defined by the Birmingham School, although this discipline has undoubtedly contributed to cultural memory studies. Our understanding of culture is rooted more in the German tradition of Kulturwissenschaft and anthropology, defining culture as a community's distinct way of life imbued with layers of meaning.

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Drawing from anthropological and semiotic theories, culture can be conceptualized as a three-dimensional framework encompassing social aspects (people, social relations, institutions), material elements (artifacts, media), and mental dimensions (culturally defined thought patterns, mentalities). Understood in this manner, "cultural memory" serves as an umbrella term encompassing "social memory" (the foundation of memory research in the social sciences), "material or medial memory" (studied in literary and media studies), and "mental or cognitive memory" (explored in psychology and neuroscience). However, it's important to recognize that these dimensions are not mutually exclusive; rather, they intersect and interact in the formation of cultural memories. Cultural memory studies thus involve transcending disciplinary boundaries. Some scholars examine the interplay between material and social phenomena, such as memorials and memory politics, while others investigate intersections between material and mental realms, as seen in the history of mentalities. Still, others explore the relationship between cognitive and social phenomena, such as conversational remembering.

It's crucial to recognize that the concepts of "cultural" or "collective" memory stem from a metaphorical framework. The term "remembering," a cognitive process occurring in individual brains, is metaphorically extended to the cultural level. This metaphorical extension allows scholars to speak of a "nation's memory," a "religious community's memory," or even "literature's memory" (interpreted as its intertextuality, as Renate Lachmann suggests). Jeffrey K. Olick highlights the distinction between two aspects of cultural memory studies: one viewing culture as subjective meanings contained in people's minds and the other seeing culture as patterns of publicly available symbols objectified in society.

 

The first level of cultural memory pertains to biological memory, emphasizing that no memory exists purely on an individual level but is always shaped by collective contexts. Memories are influenced by factors such as interactions with others, media consumption, and environmental stimuli. This level is understood literally in fields such as oral history, social psychology, and neuroscience.

 

The second level of cultural memory refers to the symbolic order, encompassing the media, institutions, and practices through which social groups construct a shared past. Here, "memory" is used metaphorically, as societies do not remember in a literal sense but engage in processes akin to individual memory, such as selectivity and perspective shaping. Concepts like Pierre Nora's lieux de mémoire and Jan and Aleida Assmann's kulturelles Gedächtnis are prominent in researching this aspect of collective memory, prevalent in cultural history and social sciences.

 

While these two forms of cultural memory can be analytically distinguished, in practice, they continuously interact. Individual memories are shaped by socio-cultural contexts, while collective memories represented by media and institutions are actualized by individuals within a community of remembrance. This interaction underscores the dynamic nature of cultural memory.

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Cultural memory studies are concerned with social, medial, and cognitive processes and their ongoing interplay..

 

Maurice Halbwachs contributed to the problematic dichotomy between history and memory, characterizing history as abstract, totalizing, and "dead," while presenting memory as particular, meaningful, and "lived." This binary opposition, rooted in nineteenth-century historicism, was further popularized by Pierre Nora, who positioned his lieux de mémoire between history and memory.

 

Discussions on "history vs. memory" often involve emotionally charged binary oppositions, such as good vs. bad, organic vs. artificial, living vs. dead, from below vs. from above. However, the collective singular of "history" remains ambiguous. Is it selective and meaningful memory versus the unintelligible totality of historical events? Or perhaps methodologically unregulated and identity-related memory versus scientific, seemingly neutral historiography? These oppositions only serve to hinder progress in memory studies, constituting one of its "Achilles' heels."

 

moving beyond the futile opposition of history versus memory and adopting a framework of different modes of remembering within culture is important. This approach acknowledges that the past is not static but continuously reconstructed and represented. Therefore, memories of past events, both individual and collective, can vary significantly not only in terms of what is remembered (facts, data) but also in how it is remembered, including the quality and meaning attributed to the past.

 

For instance, a war can be remembered as a mythic event ("the war as apocalypse"), as part of political history (the First World War as "the great seminal catastrophe of the twentieth century"), as a traumatic experience ("the horror of the trenches, the shells, the barrage of gunfire"), as a facet of family history ("the war my great-uncle served in"), or as a subject of bitter contestation ("the war waged by the old generation, by the fascists, by men"). Myth, religious memory, political history, trauma, family remembrance, and generational memory represent different modes of engaging with the past.

 

In this framework, history is just one among several modes of cultural memory, with historiography serving as its specific medium. This does not diminish the importance of history or the contributions of historians. Since the early nineteenth century, the historical method has been the most regulated and reliable means of reconstructing the past, although it is not without its criticisms and may be supplemented by other modes of remembering, as noted by Foucault and others.

 

Memory and the History of Mentalities ALON CONFINO

The intellectual and methodological connections between memory and the history of mentalities have deep roots within French scholarly circles, particularly in the early to mid-twentieth century. Scholars like Maurice Halbwachs and Marc Bloch laid the groundwork for modern memory studies and the exploration of collective mentalities.

 

Halbwachs, a French sociologist, was among the first to systematically use the concept of collective memory in his seminal work, "Les cadres sociaux de la mémoire" (The Social Frameworks of Memory), published in 1925. He highlighted the connection between social groups and collective memory, arguing that every memory is influenced by the specific social context in which it arises. Halbwachs's ideas found resonance with influential historians such as Lucien Febvre and Marc Bloch, founders of the Annales school, which sought to explore the social and economic structures of societies alongside their collective mental frameworks.

 

Bloch and Febvre advocated for a new approach to history that went beyond traditional political narratives to encompass the mental tools, beliefs, and collective representations of past societies. This approach, known as the history of mentalities (histoire des mentalités), revolutionized historical study by taking seriously the collective myths and images that shaped societies. Bloch, in particular, used terms like "collective ideas" and "collective representations," laying the groundwork for the study of collective memory.

