From Intro
'Looking back and remembering has to confront some difficult problems of representation in its relationship to temporality and memory. Human memory may well be an anthropological given, but closely tied as it is to the ways a culture constructs and lives its temporality, the forms memory will take are invariably contingent and subject to change. Memory and representation, then, figure as key concerns at this fin de siècle when the twilight settles around the memories of this century and their carriers' (p. 2).
'The mode of memory is recherche (search - my addition) rather than recuperation. The temporal status of any act of memory is always the present and not, as some naive epistemology might have it, the past itself, even though all memory in some ineradicable sense is dependent on some past event or experience' (p. 3).
'Twilight memories are both: generational memories on the wane due to the passing of time and the continuing speed of technological modernization, and memories that reflect the twilight status of memory itself. Twilight is that moment of the day that foreshadows the night of forgetting' (p. 3).
'Architecture itself has become ever more interested in site-memory and in inscribing temporal dimensions in spatial structures, most stunningly in Daniel Libeskind's Jewish Museum in Berlin' (pp. 3-4).
'The undisputed waning of history and historical consciousness, the lament about political, social and cultural amnesia, and the various discourses, celebratory of apocalyptic, about posthistoire have been accompanied in the past decade and a half by a memory boom of unprecedented proportions. There are widespread debates about memory in the cultural, social and natural sciences. In an age of emerging supranational structures, the problem of national identity is increasingly discussed in terms of cultural or collective memory rather than in terms of the assumed identity of nation and state' (p. 5).
'Our mnemonic culture rejects the idea of the archive while depending on the archive's contents for its own sustenance' (p. 6).
'When Nietzsche stated in the foreword to the the second of his Untimely Meditiations that we are all suffereing from a consuming historical fever, he was arguing against the past as burden, against archival and monumental history, and he attacked the stifling historicism of his times in the belief that a more vital form of history could invigorate modern culture. That is what The Birth of Tragedy and some of Niezsche's other early writings were all about. In those texts, Nietzsche was a utopian modernist, standing at the beginning of an intellectual trajectory from Bergson to Proust, from Freud to Benjamin, that articulated the classical modernist formulations of memory as an alternative to the discourses of objectifying and legitimizing history, as a cure to the pathologies of modern life' (p. 6).
'Memory is no longer primarily a vital and energizing antidote to capitalist reification via the commodity form (as it was for Nietzsche, Benjamin, Adorno etc. - my addition) [...] It rather represents the attempt to slow down information processing, to resist the dissolution of time in the synchronicity of the archive, to speed information and cable networks, to claim some anchoring space in a worls of puzzling and often threatening heterogeneity, non-synchronicity, and information overload' (p. 7).
In our century (20th century), different political versions of some better future have done fierce battle with each other, but the quintessentially modern notion of the future as progress or utopia was shared by all. It no longer is' (p. 8).
'We still harbour high-tech fantasies for the future, but the very organization of this high-tech world threatens to make categories like past and future, experience and expectation, memory and anticipation themselves obsolete' (p. 9).
In a 'dystopian vision of a high-tech future, amnesia would no longer be part of the dialectic of memory and forgetting. It will be its radical other. It will have sealed the very forgetting of memory itself: nothing to remember, nothing to forget' (p. 9).
From 'Escape from Amnesia: The Museum as Mass Medium'
'It (the museum) has stood in the dead eye of the storm of progress serving as a catalyst for the articulation of tradition and nation, heritage and canon, and has provided the master maps for the construction of cultural legitimacy in both a national and a universalist sense' (p. 13).
'The modern museum has always been attacked as a symptom of cultural ossification by all those speaking in the name of life and cultural renewal against the dead weight of the past' (p. 13).
'The museum can indeed no longer be described as a single institution with stable and well-drawn boundaries. The museum in this broad amorphous sense has become a key paradigm of contemporary cultural activities' (p. 14), e.g. memoir writing, confessional lit., facebook etc. See also Baudrillard.
It (the museum) inevitably will construct the past in light of the discourses of the present and in terms of present-day interest. Fundamentally dialectical, the museum serves both as burial chamber of the past - with all that entails in terms of decay, erosion, forgetting - and as site of possible resurrections, however mediated and contaminated in the eyes of the beholder' (p. 15).
'It (the museum) enables the moderns to negotiate and to articulate a relationship to the past that is always also a relationship to the transitory and to death, our own included. As Adorno once pointed out, museum and mausoleum are associated by more than just phonetics' (p. 16)
'The key question here is of course whether the new museum culture of spectacle and mise-en-scène can stil fulfill such functions or whether the much discussed liquidation of the sense of history and the death of the subject, the postmodern celebration of surface versus depth, speed versus slowness has deprived the museum of its specific aura of temporality' (p. 16).
'Their (Marx and Nietzsche's) very different celebrations of the storm of progress, of liberation and freedom, and the emergence of a new culture were always coupled with an acknowledgement of the need for a lifeline to the past [...] They fully understood the dialectic of innovative drive and museal desire, the tension between the need to forget and the desire to remember. Marx and Nietzsche's texts are themselves testimonies to the productivity of a thought that located itself in that tension between tradition and anticipation' (p. 19).
'As Jürgen Habermas has observed, a new intimacy has developed in recent years between culture and politics, realms which a now obsolete cold war ideology went to great contortions to keep apart' (p. 21).
'There has been slow but important progress in the past decade in the tracings of hidden and repressed pasts, the reclaiming of underrepresented or falsely represented traditions for the purposes of current political struggles, which are always also struggles for multilayered cultural identity and forms of self-understanding' (p. 22).
'Original artwork has become a device to sell its multiply-reproduced derivatives; reproducibility turned into a ploy to auraticize the original after the decay of aura, a final victory of Adorno over Benjamin' (p. 24).
'The more the present of advanced consumer capitalism prevails over past and future, sucking both into an expanding synchronous space [...], the weaker its grip on itself, the less stability or identity it provides for contemporary subjects' (p. 26).
'Our fascination with the new is always already muted, for we know that the new tends to include its own vanishing, the foreknowledge of its obsolescence in its very moment of appearance. The time span of presence granted the new shrinks and moves toward the vanishing point' (p. 26).
'It seems undeniable to me that rather than having been displaced by categories of space, 'the great high-modernist thematics of time and temporality' are alive and well in the museum boom' (p. 27).
'Musealization is precisely the opposite of preservation: for Baudrillard and similarly for Jeudy, it is killing, freezing, sterilizing, dehistoricizing and decontextualizing (p. 30). (Huyssen is ultimately critical of Baudrillard).
'The museum fetish (itself) transcends exchange value. It seems to carry with it something like an anamnestic dimension, a kind of memory value. The more mumified an object is, the more intense its ability to yield experience, aa sense of the authentic. No matter how fragile or dim the relation between museum object and the reality it documents may be [...], as object it carries a register of reality which even the live television broadcast cannot match (p. 33).
'The gaze at the museal object may provide a sense of its opaque and impenetrable materiality as well as an anamnestic space within which the the transitoriness and differentiality of human cultures can be grasped. Via the activity of memory, set in motion and nurtured by the contemporary museum in its broadest and most amorphous sense, the museal gaze expands over the ever shrinking space of the (real) present in a culture of amnesia, planned obsolescence and ever more synchronic and timeless information flows, the hyperspace of the coming age of information highways' (p. 34).
'In relation to the increasing storage capacity of data banks, which can be seen at the contemporary version of the American ideology of 'more is better', the museum should be rediscovered as a space for creative forgetting. The idea of the comprehensive data bank and the information superhighway is just as incompatible with memory as the television image is with material reality (p. 34).
References
Adorno, Theodor, Minima Moralia: Reflections on Damaged Life. London: Verso, 2005.
Huyssen, Andreas, Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia. New York: Routledge, 1995.
Koselleck, Reinhardt, Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time, trans. by Keith Tribe. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.
Thursday, 28 February 2013
Sunday, 24 February 2013
EU and the Politics of Culture - Cris Shore
This occasional paper, published in 2001, is structured in two parts; part one examines the way concepts of 'culture' and 'identity' have been appropriated by European officials and policy-makers since the 1980s in their attempts to popularise the EU and forge a European public. Part two investigates administrative aspects of the European Commission (EC) and raises questions about what sort of 'organisational culture' the EU has created within its own supranational institutions and the implications this has for the peoples of Europe at large (see Intro). Here I've included key passages from the paper.
'Europeanness' is defined as 'a collective identity that can supersede exclusively parochial and nationalistic loyalties and lay the foundations for a higher level of consciousness based on allegiance to European (rather than national) institutions and ideals' (p. 9).
