scholarly journals Gendering Cultural Memory: Balzac’s Adieu

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-249
Author(s):  
Kristina Fjelkestam
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Honore De Balzac ◽  
Memory Studies ◽  
History Writing ◽  
French Army ◽  
Traumatic Memories ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
Sex Slave ◽  
Gender Aspects ◽  
Revolutionary History

In this essay I examine the en-gendering of cultural memory in Honoré de Balzac´s story Adieu (1830), which proceeds from a repressed trauma originating in historical events. Balzac wrote the story in the spring of 1830, i. e. at a time when the French discontent with the Restoration regime was soon to explode in the July Revolution. The story is considered to claim that the Restoration regime’s repression of revolutionary history will recieve serious consequences in the present. But the question is how the now of the Restoration can best be linked to the then of the Revolution and the Empire? How can history be represented in a productive way, without silencing traumatic memories? My suggestion is that the abyss be-tween now and then has to be met with an ethically informed respect for difference. Stéphanie, the protagonist, dies when Philippe creates an exact replica of the traumatic situation in which they were separated many years ago. She then became a sex slave to the retiring French army, dehumanized during the hard Russian campaign, an experience that also dehumanized her. This Philippe refuses to acknowledge, since he wants to retrieve the woman he knew. That can of course never happen, but in insisting on it, I would claim that he actually renders Stéphanies life after the trauma impossible. Instead of emphasizing the distinction between past and present, Philippe overlooks it, with the severe consequence of Sté-phanie’s death. In my analysis I relate to pertinent discussions in the interdisciplinary field of cultural memory studies (an expanding field of research within the wider frame of cultural studies), but since it rarely discusses gender aspects I find it essential to relate also to feminist scholars who continually have scrutinized issues concerning memory and history writing.

Friction, Fragmentation, and Diversity

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsti Salmi-Niklander ◽  
Sofia Laine ◽  
Päivi Salmesvuori ◽  
Ulla Savolainen ◽  
Riikka Taavetti
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Memory Studies ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
Everyday Interaction ◽  
Legal Processes

This collection focuses on difficult memories and diverse identities related to conflicts and localized politics of memories. The contemporary and history-oriented case studies discuss politicized memories and pasts, the frictions of justice and reconciliation, and the diversity and fragmentation of difficult memories. The collection brings together methodological discussions from oral history research, cultural memory studies and the study of contemporary protest movements. The politicization of memories is analyzed in various contexts, ranging from everyday interaction and diverse cultural representations to politics of the archive and politics as legal processes. The politicization of memories takes place on multiple analytical levels: those inherent to the sources; the ways in which the collections are utilized, archived, or presented; and in the re-evaluation of existing research.

scholarly journals “Okay ladies, now let’s get in formation!”: Music Videos and the Construction of Cultural Memory

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura M. F. Bertens
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Memory Studies ◽  
Music Videos ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Limited Length ◽  
Diverse Audience

Abstract This paper explores strategies for constructing and perpetuating cultural memory through music videos, using Beyonce’s Formation (2016) and Janelle Monae’s Many Moons (2008) and Q.U.E.E.N. (2013) as case studies. The medium’s idiosyncrasies create unique ways of communicating and remembering, explored here within a framework of Cultural Studies and Memory Studies. Easy dissemination and the limited length of most videos ensure a large, diverse audience. The relative freedom from narrative constraints enables the director to create original imagery, and most importantly, the medium allows an intricate blending of performance and performativity; while the videos evidently are performances, they are strongly performative as well, not only with respect to gender and ethnicity but in significant ways also cultural memory. A close reading of Beyonce’s video Formation shows how she explicitly does the cultural memory of the New Orleans flooding. The videos by Monae are shown to produce counter-memories, relying heavily on the strategy of Afrofuturism. As such, these densely woven networks of visual symbols become palimpsests of black lived experience and cultural memory, passed on to millions of viewers.