 

The history of mentalities, however, lacked a comprehensive theoretical framework and was more practiced than theorized. Despite this, it provided a fertile ground for scholars to explore collective representations and beliefs using historical and sociological methods.

 

Pierre Nora, a member of a later generation of Annalistes, continued this tradition with his magisterial project, "Les lieux de mémoire" (Sites of Memory), which began in 1974. Nora emphasized the importance of cataloging and preserving French sites of memory as symbols of national identity. He explicitly linked memory to mentalities, recognizing the shared difficulties and stakes involved in both concepts.

 

While Nora's project marked a significant moment in memory studies, the field has since evolved beyond its French origins to become transnational and international in scope. Influenced by factors such as the Holocaust, nationhood, and cultural studies, memory studies have expanded their focus and methodological approaches.

 

However, despite its historical significance, the link between memory and the history of mentalities has often been overlooked in contemporary memory studies. Scholars tend to trace the evolution of memory studies from Halbwachs to Nora, neglecting the important contributions of the history of mentalities to our understanding of collective memory.

 

Nevertheless, memory studies have made significant strides in uncovering new knowledge about the past and challenging long-held historical narratives. For example, research in memory studies has debunked myths about postwar West German silence regarding the war and the Holocaust, revealing instead a lively debate within West German society during that period.

The term "memory" has become somewhat diluted due to its excessive use, while memory studies often lack a clear focus and have become somewhat predictable. Despite a wealth of critical articles on method and theory, there hasn't been a systematic evaluation of the field's problems, approaches, and objects of study. Many studies follow a routine formula, investigating yet another event and its memory and appropriation. While it's correct to describe memories as contested, multiple, and negotiated, these terms have become somewhat cliché. While the specific details of each case may vary, the overall formula remains the same. It's a well-known fact that studies of memory explore how people imagine the past, rather than how it actually occurred, but this isn't a new undertaking.

 

In this context, revisiting the lost connection between memory and the history of mentalities offers an imaginative way to conceptualize memory as a historical method and explanation. Both memory studies and the history of mentalities share common purposes, agendas, and a sense of fashionableness and crisis. Jacques Le Goff's description of the history of mentalities as both novel and devalued resonates with the current state of memory studies. Like the history of mentalities, the appeal of the history of memory lies partly in its vagueness, and both fields require clear theoretical frameworks to establish their scientific validity.

 

However, viewing memory as a history of collective mentality offers several advantages. It resists topical definitions and instead uses memory to explore broader questions about the role of the past in society. This approach reveals not only how the past is represented in museums but also the historical mentality of people in the past— their beliefs, practices, and symbolic representations. This comprehensive view of culture and society provides a useful corrective for the fragmented tendency of memory studies, which often isolate memories rather than placing them in relation to one another and to society as a whole.

 

Memory as a study of collective mentality emphasizes the exploration of shared identity within social groups and highlights the reasons why certain representations of the past are received or rejected. This approach leads to hypotheses and conclusions about historical mentality, shedding light on why some pasts triumph while others fail. Placing memory within the context of the history of mentalities invites scholars to explore how memory structures behavior and thoughts, moving beyond monuments and museums to examine how people make memory part of their actions and worldview.

 

Ultimately, memory should be situated within a broader history that considers the coexisting diversity of social times. This approach, reminiscent of Halbwachs's idea of the "multiplicity of social times," views memory as a cultural practice intertwined with other societal practices, shaping the mental horizon of society as a whole. By understanding memory in relation to the history of mentalities, scholars can gain deeper insights into the complex interplay between memory, society, and culture.

For nearly a century, scholars have been captivated by the notions of mentality and memory. What accounts for this enduring allure toward two concepts that are inherently ambiguous and complex? The answer lies in their shared fundamental characteristics, which have significantly expanded the scope of historical inquiry and imagination, challenging established assumptions about reconstructing the past.

 

This becomes evident when we examine the recent trajectory of the concept of memory. When Pierre Nora conceived his memory project in the late 1970s and early 1980s, it signaled a broader disciplinary transformation. Broadly speaking, there was a shift from interpreting history in terms of "society" to emphasizing "culture" and "memory." This shift gradually gained momentum, culminating in the 1990s, when the notion of "society" as traditionally practiced by social historians was supplanted by the interpretative dominance of memory and cultural studies.

 

Unlike the linear concept of history associated with "society," the notion of "culture" embraces a multi-temporal view of history where past and present intersect, accommodating diverse narratives and emphasizing representation and memory as expressions of experience, negotiation, and agency. This shift underscored the constructed nature of historical narratives, highlighting the historian's role in interpretation and reconstruction.

 

The second characteristic shared by mentality and memory is their inherent interpretability. While all historical topics are subject to interpretation, sources and analyses related to memory and mentality reveal the process of constructing the past, foregrounding the historian's practice. This aspect has played a pivotal role in expanding the scope of historical investigation and catalyzing significant interpretative shifts in historical studies.

 

However, this expansion of historical inquiry has also blurred disciplinary boundaries and made methods of analysis less precise. Yet, this is not necessarily detrimental; well-defined disciplinary borders can be both important and limiting. By broadening the historian's territory, the study of memory and mentality has enriched historical analysis, fostering greater self-reflection and experimentation in historical writing.

 

Nevertheless, there are risks associated with the interpretative nature of memory and mentality as methods of inquiry. While economic trends may require extensive research and analysis, memory representations can appear self-evident, seemingly requiring minimal interpretative effort. However, historians must resist the temptation of facile interpretations and instead employ rigorous methods and theories to extract meaning from memory sources.