'The problem is that we live in a world still dominated by nation states and these play a crucial role in defining how we see ourselves. Globalisation may have eroded the powers of nation states as sovereign political entities but the national principle and national identity remain central to the conferral of political legitimacy in most modern democracies' (p. 9).
Eric Hobsbawm has written, '[t]he European Union has utterly failed in establishing a European identity as an alternative to various national identities. You can see this even in institutions like the European Parliament, which in effect is elected in each country on the basis of national priorities' (p. 10).
The failure of a functionalist approach to political union (as a by-product of economic and technical measures) led to 'a renewed interest in the cultural aspects of integration. EU policy-makers therefore decided that more 'concrete measures' were needed to enhance the image and identity of the Community through information campaigns and a series of symbolic initiatives. The way these ideas were translated into policy offers key insights into the hidden history of European integration (p. 13).
The 1993 de Clercq Report called for 'the adoption of a new Latin motto, 'in uno plures' ('many in one') - a move intended to contrast the EU's emphasis on the plurality and diversity of Europe's cultures with the US motto 'e pluribus unum' ('out of many one'), which sums up the American 'melting-pot' approach to the construction of identity' (p. 18).
During the 1980s culture became an increasingly politicised domain, 'for European federalists, cultural development became the missing piece of the European jigsaw, which could lay the foundations for a transfer of popular allegiance from the nation-states to Brussels. However, EU attempts to use culture as a tool of political integration contains several flaws. First, despite proclamations about the importance of 'subsidiarity', its approach to culture has been extremely top-down, dirigiste and elitist [...] Second, what is this 'European culture' that Europeans should be so ignorant of it? The EU's concept of culture reifies an out-moded and essentialist view of cultures as discrete, bounded, pure and unproblematic entities' (pp. 19-20).
This conception of culture 'portrays Europe as a unique 'civilisation' whose heritage and identity stem from a highly selective set of historical influences. Foremost among these are Greek philosophy, Roman law, Christianity, the Enlightenment, the Scientific Revolution, the triumph of Reason, progress, individualism, liberal economics and Parliamentary democracy'. This conception of history 'perpetuates the myths of imperial elite formation and turns the history of the West into what Eric Wolf called 'a genealogy of progress'' (p. 20).
Of EU officials' general definition of culture - 'their definition assumes that 'culture' can be neatly confined to art and music, television, architecture, sport and tourism, and divorced from politically sensitive issues such as money, sovereignty and government itself. In practice, however, cultural identity spills over into all of these areas' (p. 22).
'In many respects, what the Commission is doing is not dissimilar to that which nationalist elites achieved during the formation of European nation-states in the nineteenth century: i.e. mobilising symbols and inventing traditions in order to give flesh and credibility to a new political order. The nation-state provides a useful model for comparison. As many scholars argue, nation states are 'imagined communities' (Anderson 1983), constructed largely through modern communications technologies, especially the novel, the newspaper, the map and the museum [...] The situation confronting the EU is, of course, more problematic given the lack of a common European language and shared history. Moreover, national identities were forged over a period of centuries, not years - and often through violence and conquest' (pp. 22-23).
'As anthropologists have long argued, identity-formation is a dualistic process of exclusion as well as inclusion. In short, people define themselves not so much in terms of who they are, but against that which they are not. To create 'Europeans', the category of 'non-European' or 'Third Country alien' must become sharper and more salient [...] The EU has tried to get round the accusation that its policies are leading to both increased xenophobia on the one hand, and to the homogenisation of its Member-State cultures on the other, by continually emphasising the policy motifs of 'unity in diversity' and the 'flowering of cultures'. However, historians will recall that similar slogans were coined during the Chinese Cultural Revolution' (p. 24).
With its founding fathers, flag anthem and other symbols of statehood, the EU seems to be following in the footsteps of the nation-state. Ironically, the very model of state-formation that the EU's pioneers sought to 'transcend' is being re-created at a supranational level in what increasingly looks like a European superstate, complete with its own central bank, currency and armed forces. However, EU member-states are being internationalised even as they are being 'Europeanised', and the EU's attempt to create a 'European culture area' in an age of globalisation appears rather like trying to close the door after the horses have bolted' (pp. 24-25).
The EU could represent 'but a temporary 'blip' in an otherwise continuous process of dissolution and fragmentation in the age of late nationalism' (p. 25).
'To use a Marxian expression, the EU's transnational, technocratic elite appears to be transforming itself from a 'class in itself' to a 'class for itself' [...] One political lesson is clear. The expansion of the EU's supranational order will result in an increasing concentration of power in institutions that are un-elected, unaccountable and increasingly self-serving' (p. 39).
References
Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1991.
De Clercq, Willy, Reflection on Information and Communication Policy of the European Community, Brussels: Commission of the European Communities, 1993
Hobsbawm, Eric, Nations and Nationalism since 1780, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Shore, Cris, 'European Union and the Politics of Culture', Paper no: 43, The Bruges Group, London, 2001.
'Europeanness' is defined as 'a collective identity that can supersede exclusively parochial and nationalistic loyalties and lay the foundations for a higher level of consciousness based on allegiance to European (rather than national) institutions and ideals' (p. 9).
'The problem is that we live in a world still dominated by nation states and these play a crucial role in defining how we see ourselves. Globalisation may have eroded the powers of nation states as sovereign political entities but the national principle and national identity remain central to the conferral of political legitimacy in most modern democracies' (p. 9).
Eric Hobsbawm has written, '[t]he European Union has utterly failed in establishing a European identity as an alternative to various national identities. You can see this even in institutions like the European Parliament, which in effect is elected in each country on the basis of national priorities' (p. 10).
The failure of a functionalist approach to political union (as a by-product of economic and technical measures) led to 'a renewed interest in the cultural aspects of integration. EU policy-makers therefore decided that more 'concrete measures' were needed to enhance the image and identity of the Community through information campaigns and a series of symbolic initiatives. The way these ideas were translated into policy offers key insights into the hidden history of European integration (p. 13).
The 1993 de Clercq Report called for 'the adoption of a new Latin motto, 'in uno plures' ('many in one') - a move intended to contrast the EU's emphasis on the plurality and diversity of Europe's cultures with the US motto 'e pluribus unum' ('out of many one'), which sums up the American 'melting-pot' approach to the construction of identity' (p. 18).
During the 1980s culture became an increasingly politicised domain, 'for European federalists, cultural development became the missing piece of the European jigsaw, which could lay the foundations for a transfer of popular allegiance from the nation-states to Brussels. However, EU attempts to use culture as a tool of political integration contains several flaws. First, despite proclamations about the importance of 'subsidiarity', its approach to culture has been extremely top-down, dirigiste and elitist [...] Second, what is this 'European culture' that Europeans should be so ignorant of it? The EU's concept of culture reifies an out-moded and essentialist view of cultures as discrete, bounded, pure and unproblematic entities' (pp. 19-20).
This conception of culture 'portrays Europe as a unique 'civilisation' whose heritage and identity stem from a highly selective set of historical influences. Foremost among these are Greek philosophy, Roman law, Christianity, the Enlightenment, the Scientific Revolution, the triumph of Reason, progress, individualism, liberal economics and Parliamentary democracy'. This conception of history 'perpetuates the myths of imperial elite formation and turns the history of the West into what Eric Wolf called 'a genealogy of progress'' (p. 20).
Of EU officials' general definition of culture - 'their definition assumes that 'culture' can be neatly confined to art and music, television, architecture, sport and tourism, and divorced from politically sensitive issues such as money, sovereignty and government itself. In practice, however, cultural identity spills over into all of these areas' (p. 22).
'In many respects, what the Commission is doing is not dissimilar to that which nationalist elites achieved during the formation of European nation-states in the nineteenth century: i.e. mobilising symbols and inventing traditions in order to give flesh and credibility to a new political order. The nation-state provides a useful model for comparison. As many scholars argue, nation states are 'imagined communities' (Anderson 1983), constructed largely through modern communications technologies, especially the novel, the newspaper, the map and the museum [...] The situation confronting the EU is, of course, more problematic given the lack of a common European language and shared history. Moreover, national identities were forged over a period of centuries, not years - and often through violence and conquest' (pp. 22-23).
