Memory in a Global Age: Discourses, Practices and Trajectories(Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies)

In the past decade, the field of memory has been dramatically reconfigured. Global conditions have powerfully impacted on memory debates, and at the same time, claims to memory are negotiated globally. This is a fundamental shift, as until recently, the dynamics of memory production unfolded primarily within the bounds of the nation-state; coming to terms with the past was largely a national project. Under the impact of processes of globalization, this has changed fundamentally. Today it has become impossible to understand the trajectories of memory outside a global frame of reference. This book offers an innovative inroad into the various problematics of memory in a global age. It presents analytical categories to chart the terrain, and it supplies richly documented case studies that illustrate the complexities of contemporary ways of appropriating the past. Written from different cultural positions and from different disciplinary backgrounds, the collection of essays emphasizes the positionality of memory production as it is negotiated locally and globally.

Table of Contents:
Preface Note on the Contributors Introduction PART I: WITNESSING IN A GLOBAL ARENA Addressing Painful Memories: Apologies as a New Practice in International Relations; C.Daase Australian Memory and the Apology to the Stolen Generations of Indigenous People; D.Celermajer & D.Moses PART II: MORAL CLAIMS AND UNIVERSAL NORMS The Past in the Present: Memories of State Violence in Contemporary Latin America; E.Jelin Vietnam, the New Left and the Holocaust: How the Cold War Changed Discourse on Genocide; B.Molden The Holocaust - a Global Memory? Extensions and Limits of a New Memory Community; A.Assmann PART III: GLOBAL MEMORIES AND TRANS-NATIONAL IDENTITIES Globalization, Universalization, and the Erosion of Cultural Memory; J.Assmann Victimhood Nationalism in Contested Memories: National Mourning and Global Accountability; J.H.Lim Remembering Asia: History and Memory in Post-Cold War Japan; S.Conrad PART IV: GLOBAL ICONS AND CULTURAL SYMBOLS Globalizing Memory in a Divided City: Bruce Lee in Mostar; G.Bolton & N.Muzurovic 'Fragments of Reminiscence': Popular Music as a Carrier of Global Memory; A.Sobral Neda -- The Career of a Global Image; A.Assmann & C.Assmann

About the Author :
ALEIDA ASSMANN is Professor of English Literature and Literary Theory at the University of Konstanz, Germany. She has been Guest Professor at Rice, Princeton, Yale, Chicago and Vienna. Her publications up until now have mostly been in German, and include some of the most important work in Memory Studies of the last decade. SEBASTIAN CONRAD is Professor of Modern History at the Free University of Berlin, Germany. His research interests include the history of globalization, colonial history, historiography and theory. His recent publications include Globalisation and the Nation in Imperial Germany and Competing Visions of World Order: Global Moments and Movements, 1880s-1930s (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).

Review :
'A serious, scholarly and essential intervention into memory studies. Using the lens of globalization, the book clearly shows how memory should be understood dynamically beyond states and nations. A lively and rich range of original work by leading scholars in the field.' - Dr Anna Reading, London South Bank University, UK