The Fluidity of Collective Memory

This volume explores memory in cultural and social contexts through an interdisciplinary lens by incorporating theories and methodologies from memory studies, continental philosophy, hermeneutics, political philosophy, and cultural anthropology.

In their collective dimension, memories are fluid—their form and content constantly adjusted by locations, places, generations, cultures, traditions, politics, epistemic authorities, and historical predictabilities.

Contrary to the notion of memory as a static repository of facts, this volume examines the malleability of collective memory, exploring how memories are constantly adjusted and re-shaped in a temporal and spatial dimension of meaning-making. The contributors in this volume do not address memory in its psychological dimension. Instead, they explore the mnemonic materializations in cultural and social settings, treating memory as a powerful force that shapes the identity of societies, cultures, and communities. It is the tapestry of shared experiences, narratives, and symbols that define how a group remembers its past. This volume explores how societies actively construct meanings around these collective recollections and argues that collective memory is often constructed, reconstructed, negotiated, and questioned to serve various ends.