'As anthropologists have long argued, identity-formation is a dualistic process of exclusion as well as inclusion. In short, people define themselves not so much in terms of who they are, but against that which they are not. To create 'Europeans', the category of 'non-European' or 'Third Country alien' must become sharper and more salient [...] The EU has tried to get round the accusation that its policies are leading to both increased xenophobia on the one hand, and to the homogenisation of its Member-State cultures on the other, by continually emphasising the policy motifs of 'unity in diversity' and the 'flowering of cultures'. However, historians will recall that similar slogans were coined during the Chinese Cultural Revolution' (p. 24).
With its founding fathers, flag anthem and other symbols of statehood, the EU seems to be following in the footsteps of the nation-state. Ironically, the very model of state-formation that the EU's pioneers sought to 'transcend' is being re-created at a supranational level in what increasingly looks like a European superstate, complete with its own central bank, currency and armed forces. However, EU member-states are being internationalised even as they are being 'Europeanised', and the EU's attempt to create a 'European culture area' in an age of globalisation appears rather like trying to close the door after the horses have bolted' (pp. 24-25).
The EU could represent 'but a temporary 'blip' in an otherwise continuous process of dissolution and fragmentation in the age of late nationalism' (p. 25).
'To use a Marxian expression, the EU's transnational, technocratic elite appears to be transforming itself from a 'class in itself' to a 'class for itself' [...] One political lesson is clear. The expansion of the EU's supranational order will result in an increasing concentration of power in institutions that are un-elected, unaccountable and increasingly self-serving' (p. 39).
References
Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1991.
De Clercq, Willy, Reflection on Information and Communication Policy of the European Community, Brussels: Commission of the European Communities, 1993
Hobsbawm, Eric, Nations and Nationalism since 1780, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Shore, Cris, 'European Union and the Politics of Culture', Paper no: 43, The Bruges Group, London, 2001.
Wednesday, 20 February 2013
Getting Published Successfully - 19 Feb 2013
This course offered some useful advice about getting journals and books published, as well as links to further resources. I'll summarise these here:
Journal Articles
Ways of finding appropriate journals for your research area might include:
Special editions of journals have been proven to get a higher number of citations. If you're interested in submitting to a Special Issue, the way you can learn about forthcoming opportunities might be to have a good online presence or to do peer reviewing for a relevant journal. That way you become part of a 'publishing family'.
The ranking of journals can be measured through the Impact Factor, citations and top-ranked REF journals. However, these measurements are not always reliable. Your choice of journal might to some degree depend on your intended audience (e.g. professional as well as academic audience).
The key criteria for getting a journal paper accepted is:
Has the paper been sent to an appropriate journal?
Does the paper have international appeal?
Is the paper cutting edge?
Is the paper pitched at an appropriate level for the readership?
How significant are the findings?
How productive has the peer review process proved?
Books and Book Chapters
The ideal publisher will publish similar titles at the same level and have a series about your research topic.
There are 5 main ways to get a book commissioned:
The key criteria for getting a book contract is:
Is the market sufficiently a) defined and b) large?
Would the book have international appeal?
Would the book have backlist potential?
How easy is the market to reach? How clear are the channels to market?
Would the book provide readers with valuable benefits?
How productive has the peer review process proved?
Commissioning Books and From Thesis to Book
The difference between a thesis and book is:
P1 > S1 > P2 > S2 > P3 > S3 etc. (P1 - research problem, S1 - literature review, P2 - gap in the literature, S2 - design your own research project/methodology, P3 - methodology has limitations, S3 - address the limitations etc.
Copyright
To publish your thesis, you need permission to reproduce images and written consent to publish interview material.
You CANNOT publish you thesis, as well as publishing your thesis as a book.
Ideal conversion of thesis to book - convert one thesis chapter into an article, develop one thesis case study into an article, adapt the rest of the thesis into a book.
Grey Literature
See the CORE search engine, a repository to facilitate free access to scholarly publications distributed across many systems.
See also Greynet.
Further Sources
William Germano - From Dissertation to Book
Anthony Haynes - Writing Successful Academic Books
Anthony Haynes' Monographer Blog
Helen Sword - Stylish Academic Writing
LSE's Impact of Social Sciences Blog (Twitter Guide)
Write Your Research Blog (All-purpose Tool and Writing Abstracts)
Journal Articles
Ways of finding appropriate journals for your research area might include:
- Checking academics publication lists.
- Databases such as Scopus, Web of Knowledge, BL National Bibliography
- Websites of Academic Publishers such as Blackwell, Elsevier, T&F, Springer (follow on Twitter).
- References from other journal articles.
- Peer review journals lists.
Special editions of journals have been proven to get a higher number of citations. If you're interested in submitting to a Special Issue, the way you can learn about forthcoming opportunities might be to have a good online presence or to do peer reviewing for a relevant journal. That way you become part of a 'publishing family'.
The ranking of journals can be measured through the Impact Factor, citations and top-ranked REF journals. However, these measurements are not always reliable. Your choice of journal might to some degree depend on your intended audience (e.g. professional as well as academic audience).
The key criteria for getting a journal paper accepted is:
Has the paper been sent to an appropriate journal?
Does the paper have international appeal?
Is the paper cutting edge?
Is the paper pitched at an appropriate level for the readership?
How significant are the findings?
How productive has the peer review process proved?
Books and Book Chapters
The ideal publisher will publish similar titles at the same level and have a series about your research topic.
There are 5 main ways to get a book commissioned:
- Reactive commissioning - The commissioning editor accepts the author's proposal.
- Proactive commissioning - The commissioning editor invites the author to write.
- Interactive commissioning - The commissioning editor and the author work on an idea together.
- Retread commissioning - The publisher re-publishes (in revised form) something published before.
- Buy-ins - The publisher buys the rights to something published by another publisher.
The key criteria for getting a book contract is:
Is the market sufficiently a) defined and b) large?
Would the book have international appeal?
Would the book have backlist potential?
How easy is the market to reach? How clear are the channels to market?
Would the book provide readers with valuable benefits?
How productive has the peer review process proved?
Commissioning Books and From Thesis to Book
The difference between a thesis and book is:
- Thesis - more methodology, more analysis, more evidence of originality, less summarising.
- Book - less methodology, longer discussion, wider implications.
P1 > S1 > P2 > S2 > P3 > S3 etc. (P1 - research problem, S1 - literature review, P2 - gap in the literature, S2 - design your own research project/methodology, P3 - methodology has limitations, S3 - address the limitations etc.
Copyright
To publish your thesis, you need permission to reproduce images and written consent to publish interview material.
You CANNOT publish you thesis, as well as publishing your thesis as a book.
Ideal conversion of thesis to book - convert one thesis chapter into an article, develop one thesis case study into an article, adapt the rest of the thesis into a book.
Grey Literature
See the CORE search engine, a repository to facilitate free access to scholarly publications distributed across many systems.
See also Greynet.
Further Sources
William Germano - From Dissertation to Book
Anthony Haynes - Writing Successful Academic Books
Anthony Haynes' Monographer Blog
Helen Sword - Stylish Academic Writing
LSE's Impact of Social Sciences Blog (Twitter Guide)
Write Your Research Blog (All-purpose Tool and Writing Abstracts)
Tuesday, 19 February 2013
Progress-Technology-Utopia
Or, Can We Salvage the Future?
'Why are there no utopias today?' is Judith Shklar’s opening gambit in her essay, 'The Political Theory of Utopia: From Melancholy to Nostalgia', a question that assumes the utopian project to be a thing of the past, a historical artefact. This view forms part of a broader narrative of utopia, dominant since the mid-1960s, which attributes its disappearance to the decline of modernist narratives of collective progress and improvement. So, where did these utopian visions go? Were they banished to the convenient ‘no place’ of the word’s Greek origins? Was the unfashionable and deterministic idea of progress responsible for their fall from grace? And what, if anything, stood in their (no)place? One version of events (see, e.g. Huyssen, Olick et al) is that by the 1970s, the unifying drive of utopia was no longer up to the task of reconciling the competing claims of minority groups in a world with increasingly global perspectives. As the utopian project waned, the concept of collective memory began to emerge in academic discourse, with all its evocative, recuperative and inclusive potential. Offering a means of coming to terms with the events of the past in order to move forward, memory seemed like an antidote to the perceived authoritarian strain in historical narratives. The past, then, having achieved a healthy distance from the present (see Lowenthal and p. 7, Intro, Collective Memory Reader), was once again close and familiar, no longer a foreign country, but the vehicle for societies’ shared inheritance, a concern for future generations. This temporal manoeuvre is well documented (see e.g. Halbwachs, Mannheim, Terdiman), whereby the past, through a discourse of social remembering, is shaped and interpreted according to the present situation. However, there is something in the latest incarnation which, under the banner of memory, speaks of a particular anxiety about the future. The renewed impetus to remember, memorialise and pass on a legacy, particularly in the sphere of culture, is underpinned by fear that a failure to do so will perpetuate the already pervasive spectre of cultural amnesia. Hence, stories, sites and monuments of the past were never so popular, as much for what they represent as for what they are. But the question of what they represent now is critical; do they memorialise the glories of the past or hold the promise of the future? Is there something of the utopian impulse in the new and oft cited memory boom?
