Memory Studies

This introduction argues that the field of memory studies needs to pay more attention to the role of joyful and positive types of memory. Quoting recent discussions, we propose that the dominant focus on traumatic and dark pasts within memory studies carries the risks that the research field ignores important aspects of collective memory and eclipses group memories that differ from societies’ hegemonic discourse about the past. Contemporary societies also need positive or hopeful memories in order to create alternative imaginaries for the future. This special issue sets out to explore what memories of joy may look like and how they can be studied.

In light of a long chain of horrific tragedies and catastrophes made by both nature and man, the current focus of memory studies on difficult pasts and shameful moments, and the expectation of political leaders to provide comfort and inspiration to their public, this article asks, ‘Is commemoration with joy possible?’ Based on an analysis of 860 American presidential public speeches, this article unpacks the category of positive memories by differentiating between memories of pride, joy, and benignity. It then analyzes the various sources, appearances, and frequency of such memories in ceremonial rhetoric. The article concludes by showing that while positive memories are still a minority they are significantly on the rise. Moreover, while party affiliation matters and effects the choices made by American Presidents, they all pay a unified homage to their predecessors, hinting at future legacy considerations that are untainted by politics.

Studies examining the reification of nationhood narratives in history textbooks have typically focused on memories rooted in trauma (stories of loss of territory, victimhood, and perpetual enmity with neighbours), although glorification of the nation, ideas of who belongs to the nation, and what constitutes the nation, are also found in joyful memories. In this article, I examine how memories of joy are accounted for in a classical nation-building subject such as history. Which discursive strategies do textbooks use in instilling particular images of the nation in pupils’ heads, and how do they differ from those used in non-joyful events? Relying on content analysis of history textbooks currently used in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia, I examine how ‘joyful’ memories are represented in memories of ‘banal’ and everyday joy (memories of sports events, music, literature, and popular culture), and in memories of ‘hot’ or explicit nationalism (memories of victories in battles, reclaiming territory, etc). I conclude with reflections on the usefulness of studying memories of joy when examining issues of nation-building, national identity, and nationalism.

This article seeks to understand the emotional dynamics surrounding the image of the Paris Commune in connection with its mobilization through contemporary movements of struggle sharing, as their common point, a rejection of neo-liberal capitalism. More precisely, this will involve examining how the affect of joy – understood in Spinoza’s terms as a passion which contributes to increasing the power of action – plays a determining role in the Commune’s discursive deployment in the Invisible Committee’s writings.

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’.

Substantial research in multiple disciplines on Jewish Holocaust survivors and their postwar offspring has been dominated by the discourse of trauma, focusing on the intergenerational transmission of trauma. Based on the narratives of 35 children of Holocaust survivors in the United States, my research counters and nuances this over-determined “paradigm of trauma” by illuminating their more diverse cache of family memories. Some parents transmitted their Holocaust experiences in lively and colorful ways,as an exciting adventure, as a fairy tale, or as a humorous story. The narratives suggest that for these children of survivors, the postmemories of their parents’ history and trauma are embedded in other positive family memories, including the way in which the stories were told. Thus, postmemories of trauma do not necessarily elide or dominate other more positive family memories, including memories of joy

This article serves as both an état présent of emerging scholarship in the interdisiplinary field of Memory Studies and a conference report following the first MSA Forward interactive workshop which preceded the second annual conference of the Memory Studies Association (MSA) in December 2017. MSA Forward is the postgraduate arm of the Memory Studies Association and offers a platform for exchanging ideas amongst a cohort of emerging scholars engaging with recent developments in Memory Studies and interacting with key academics in the field. The idea of engagement, with its political undertone, draws attention to the political valence and ethical sensitivity of emerging research as evidenced in this article, which contends that if Memory Studies is to be moving forwards as well as looking back, then it is important for emerging scholars as well as established academics to be at the forefront of the field.