Abstract
In their Inaugural Editorial for the first issue of this journal nearly 10 years ago, Andrew Hoskins, Amanda Barnier, Wulf Kansteiner, and John Sutton (2008) wrote that the journal’s purpose was to afford “recognition, form and direction to work” in the “nascent field” of memory studies (p. 5). To be sure that first issue of the journal contained a variety of views on the “field” of memory studies, including whether it was one, or should be, and, if so, what kind it was or might become. Yet, 10 years later, few can doubt that the journal has fulfilled its charge, both reflecting and bringing about the field whose central organ it has become. Neither memory studies nor Memory Studies is nascent any longer.
At the same time, the current issue of the journal contains at least two discussions that evaluate the current status of the field and make suggestions for its development. In the first case, a symposium of leading authors reflects on the publication of a new handbook (Tota and Hagen, 2016) that surveys the state of the art across numerous disciplines. In the reviews, there is still concern about what should and what should not be included in the field, for instance, philosophy (yes) and neuroscience (maybe, maybe not). The second case, an article (Dutceac Segesten and Wüstenberg, 2017) of which one of us is an author, surveys the field’s development and expresses concern that while memory studies has clearly been intellectually compelling, it is as of yet insufficiently institutionalized. While the field is no longer nascent, it is, thankfully, not yet complacent!
In 1998, Olick and Robbins (1998) called “social memory studies” a “non-paradigmatic, transdisciplinary, centerless enterprise” (p. 105). That may still be relatively true institutionally, as Dutceac Segesten and Wüstenberg demonstrate. But it is obvious to us that it is by now less true intellectually. As compendia such as Tota and Hagen’s (2016), Kattago’s (2015), Olick et al.’s (2011), Erll and Nünning’s (2010), as well as introductory texts such as Jelin’s (2003), Erll’s (2011), Misztal’s (2003), Cubitt’s (2007), and many others have made clear, there is by now a large collection of common terms, concepts, theories, and referents that constitute the makings of a very significant scholarly field with a vibrant present and future, if (as is always the case with important fields) contested past. For this reason—and several other more specific ones stated in the paragraphs that follow—we have undertaken to found a scholarly association that can underwrite, organize, and serve this vibrant and inspiring scholarly field. The purpose of this brief essay is to introduce our efforts and to invite you to join us in shaping and pursuing them.
The Memory Studies Association (MSA) began in discussions at the 2016 Council for European Studies’ “Research Network on Transnational Memory and Identity” meeting in Philadelphia led by two of us—Aline Sierp and Jenny Wüstenberg (and attended by Jeff Olick)—although the idea had much older roots in a friendly dinner Jeff Olick had with Astrid Erll and Anne Rigney in Giessen more than 10 years ago. The sense of these discussions, and others in between with a wide variety of others who have helped shape the project, was that there had in the previous 10–20 years been a proliferation of different yet often overlapping networks and organizations, most centered around regional and substantive foci. As much as these networks facilitate important dialogue, however, their separateness, and sometimes temporary nature, has also occasionally had the effect of fragmenting discussions. Moreover, with the advancement of memory studies as a body of work—with key debates, shared literatures, and overlapping concepts—there was a sense that a fair amount of duplication was taking place. On one hand, there has been a proliferation of different concepts and terms, on the other hand, often very different uses of the same terms, and there has been a fair amount of reinventing the wheel. Could we find a way to bring these many different conversations into a larger dialogue with each other, thus eliminating redundancy, though certainly not wishing to establish uniformity?
In founding the MSA, therefore, we had aims quite similar to those that led to the founding of this journal, and certainly building on its successes, namely “facilitating a critical forum for dialogue and debate on the theoretical, empirical, and methodological issues central to a collaborative understanding of memory today” (Hoskins et al., 2008: 5) and, we would add, in the past and the future. The Association’s aim is to reach out to already existing, often rather disparate, networks and smaller scholarly groups working on memory issues, as well as to provide a home to research-oriented practitioners and policymakers. Networking and exchange will be key during our annual conferences, workshops, and research gatherings. Our hope is that people who have previously not worked together may start to collaborate in the future. And, if not, at least there might be productive cross-fertilizations and intellectual friendships—across disciplines, regions, and purposes.