I want to explore this possibility further and to argue for a theory of utopia that goes beyond its liminal status as an artefact of the modernist era. So rather than asking, as Skhlar does, 'why are there no utopias today?', I will not foreclose the question of utopia because it seems to me to be intimately linked to the contemporary concern with memory, borne out of a desire for the future. This relationship has been articulated in numerous ways; as Walter Benjamin's angel of history, memory is the anchor for utopia, opening up the space from which it emerges, or the hinge between fiction and reality, or as T.S. Eliot famously wrote in the opening of The Waste Land, the mixing of 'memory and desire'. The anchoring function of memory is more significant in an age where temporal boundaries are being increasingly challenged, effecting a sense of displacement that has been noted by several cultural theorists. For instance, Zygmunt Bauman writes that, 'due to the 'pendulum-like' trajectory of historical sequences a close proximity of forward and backward or 'utopia' and 'nostalgia' pregnant with confusion is virtually inevitable' (p. 321). Others, including Andreas Huyssen, have gone further and argued that 'the very organization of this high-tech world threatens to make categories like past and future, experience and expectation, memory and anticipation themselves obsolete' (p. 9). However, utopia, as distinguished from other forms of futurity, is re-fashioned from the material of the present (see Jameson, trace analogy, pp. xv-xvi), which indicates that the issue is less about whether the collapse of temporal categories precludes the emergence of utopian visions and more about how the utopian project is manifested in the wake of temporal crisis. Contra Huyssen who concludes that 'there can be no utopia in cyberspace, because there is no there there from which a utopia could emerge' (p. 101), I will argue that there is a viable account of technology and utopia beyond the narrative of 'techno-utopianism' critiqued by many contemporary commentators. If, as proposed by Fredric Jameson, the utopian project essentially arises from a failure to imagine the future, then this insight can be taken as a point of departure for considering how a theory of utopia might be conceived in an environment of instant messaging and real-time updates.
Utopia seems peculiarly relevant to the nature of my study, where the museum (or cultural heritage institution), that shrine to the past, is explored in its relation to digital technologies, the current symbol of the future par excellence. Furthermore, my focus is on the concept of memory, specifically cultural or collective memory, and its uptake in discussions about preserving cultural heritage digitally. Both explicit and implicit discourses of memory are dominant in the projects, press and policies that have the digitisation of cultural heritage as their goal. They also display the tendency, noted earlier, to emphasise the legacy of memory, and to identify chief stakeholders as the generations of the future. The tension between past and future, or the pendulum swing of utopia and nostalgia, as Bauman calls it, is evident in these discourses, and here I will refer to several examples from policy documents in attempting to better understand their relation to one another. The common strategy would be to take a broadly positive definition of utopia and argue for its affirmative potential via a complex engagement with memory (see Keightley, p. 190). But while I agree that the utopian imperative is made possible through the discourse of memory, adopting this approach would be to immobilise utopia, sidelining its shared investment in the present, and reinforcing the widespread (though I believe mistaken) practice, whereby the discourse of 'what might be' is relegated in favour of the discourse of 'what is the case'. Utopia’s important critical function, defined by James Moylan as the 'the sort of discourse which considers both what is and what is not yet achieved' (p. 10), also has renewed political currency in the 'hybrid information environment', the transitional phase between analogue and digital cultures.
It this dialectical aspect of utopia that is significant for Jameson, as well as the necessity by which it fails at the moment of its realisation. In 'Utopia and Failure', he states:
Since I intend to refer to policy examples, it is incumbent on me here to address Jameson’s distinction between utopia and a 'mere policy paper'*. The difficulty arises from the fact that all policy is future orientated. However, the policy I discuss derives its utopian elements not only from its projections about the future but from the nature of its engagement with memory. The main point of divergence for Jameson seems to be the wish to lose inherent in the utopian drive. Conversely, policy is not generally written with a view to failing but when it comes to discussions of cultural heritage, the potential solutions offered by digitisation are offset about worries relating to the enormity of the job at hand. For example, the 2003 UNESCO Charter on the Preservation of Digital Heritage raises the concern that 'digital evolution has been too rapid and costly for governments and institutions to develop timely and informed preservation strategies. The threat to the economic, social, intellectual and cultural potential of the heritage – the building blocks of the future – has not been fully grasped' (p. 75). Similarly, the 2002 DigiCULT Report acknowledges:
The quantities being dealt with here are at best unwieldy and at worst totally overwhelming and, while the need to select is mentioned, the threat of information overload is barely concealed under the surface. It is this implicit admission that the task is too big that links back to Jameson’s diagnosis of ''failure' as a way to encourage the analysis of our own situation and in particular its crippling effects on our sense of history and of the future' ('Utopia and Failure'). In 'The Man Who Never Threw Anything Away', Ilya Kabakov expresses this problem through a fictional frame:
Losing the border between garbage and non-garbage space could be re-phrased as the fear of losing a benchmark for value in the mass of online material, and begin to form part of the basis for an assessment of our current situation. Because the volume of stored external 'memory' is now so vast, individual memory seems inadequate with its limited retentive capacities, perpetuating the belief that we will fail to remember.
In policy terms, these fears are punctuated by frequent allusions to abstract notions of memory, whereby the potential for digitisation to 'offer personalised and highly interactive cultural services that allow citizens to contribute their own story to the cultural memory' (DigiCULT, p. 55) is undercut by the more pressing drive to promote 'the memory of a nation' (p. 38). The specifically utopian flavour of these policies and projections is linked to the value attributed to memory as the promise of remembrance without loss. But, of course, to remember everything is not to exercise that process of selection characterised by memory. So the analogy of productive loss that holds for utopia is just as significant for contemporary formulations of collective memory (neccessary forgetfulness). As Jameson writes in Archaeologies of the Future:
However, with regard to memory, the (justifiable) cause of amassing digital resources that reflect 'the plurality of a society’s memory' (see DigiCULT, p. 38) makes the practice of remembering that much more complex. Maurice Halbwachs observes that 'while the collective memory endures and draws strength from its base in a coherent body of people, it is individuals as groups who remember' (p. 48), but the demand for plurality seems less achievable when entrusted to individuals or even groups of individuals in increasingly diverse societies; a programme for systematic inclusion ironically runs the risk of breaking down the categories it seeks to shore up. This is an issue to which I will return throughout my research.
* As an aside, perhaps it could be argued that there is something faintly utopian about policy predicated on the notion of a culture that is immutable and enduring. These qualities, characteristic of the dominant modes of heritage discourse (See Intangible Heritage post), bear striking resemblances to classic narratives of Utopia where, as Shklar suggests, 'Utopia, the moralist's artifact, is of necessity a changeless, harmonious whole' (p, 371).
References
European Commission, Technological Landscapes for Tomorrow’s Cultural Economy: Unlocking the Value of Cultural Heritage, DigiCULT Report, Luxembourg: Official Publications of European Communities, 2002. Accessed 18 February 2013 from http://www.digicult.info/pages/report.php
Halbwachs, Maurice, On Collective Memory, trans. by Lewis A. Coser, London: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Huyssen, Andreas, Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia. New York: Routledge, 1995.
Hviid Jacobsen, Michael and Keith Tester, 'Sociology, Nostalgia, Utopia and Mortality: A Conversation with Zygmunt Bauman', European Journal of Social Theory, 10:2 (2007), 305–325.
Jameson, Fredric, 'Utopia and Failure', 2000. Accessed 15 March 2013 from http://www.politicsandculture.org/2000/12/13/utopia-and-failure-by-fredric-jameson/
Jameson, Fredric, Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions. London: Verso, 2005.
Kabakov, Ilya, 'The Man Who Never Threw Anything Away', in Charles Merewether (ed.), The Archive. London: Whitechapel, 2006, pp. 32-37.
Keightley, Emily, 'Engaging with Memory', in Michael Pickering (ed.), Research Methods for Cultural Studies. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008, pp. 175-192.
Moylan, Tom, Demand the Impossible: Science Fiction and the Utopian Imagination. London: Methuen, 1986.