Pamięć Juliusza Słowackiego

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olaf Krysowski ◽  
Natalia Szerszeń
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Memory Studies

The book, which shows the works of Juliusz Słowacki from the perspective of cultural memory, belongs to memory studies. It aims to follow the relations between memory, reminiscence and commemoration, as well as to describe the relations and interdependencies between individual and collective memory, memory, biography and history in the poet’s works. The authors, in an innovative and multi-faceted manner, reconstruct ideas, formulas and notions, which develop a sui generis philosophy of memory in Słowacki’s works.

scholarly journals Beyond trauma? Memories of Joi/y and memory play in Blade Runner 2049

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silke Arnold-de Simine
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Memory Studies ◽  
Trauma Theory ◽  
Cultural Experience ◽  
The Past ◽  
Blade Runner ◽  
Dominant Paradigm

Cultural memory studies finds itself at an impasse: whereas ‘cultural memory’ is conceptualized as mediated, dynamic, imaginative and shaped by the present, the dominant paradigm of ‘trauma’ illuminates the hold the past has on us, casting the shadow of a melancholic subjectivity that threatens to obscure our agency as (political) subjects. This article asks what lies in store for memory studies beyond the focus on (classic) trauma (theory). Using the movie Blade Runner 2049 (US 2017; dir: Denis Villeneuve) as an illustrative example, it explores how creative and joyful forms of meaning-making through play and acts of memory inform each other in what the psychoanalyst DW Winnicott described as ‘cultural experience’.

Colonial memories and transnational mobilizations: Asia’s colonial veterans and their struggle for British citizenship, c. 1980–2015

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 1129-1143
Author(s):  
Barbara Laubenthal ◽  
Daniel Schumacher
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Political System ◽  
Memory Studies ◽  
British Society ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Framing

This article focuses on campaigns by former colonial soldiers from Nepal and Hong Kong and their struggles for British citizenship over the last three decades. When analysing these mobilizations, we combine approaches from social movement research with insights from cultural memory studies. We use the concept of ‘relational fields’ to determine how these former colonial soldiers systematically utilized the past as a political framing device and thus revealed themselves to be not outsiders to the political system but equal players therein. We argue that their actions are best understood as a series of connected postcolonial civil rights campaigns that often reinforce rather than reverse romanticized and positivist representations of Britain’s imperial past. While in some instances colonial veterans were able to mount meaningful political interventions, our analysis shows that the veterans’ eventual acceptance into British society could only come at the price of their continued stereotyped depiction as colonial subjects.

scholarly journals Introduction: Is an Interdisciplinary Field of Memory Studies Possible?

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam D. Brown ◽  
Yifat Gutman ◽  
Lindsey Freeman ◽  
Amy Sodaro ◽  
Alin Coman
Keyword(s):  
Memory Studies ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field

scholarly journals Evolution of “memory studies”: Between psychology and sociology

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tatiana Pushkareva ◽  
Daria Agaltsova ◽  
Olga Derzhavina
Keyword(s):  
Sociological Theory ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Memory Studies ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
Biographical Research ◽  
Psychological Point ◽  
History Of ◽  
Xix Century

The article examines the problem of the “memory studies” development and the role that psychology and sociology play in the development of this interdisciplinary field of humanities. The authors divide the history of memory studies into two periods. The analysis of the first stage of the conceptual formation of memory research, starting from the end of the XIX century and till the first part of the century, first of all, on the basis of psychological, sociological is revealed. The authors demonstrate the trajectory of the evolution of the scientific understanding of “memory” from a purely psychological interpretation of the phenomenon to a socio-psychological concept (group memory), to a broad sociological theory (socio-cultural and historical memory). It is shown how at the second stage of the memory studies development, starting from the second half of the XX century till the present time, sociological research unfolds in the paradigm of memory studies and at the same time there is a new growth of interest in the psychological point of these studies. This is reflected in the development of psychoanalytic concepts, biographical research methods, and the increased role of oral history. It is concluded that the dialectical interaction of sociology and psychology in the interdisciplinary field of memory studies forms the basis of the heuristic potential of this modern humanities research.

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