The MSA thus hopes to be the central forum for scholars from around the world and across disciplines who are interested in memory studies. Its goal is to further establish and extend the status of memory studies as a field, institutionalizing memory studies in a way that is able to provide fundamental knowledge about the importance and function of memories in the public and private realm. To be sure, we are well aware that there are cognate enterprises, in many cases of much longer standing: there are already associations for the study of heritage, oral history, archives, museology, trauma, and the like (and let us not forget historiography!), to say nothing of the extensive work on memory within the biological and psychological sciences. Our goal is not to compete with or supplant such associations, just as it is not to compete with the many extant networks and centers for social and cultural memory studies that already exist. Rather, it is to multiply and synergize the very different approaches and networks that exist in them. One of our core convictions is that although these different enterprises address in some cases radically different forms, locations, and media of apprehending and representing our existence in time, there is something essential to be gained by asking when and where the varieties of mnemonic products and practices that constitute the broad umbrella of memory affect each other, and in what ways. We hope that the Association will discover many similarities and clarify important differences. In some cases, this will result in productive joining, and in others in judicious (though, we hope, always respectful) splitting.
The Association was symbolically launched at its inaugural conference in Amsterdam in December 2016, which was attended by more than 200 scholars and practitioners. In the meantime, the association has registered as a scholarly association in the Netherlands, and its legal establishment was aided by the University of Maastricht, where one of us (Aline Sierp) is a faculty member. We have established a website (www.memorystudiesassociation.org), which will be developed into the main hub for accessing information, resources, and opportunities for debate about and within the field. The Association has issued a call for general membership (which we make mindful of the many demands we all face for our time, attention, and financial support). And the second meeting of the full Association will take place in Copenhagen from the 14–16 December 2017. In the future, we hope to be able to organize conferences that will be more accessible for colleagues beyond the European region; the MSA hopes to be a true world gathering for excellent memory scholarship and exchange.
As co-founders of the Association, we are grateful to the editors of Memory Studies for this opportunity to state our more specific ambitions as we move forward, as well as to encourage ALL readers of Memory Studies to become members of the Association and to attend its conferences. Our specific ambitions include the following (though we invite your contributions to revising and expanding this list):
To move beyond the Euro/Anglo centrism that has underwritten—though not exclusively, and that is the point!—the development of the field. We thus aim to bring scholars from different regions to the table. One concrete mechanism, as just mentioned, will be to ensure that our conferences take place in different parts of the world, thought we also hope that membership in the Association, with online resources and opportunities to join specific working groups of cross-regional nature, can serve as a connector for scholars from around the world and for new avenues of intellectual exchange regardless of physical co-presence.
To draw in practitioners, artists, and policymakers, making the MSA a forum not only for scholarly debate but also one through which scholars can make connections to more practical realms, and practitioners and producers of memory can be informed about the state of the art in memory scholarship.
To explore the possibilities for, and limits on, genuinely interdisciplinary work and cross-disciplinary exchange. At our annual conferences, we will offer a series of didactic disciplinary workshops (e.g. on best practices in methodology and on cross-fertilization between mnemonic approaches in the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences) and bring together innovative scholars from different disciplines for roundtable debates about points of contact and collaboration.
To continue to work on exploring the boundaries between social/cultural concepts of memory and psychological/neurological ones. We will proactively reach out to those academic communities that are organized through the journal Memory and that meet every 5 years at the International Conference on Memory. The goal will be to go beyond paying lip-service to interdisciplinarity by fostering practical venues for exchange and a spirit of learning from each other without privileging one disciplinary perspective.
To attract, build bridges to, and offer a home for our existing “sister fields,” such as heritage studies, oral history, transitional justice, archival studies, and others which have already made such important contributions to a nuanced understanding of the past.
To represent the interests of memory studies as a community of professionals—including offering professional development activities and career boosting services—and to actively develop the field through institution-building and training of new cohorts by means of a mentoring program for graduate students in memory studies and PhD training workshops at every annual conference.
To increase the visibility of memory studies with both state-based and private funders of academic research and community outreach, as well as with publishers. Not only is this a crucial step toward increased institutionalization and sustainability of the field, but it should also have a positive effect on the career options for junior scholars of memory. Academics at the beginning of their career are often faced with difficult choices about how much energy to invest in memory studies (as opposed to their more established home discipline). Raising the profile of memory studies will result in a better outlook on tenure and promotion for those who publish in the field and ultimately will mean that they can contribute more productively to it (and to more practice-oriented fields of remembrance).
To offer our expertise on memory political concerns as they arise in public affairs and ethical debates. We believe that memory—broadly conceived—is an issue that has been gaining importance in international and domestic politics and that deserves our engagement as public intellectuals. Scholarly perspectives—and their often slower temporalities and distanced vantage points—have a unique contribution to make in reflecting on—and in—contemporary debates.
To develop the MSA into an organization that remains open to input from all interested parties and flexible to the changing nature of the field as memory studies evolves and expands further.
We hope very much that you will join us in this exciting effort to build the MSA and welcome all inquiries and suggestions.