Shklar, Judith, 'The Political Theory of Utopia: From Melancholy to Nostalgia', Daedalus, 94:2 (Spring, 1965), 367-381.
UNESCO, Charter on the Preservation of the Digital Heritage, 2003. Accessed 18 February 2013 from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001331/133171e.pdf
Further Links
http://digitalmedia.arts.ufl.edu/~jack/wiki/Presentation_Mize.pdf
'Why are there no utopias today?' is Judith Shklar’s opening gambit in her essay, 'The Political Theory of Utopia: From Melancholy to Nostalgia', a question that assumes the utopian project to be a thing of the past, a historical artefact. This view forms part of a broader narrative of utopia, dominant since the mid-1960s, which attributes its disappearance to the decline of modernist narratives of collective progress and improvement. So, where did these utopian visions go? Were they banished to the convenient ‘no place’ of the word’s Greek origins? Was the unfashionable and deterministic idea of progress responsible for their fall from grace? And what, if anything, stood in their (no)place? One version of events (see, e.g. Huyssen, Olick et al) is that by the 1970s, the unifying drive of utopia was no longer up to the task of reconciling the competing claims of minority groups in a world with increasingly global perspectives. As the utopian project waned, the concept of collective memory began to emerge in academic discourse, with all its evocative, recuperative and inclusive potential. Offering a means of coming to terms with the events of the past in order to move forward, memory seemed like an antidote to the perceived authoritarian strain in historical narratives. The past, then, having achieved a healthy distance from the present (see Lowenthal and p. 7, Intro, Collective Memory Reader), was once again close and familiar, no longer a foreign country, but the vehicle for societies’ shared inheritance, a concern for future generations. This temporal manoeuvre is well documented (see e.g. Halbwachs, Mannheim, Terdiman), whereby the past, through a discourse of social remembering, is shaped and interpreted according to the present situation. However, there is something in the latest incarnation which, under the banner of memory, speaks of a particular anxiety about the future. The renewed impetus to remember, memorialise and pass on a legacy, particularly in the sphere of culture, is underpinned by fear that a failure to do so will perpetuate the already pervasive spectre of cultural amnesia. Hence, stories, sites and monuments of the past were never so popular, as much for what they represent as for what they are. But the question of what they represent now is critical; do they memorialise the glories of the past or hold the promise of the future? Is there something of the utopian impulse in the new and oft cited memory boom?
I want to explore this possibility further and to argue for a theory of utopia that goes beyond its liminal status as an artefact of the modernist era. So rather than asking, as Skhlar does, 'why are there no utopias today?', I will not foreclose the question of utopia because it seems to me to be intimately linked to the contemporary concern with memory, borne out of a desire for the future. This relationship has been articulated in numerous ways; as Walter Benjamin's angel of history, memory is the anchor for utopia, opening up the space from which it emerges, or the hinge between fiction and reality, or as T.S. Eliot famously wrote in the opening of The Waste Land, the mixing of 'memory and desire'. The anchoring function of memory is more significant in an age where temporal boundaries are being increasingly challenged, effecting a sense of displacement that has been noted by several cultural theorists. For instance, Zygmunt Bauman writes that, 'due to the 'pendulum-like' trajectory of historical sequences a close proximity of forward and backward or 'utopia' and 'nostalgia' pregnant with confusion is virtually inevitable' (p. 321). Others, including Andreas Huyssen, have gone further and argued that 'the very organization of this high-tech world threatens to make categories like past and future, experience and expectation, memory and anticipation themselves obsolete' (p. 9). However, utopia, as distinguished from other forms of futurity, is re-fashioned from the material of the present (see Jameson, trace analogy, pp. xv-xvi), which indicates that the issue is less about whether the collapse of temporal categories precludes the emergence of utopian visions and more about how the utopian project is manifested in the wake of temporal crisis. Contra Huyssen who concludes that 'there can be no utopia in cyberspace, because there is no there there from which a utopia could emerge' (p. 101), I will argue that there is a viable account of technology and utopia beyond the narrative of 'techno-utopianism' critiqued by many contemporary commentators. If, as proposed by Fredric Jameson, the utopian project essentially arises from a failure to imagine the future, then this insight can be taken as a point of departure for considering how a theory of utopia might be conceived in an environment of instant messaging and real-time updates.
Utopia seems peculiarly relevant to the nature of my study, where the museum (or cultural heritage institution), that shrine to the past, is explored in its relation to digital technologies, the current symbol of the future par excellence. Furthermore, my focus is on the concept of memory, specifically cultural or collective memory, and its uptake in discussions about preserving cultural heritage digitally. Both explicit and implicit discourses of memory are dominant in the projects, press and policies that have the digitisation of cultural heritage as their goal. They also display the tendency, noted earlier, to emphasise the legacy of memory, and to identify chief stakeholders as the generations of the future. The tension between past and future, or the pendulum swing of utopia and nostalgia, as Bauman calls it, is evident in these discourses, and here I will refer to several examples from policy documents in attempting to better understand their relation to one another. The common strategy would be to take a broadly positive definition of utopia and argue for its affirmative potential via a complex engagement with memory (see Keightley, p. 190). But while I agree that the utopian imperative is made possible through the discourse of memory, adopting this approach would be to immobilise utopia, sidelining its shared investment in the present, and reinforcing the widespread (though I believe mistaken) practice, whereby the discourse of 'what might be' is relegated in favour of the discourse of 'what is the case'. Utopia’s important critical function, defined by James Moylan as the 'the sort of discourse which considers both what is and what is not yet achieved' (p. 10), also has renewed political currency in the 'hybrid information environment', the transitional phase between analogue and digital cultures.
It this dialectical aspect of utopia that is significant for Jameson, as well as the necessity by which it fails at the moment of its realisation. In 'Utopia and Failure', he states:
There is surely a dimension of any image of a longed-for future which must vanish when the latter, realized, becomes a present. Add to this that supplementary turn of the screw that makes a Utopian vision into something a little more or less than a mere program for the future, than a mere forecast or projection, or a policy paper: Utopians have worked hard to remove the trivializing stigma (“mere” Utopianism; a “Utopian” idea–meaning a naive and unrealizable one; and so forth), but they would be unwise to strive for complete success in this effort; a success that would mean the obliteration of any difference between Utopia and all other forms of futurity would turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory indeed, and this is another and more objective sense in which, so to speak, “Utopians want to lose” and Utopia must remain somehow unrealizable.
Since I intend to refer to policy examples, it is incumbent on me here to address Jameson’s distinction between utopia and a 'mere policy paper'*. The difficulty arises from the fact that all policy is future orientated. However, the policy I discuss derives its utopian elements not only from its projections about the future but from the nature of its engagement with memory. The main point of divergence for Jameson seems to be the wish to lose inherent in the utopian drive. Conversely, policy is not generally written with a view to failing but when it comes to discussions of cultural heritage, the potential solutions offered by digitisation are offset about worries relating to the enormity of the job at hand. For example, the 2003 UNESCO Charter on the Preservation of Digital Heritage raises the concern that 'digital evolution has been too rapid and costly for governments and institutions to develop timely and informed preservation strategies. The threat to the economic, social, intellectual and cultural potential of the heritage – the building blocks of the future – has not been fully grasped' (p. 75). Similarly, the 2002 DigiCULT Report acknowledges:
Today the volume of material to be digitised is the most pressing digitisation issue, and related to it, the need to select. With growing scale, the nature of object digitisation changes considerably and poses problems to cultural institutions that are not yet solved, such as mass digitisation, integration of metadata at the point of digitisation, the internal transfer and storage of huge amounts of data and, of course, the exploding costs related to all these tasks (p. 16).
The quantities being dealt with here are at best unwieldy and at worst totally overwhelming and, while the need to select is mentioned, the threat of information overload is barely concealed under the surface. It is this implicit admission that the task is too big that links back to Jameson’s diagnosis of ''failure' as a way to encourage the analysis of our own situation and in particular its crippling effects on our sense of history and of the future' ('Utopia and Failure'). In 'The Man Who Never Threw Anything Away', Ilya Kabakov expresses this problem through a fictional frame:
Why does the dump and its image summon my imagination over and over again, why do I always return to it? Because I feel that man, living in our region, is simply suffocating in his own life among the garbage since there is nowhere to take it, nowhere to sweep it out – we have lost the border between garbage and non-garbage space (p. 33).
Losing the border between garbage and non-garbage space could be re-phrased as the fear of losing a benchmark for value in the mass of online material, and begin to form part of the basis for an assessment of our current situation. Because the volume of stored external 'memory' is now so vast, individual memory seems inadequate with its limited retentive capacities, perpetuating the belief that we will fail to remember.
In policy terms, these fears are punctuated by frequent allusions to abstract notions of memory, whereby the potential for digitisation to 'offer personalised and highly interactive cultural services that allow citizens to contribute their own story to the cultural memory' (DigiCULT, p. 55) is undercut by the more pressing drive to promote 'the memory of a nation' (p. 38). The specifically utopian flavour of these policies and projections is linked to the value attributed to memory as the promise of remembrance without loss. But, of course, to remember everything is not to exercise that process of selection characterised by memory. So the analogy of productive loss that holds for utopia is just as significant for contemporary formulations of collective memory (neccessary forgetfulness). As Jameson writes in Archaeologies of the Future:
Utopia is philosophically analogous to the trace, only from the other end of time. The aporia of the trace is to belong to past and present all at once, and thus to constitute a mixture of being and not-being […] Utopia, which combines the not-yet-being of the future with a textual existence in the present is no less worthy of the archaeological paradoxes we are willing to grant the trace (pp. xv-xvi).
However, with regard to memory, the (justifiable) cause of amassing digital resources that reflect 'the plurality of a society’s memory' (see DigiCULT, p. 38) makes the practice of remembering that much more complex. Maurice Halbwachs observes that 'while the collective memory endures and draws strength from its base in a coherent body of people, it is individuals as groups who remember' (p. 48), but the demand for plurality seems less achievable when entrusted to individuals or even groups of individuals in increasingly diverse societies; a programme for systematic inclusion ironically runs the risk of breaking down the categories it seeks to shore up. This is an issue to which I will return throughout my research.
* As an aside, perhaps it could be argued that there is something faintly utopian about policy predicated on the notion of a culture that is immutable and enduring. These qualities, characteristic of the dominant modes of heritage discourse (See Intangible Heritage post), bear striking resemblances to classic narratives of Utopia where, as Shklar suggests, 'Utopia, the moralist's artifact, is of necessity a changeless, harmonious whole' (p, 371).
References
European Commission, Technological Landscapes for Tomorrow’s Cultural Economy: Unlocking the Value of Cultural Heritage, DigiCULT Report, Luxembourg: Official Publications of European Communities, 2002. Accessed 18 February 2013 from http://www.digicult.info/pages/report.php
Halbwachs, Maurice, On Collective Memory, trans. by Lewis A. Coser, London: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Huyssen, Andreas, Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia. New York: Routledge, 1995.
Hviid Jacobsen, Michael and Keith Tester, 'Sociology, Nostalgia, Utopia and Mortality: A Conversation with Zygmunt Bauman', European Journal of Social Theory, 10:2 (2007), 305–325.
Jameson, Fredric, 'Utopia and Failure', 2000. Accessed 15 March 2013 from http://www.politicsandculture.org/2000/12/13/utopia-and-failure-by-fredric-jameson/
Jameson, Fredric, Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions. London: Verso, 2005.
Kabakov, Ilya, 'The Man Who Never Threw Anything Away', in Charles Merewether (ed.), The Archive. London: Whitechapel, 2006, pp. 32-37.
Keightley, Emily, 'Engaging with Memory', in Michael Pickering (ed.), Research Methods for Cultural Studies. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008, pp. 175-192.
Moylan, Tom, Demand the Impossible: Science Fiction and the Utopian Imagination. London: Methuen, 1986.
Shklar, Judith, 'The Political Theory of Utopia: From Melancholy to Nostalgia', Daedalus, 94:2 (Spring, 1965), 367-381.
UNESCO, Charter on the Preservation of the Digital Heritage, 2003. Accessed 18 February 2013 from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001331/133171e.pdf
Further Links
http://digitalmedia.arts.ufl.edu/~jack/wiki/Presentation_Mize.pdf
Monday, 18 February 2013
Hidden Histories etc.
It was the custom of the city's artists - and everyone in Diaspar was an artist at some time or another - to display their current production along side of the moving ways, so that the passers-by could admire their work. In this manner, it was usually only a few days before the entire population had critically examined any noteworthy creation, and also expressed views upon it. The resulting verdict, recorded automatically by opinion-sampling devices which no one had ever been able to suborn or deceive - and there had been enough attempts - decided the fate of the masterpiece. If there was a sufficiently affirmative vote, its matrix would go into the memory of the city so that anyone who wished, at any future date, could possess a reproduction indistinguishable from the original.
The City and the Stars by Arthur C. Clarke.
Lately, I've noticed the phrase 'hidden histories' creep into a number of museum exhibitions and policy documents, particularly those (unnsurprisingly) related to digitisation. In fact I'm guilty of using similar wording in an event I organised at the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery for Local History Month last May - 'Tall Tales and Half-remembered Histories'. The appeal of this idea seems connected to the sense of there being an alternative version of events, one that may have been largely ignored by the arbiters of history (e.g. museums and galleries) for many years. But, being in the business of (hi)story-telling, museums and galleries are now the most consistent champions of hidden histories although, for them, the concept is often more indicative of an approach to collections management (there is a similar drive behind the use of memory discourse and notions of collective memory). These organisations are materially invested in their memories and histories; hence, it is usually parts of collections that are hidden not history per se (depending on how far you think history can be embodied in heritage objects). In emphasising these hidden aspects, the feat of making collections more accessible appears all the greater. To illustrate the point further, several recent cases are listed below:
- The BBC 4 show 'Hidden Histories', which looks at how the Royal Commission investigates and records Welsh history.
- The University of Leeds Library's Digitisation Strategy (still currently in draft stages), which states, 'digitised collections give our scholarly and cultural communities access to primary sources that have previously been hidden away due to rarity, fragility, and sometimes sheer volume. In many cases digital access is the only way to deliver these items to users, in order to preserve the original'.
- The University of Leeds' Museum of the History of Science, Technology & Medicine in their 'Hidden Histories' exhibition.
- Eastside Community Heritage: Hidden Histories, an independent charity working on documenting the history of ordinary people from East London through collecting oral histories, publications and exhibitions.
- The National Library of Wales' current Digitisation Strategy, which cites the example of its framed works of art and explains that 'most of the collection remains hidden in storage, but now this collection is available immediately through the Library’s catalogue' (p. 9).
- The project 'Hidden Histories: Computing and the Humanities c. 1949-1980', which aimed to gather and make available sources to enable the social, intellectual and cultural conditions that shaped the early take up of computing in the Humanities.
- Hidden Collections: From Archive to Asset, a multi-disciplinary programme of workshops and industry projects.
Aleida Assman begins by making this contrast in 'Canon and Archive'. She writes, 'when thinking about memory, we must start with forgetting', going on to explain that, when examining cultural practices, two types of forgetting can be distinguished - active and passive. Active forgetting is defined as being constituted in 'intentional acts such as trashing and destroying', although these are also 'a necessary and constructive part of internal social transformations'; passive forgetting 'is related to non-intentional acts such as losing, hiding, dispersing, neglecting, abandoning, or leaving something behind' (p. 97-98). Remembering, which by contrast to the rule of forgetting, should be regarded as the exception (see p. 98), is also characterised by an active and a passive side - 'the institutions of active memory preserve the past as present while the institutions of passive memory preserve the past as past' (p. 98). These two modes of cultural memory are termed by Assman as canon (when memory is actively circulated) and archive (when memory is passively stored), see also Jakob Burckhardt: messages and traces. The messages in active memory are addressed to posterity and intended for continuous repetition and re-use, whereas the traces of passive memory are not unmediated but have lost their immediate addressees. Yet 'as part of the archive, they are open to new contexts and lend themselves to new interpretations' (p. 99).
The canon stands independently of social taste and appears unyielding to historical change; it outlives the generations that encounter and interpret it anew (see p. 100), although it may not be as fixed as it first seems. As a 'cultural reference memory' (p. 101), the archive is not completely forgottten but time quickly outdates its material traces (see p. 103) - it is a space 'located on the border between forgetting and remembering' (p. 103). Assman suggests that it is specifically when they are rendered politically un-useful that archives become outdated as instruments of power. Therefore, a further distinction is made between the power base for the political archive and the academic base for the history archive (see p. 103). Assman concludes that:
The two realms of cultural memory are not sealed against each other. On the contrary, they interact in differenct ways. The reference memory, for instance, provides a rich background for the working memory, which means that elements of the canon may be 'estranged' and reinterpreted by framing them with elements of the archive [...] Elements of the canon can also recede into the archive, while elements of the archive may be recovered and reclaimed for the canon (p. 104).
Of course the memory as storage model is flawed in the sense that, taken to its logical conclusion, to store everything is not to exercise that process of selection characterised by memory. To return to the Olick post, I agree with Halbwachs' position (adapted from Bergson) that any theory of collective memory should be defined as a process of fluid and active engagement, as opposed to a fixed repository of passive storage. However, there is another sense in which the canon/archive distinction is being challenged. Wolfgang Ernst writes:
Digital archives are closer to the computer's memory aesthetic than are the traditional (and medium-of-tradition) emphatic coupling of archive and cultural memory. The classical archive is preserved in time. But the digital archive has no intrinsic macrotemporal index, as the 'year 2000' problem made clear. It operates at a microtemporal level instead (p. 82)
He goes on to claim that 'the primary operations of the archive are no longer the contents of its files but rather their logistical interlinking, just as the Web is not primarily defined by its contents but by its protocols' (p. 84). There are two issues here; the suggestion seems to be that the temporal sequence that defines cultural memory or, more broadly, a sense of the past through human actions or social phenomena, is not applicable to the digital archive, which has a time-based element internal to the workings of technical media, i.e. its temporality is not linear. Ernst also emphasises the relational aspects of the digital archive, which echos Foucault's quote in 'Of Other Spaces'. With curious foresight (pre-Internet), he writes 'we are at a moment when our experience of the world is less that of a long life developing through time than that of a network' (p. 22), and later, 'our epoch is one in which space takes for us the form of relations among sites' (p. 23). Here, space could also be understood as the cyberspace of the Web; if that's the case, where does this leave history? Is the history of hidden histories impoverished because its definition is based on a linear configuration of time, or does it operate (unintentionally) through a very different set of temporal rules? If we can agree with Assman that the archive's status has been defined by a conventional temporal system and shaped through its interaction with the canon, what happens when a temporally 'disembodied' archival collection appears online, less historical and more relational?
So far, I've examined elements of both the hidden and the historical in hidden histories. While I find this idea interesting, especially its usage in relation to digitisation projects, I've definitely wandered off the topic at times, and potentially ventured some grander claims for the phrase than initially intended. However, one final aspect I want to touch on goes back to that idea of hiding or concealment and the proximity between concealment and forgetting that Heidegger discerns in Parmenides, his long mediation on alètheia, meaning unconcealment. The third directive covers the relation between alètheia and lèthè, forgetfulness. He distinguishes three forms of forgetting, firstly stating that:
The forgotten is, in the experience of the Greeks, what has sunk away into concealedness, specifically in such a fashion that the sinking away, i.e., the concealing, remains concealed to the very one who has forgotten. More precisely and more in the Greek vein, the forgetter is concealed to himself in his relation to what is happening here to that which we then call, on account of this happening, the forgotten (p. 71).
In contrast, he suggests that 'in general we conceive forgetting in terms of the behavior of a 'subject', as a not-retaining, and we then speak of 'forgetfulness' as that by which something 'escapes' us, when because of one thing, we forget another. Here forgetfulness is poor attention' (p. 71). Then, 'in addition, there is the forgetting explained as a consequence of 'memory-disturbances'. Psychopathology calls this 'amnesia'. But the word 'forgetfulness' is too weak to name the forgetting that can befall man; for forgetfulness is only the inclination toward distraction' (p. 72). When we forget what is essential (being), lose it and strike it from our minds, we are close not to forgetfulness but to oblivion. Heidegger's final claim is that, since truth has to be wrestled from unconcealment (the coming into its own of truth), it always risks sinking back into forgetfulness or oblivion.
Putting to one side Heidegger's reference to forgetting as amnesia (or oblivion), I'm interested in the Greek etymological roots of forgetting as a sort of concealment, as opposed to the more common usage of forgetfulness as distraction. Both these definitions have different connotations for the hidden. Throughout this post, the idea of hidden histories has been explored in relation to museum and archival collections. Continuing in that vein, the notion of concealment as forgetting runs contrary to the implications of Assman's account that the archive is somewhere between remembering and forgetting; here concealment is a form of forgetfulness. Perhaps if we go back to that intent implied by hidden (and Assman's similar characterisation of forgetting as an intentional act), the alternative impulse for hidden histories can be explained. Bringing it back down to an organisational level, the intentional aspects of this concealment can only be determined on a case by case basis. Often, as I suggested earlier, collections are hidden almost incidentally but in those instances where something has been deliberately covered up, concealment as forgetting can be applied.
On the other hand, forgetting understood as a type of distraction speaks to that characterisation of the archive as a reference memory, something that is side-lined by higher commemorative priorities. Of the culture of distraction prepetuated by the Internet and search engines like Google, Nicholas Carr has argued compellingly. He writes of Google that it promotes 'the speedy, superficial skimming of information and discourage(s) any deep prolonged engagement with a single argument, idea or narrative [...] Every click we make on the Web marks a break in our concentration, a bottom-up disruption of our attention [...] Google is, quite literally, in the business of distraction' (pp. 156-157). This concept of distraction, manifested as reading in a non-linear way, again links to earlier suggestions about the digital archive and its system of relations.
Ultimately, one thing seems clear; any hidden histories presented digitally will be read in a way that challenge traditional readings of history. And perhaps, more worringly, collections revealed through digitisation, either to supplement or to present an alternative to the 'working memory', may instead accelerate a form of forgetfulness in becoming part of that culture of distraction associated with online information.
References
Assman, Aleida, 'Canon and Archive', in A Companion to Cultural Memory Studies, ed. by Astrid Erll, Ansgar Nünning, Sara B Young. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 2010, pp. 97-107.
Carr, Nicholas, The Shallows: How the Internet is Changing the Way We Think, Read and Remember. London: Atlantic Books, 2011.
Ernst, Wolfgang, Digital Memory and the Archive, ed. by Jussi Parikka. Minneapolis; London: University of Minnesota Press, 2013.
Foucault, Michel, 'Texts/Contexts: Of Other Spaces', Diacritics, 16:1 (1989), 22-27.
Heidegger, Martin, Parmenides (Studies in Continental Thought). Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998.
UNESCO, Charter on the Preservation of the Digital Heritage, 2003. Accessed 18 February 2013 from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001331/133171e.pdf#page=80
Wednesday, 13 February 2013
Approaches to Discourse Analysis - Table
From Martin Barker, 'Analysing Discourse', in Michael Pickering (ed.), Research Methods for Cultural Studies, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008, pp. 153-154. See also 'Madness in the Method' post. Laurajane Smith and Norman Fairclough - both may provide something of a template for my study.
The Development of Collective Memory - Jeffrey K. Olick
As an adjunct to the Madness in the Method post, which focused partly on the field of memory studies, I thought I'd summarise an essay by Jeffrey K. Olick, 'From Collective Memory to the Sociology of Mnemonic Practices and Products'. Olick's essay provides a useful excursus of what he initially calls 'a sociology of retrospection'. He draws a contrast between the 'history of mentalities' in France, which takes a 'collective psychology' approach to cultural history and is concerned with the imaginary and collective perceptions of human activities over time, and the German concept of 'historical consciousness', variously pervaded by Hegelian abstractions (cultural essences), the formation of political processes (see Lukacs) and the notion of mnemohistory or 'the past as it is remembered' (see J. Assman) (see p. 151). He then introduces the more general term collective memory, often used by scholars working in this area. Olick is both critical and accepting of the associations of collective memory, writing, 'I agree with the charge that collective memory over-totalizes a variety of retrospective products, practices and processes. Nevertheless, as a sensitizing rather than operational concept, I believe it raises useful questions when taken as a starting point for enquiry rather than as an end point' (p. 152).
Elsewhere, in the intro to the The Collective Memory Reader (2011), Olick has identified alternative names for this phenomenon including 'cultural memory', 'communicative memory' and 'social memory' (see 2011, p. 40), as well as suggesting that the problem of collective memory arises during a particular period, when it is no longer so obvious how it is constituted. Linked to this recognition is Patrick Hutton's theory that a system of memory as habit has now been displaced by one of memory as representation, a form of media literacy distinguished by a high degree of self-reflexivity (see 2011, p. 6).
Returning to the essay, Olick traces the contemporary understanding of collective memory to the sociological work of Halbwachs, largely attributing his influences to Bergson and Durkheim. Bergson's analysis of the experience of time and his theory of memory as a process of fluid and active engagement ('the variable experience of memory' (p. 154)), as opposed to a fixed repository of passive storage was of interest to Halbwachs. Unlike Bergson's subjective account, Durkheim's emphasis was on the variability of perceptual catergories among forms of social organisation (see p. 154), another important development for Halbwachs who wanted to construct a sociological framework for studying memory. Olick writes that 'memory, for Halbwachs, is first of all framed in the present as much as the past, variable rather than constant [...] Memory is a matter of how minds work together in society, how their operations are not simply mediated but are structured by social arrangements' (p. 155). However, he is distinct from Durkheim (who downplayed the role of the individual), in that he characterised collective memory as plural, 'placing most of his emphasis on the multiple social frameworks of individual memories' (p. 157). Halbwach's has sometimes been characterised as being concerned with the materiality of memory.
Olick's conclusion is that there are many different factors at play in the notion of collective memory, 'collective representations (publicly available symbols, meanings, narratives, and rituals), deep cultural structures (generative systems of rules or patterns for producing representations), social frameworks (groups and patterns of interaction), and culturally and socially framed individual memories' (p. 157-8). He characterises these as 'mnemonic products and practices', where products include stories, rituals, books, statues, presentations, speeches, images, pictures, records, historical studies, surveys etc., practices include reminiscence, recall, representation, commemoration, celebration, regret, renunciation, disavowal, denial, rationalisation, excuse and acknowledgement (see p. 158). In light of these different processes, three principles are suggested for the analysis of collective memory:
1. Collective memory is made up of many things and should not be conceived as monolithic; there is not just one collective memory belonging to each society.
2. Collective memory is always a negotiation between present concerns and the legacies of the past; ''Traditionalist' models [...] assimilate collective memory to heritage, patrimony, national character [...] and view collective memory as a bedrock for the continuity of identities [...] On the other hand, 'Presentist' models assimilate collective memory to manipulation and deception, a mere tool in the arsenal of power' (p. 159).
3. 'We must remember that memory is a process and not a thing, a faculty rather than a place' (p. 159). Therefore, we need to develop the right analytical tools to study collective memory in all its complexities and contradictions.
References
Hutton, Patrick H., History as an Art of Memory. Hanover: University Press of New England, 1993.
Olick, Jeffrey K., 'From Collective Memory to the Sociology of Mnemonic Practices and Products', in A Companion to Cultural Memory Studies, ed. by Astrid Erll, Ansgar Nünning, Sara B Young. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 2010, pp. 151-162.
Olick, Jeffrey K., Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi, and Daniel Levy (eds.), 'Introduction' in The Collective Memory Reader. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 3-62.
Elsewhere, in the intro to the The Collective Memory Reader (2011), Olick has identified alternative names for this phenomenon including 'cultural memory', 'communicative memory' and 'social memory' (see 2011, p. 40), as well as suggesting that the problem of collective memory arises during a particular period, when it is no longer so obvious how it is constituted. Linked to this recognition is Patrick Hutton's theory that a system of memory as habit has now been displaced by one of memory as representation, a form of media literacy distinguished by a high degree of self-reflexivity (see 2011, p. 6).
Returning to the essay, Olick traces the contemporary understanding of collective memory to the sociological work of Halbwachs, largely attributing his influences to Bergson and Durkheim. Bergson's analysis of the experience of time and his theory of memory as a process of fluid and active engagement ('the variable experience of memory' (p. 154)), as opposed to a fixed repository of passive storage was of interest to Halbwachs. Unlike Bergson's subjective account, Durkheim's emphasis was on the variability of perceptual catergories among forms of social organisation (see p. 154), another important development for Halbwachs who wanted to construct a sociological framework for studying memory. Olick writes that 'memory, for Halbwachs, is first of all framed in the present as much as the past, variable rather than constant [...] Memory is a matter of how minds work together in society, how their operations are not simply mediated but are structured by social arrangements' (p. 155). However, he is distinct from Durkheim (who downplayed the role of the individual), in that he characterised collective memory as plural, 'placing most of his emphasis on the multiple social frameworks of individual memories' (p. 157). Halbwach's has sometimes been characterised as being concerned with the materiality of memory.
Olick's conclusion is that there are many different factors at play in the notion of collective memory, 'collective representations (publicly available symbols, meanings, narratives, and rituals), deep cultural structures (generative systems of rules or patterns for producing representations), social frameworks (groups and patterns of interaction), and culturally and socially framed individual memories' (p. 157-8). He characterises these as 'mnemonic products and practices', where products include stories, rituals, books, statues, presentations, speeches, images, pictures, records, historical studies, surveys etc., practices include reminiscence, recall, representation, commemoration, celebration, regret, renunciation, disavowal, denial, rationalisation, excuse and acknowledgement (see p. 158). In light of these different processes, three principles are suggested for the analysis of collective memory:
1. Collective memory is made up of many things and should not be conceived as monolithic; there is not just one collective memory belonging to each society.
2. Collective memory is always a negotiation between present concerns and the legacies of the past; ''Traditionalist' models [...] assimilate collective memory to heritage, patrimony, national character [...] and view collective memory as a bedrock for the continuity of identities [...] On the other hand, 'Presentist' models assimilate collective memory to manipulation and deception, a mere tool in the arsenal of power' (p. 159).
3. 'We must remember that memory is a process and not a thing, a faculty rather than a place' (p. 159). Therefore, we need to develop the right analytical tools to study collective memory in all its complexities and contradictions.
References
Hutton, Patrick H., History as an Art of Memory. Hanover: University Press of New England, 1993.
Olick, Jeffrey K., 'From Collective Memory to the Sociology of Mnemonic Practices and Products', in A Companion to Cultural Memory Studies, ed. by Astrid Erll, Ansgar Nünning, Sara B Young. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 2010, pp. 151-162.
Olick, Jeffrey K., Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi, and Daniel Levy (eds.), 'Introduction' in The Collective Memory Reader. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 3-62.
Interfaces with the Past?
The University of York's Centre for Digital Heritage is having its inaugural conference, Digital Heritage 2013: Interfaces with the Past, on the 6 July 2013, 9.30am-8pm. The Call for Papers is open until midnight on 2 April, 2013, and confirmed speakers include Graeme Earl (sotonDH, University of Southampton), Douglas Pritchard (Director of Operations, Cyark Europe), and Professor Andrew Prescott (King's College, London and theme leader for the AHRC Digital Transformations programme). 200-word abstracts should be emailed to cdh-2013@york.ac.uk with an indication of the preferred format (i.e. presentation, poster, or demo). Successful applicants will be notified if their paper has been accepted by 19 April, 2013. The CFP summary is as follows:
This strikes me as a very brief and somewhat vague outline, and perhaps, in order to encourage a varied response, it is intentionally so. But what do 'interfaces with the past' refer to in the context of digital heritage? Borrowing from the language of computer science, presumably to emphasise its digital allegiances, the word interface suggests a mode of channelling or interacting with the past, where the interface acts as a mediator. In the OED, interface is defined as v. To come into interaction with but also n. A means or place of interaction between two systems, organizations, etc.; a meeting-point or common ground between two parties, systems, or disciplines; also, interaction, liaison, dialogue.
Being involved in the study of heritage, to me the most obvious example of an interface with the past is the museum, which is understood to be in dialogue with the past to the extent that it constructs representations and interpretations of historical events. But, for the purposes of the conference, it seems that the museum is implied more in the idea of heritage than in the interface. I must conclude, then, that the notion of the interface refers to the opportunities digital technology affords for interacting with the past and, in considering putting in a proposal, this view has informed my thinking.
My preliminary thoughts have been either:
Contributions are invited for papers on all aspects of digital heritage, with a focus on interfaces with the past: audio, visual, spatial, or textual. We welcome proposals for 15-minute presentations, posters, and practical demonstrations.
This strikes me as a very brief and somewhat vague outline, and perhaps, in order to encourage a varied response, it is intentionally so. But what do 'interfaces with the past' refer to in the context of digital heritage? Borrowing from the language of computer science, presumably to emphasise its digital allegiances, the word interface suggests a mode of channelling or interacting with the past, where the interface acts as a mediator. In the OED, interface is defined as v. To come into interaction with but also n. A means or place of interaction between two systems, organizations, etc.; a meeting-point or common ground between two parties, systems, or disciplines; also, interaction, liaison, dialogue.
Being involved in the study of heritage, to me the most obvious example of an interface with the past is the museum, which is understood to be in dialogue with the past to the extent that it constructs representations and interpretations of historical events. But, for the purposes of the conference, it seems that the museum is implied more in the idea of heritage than in the interface. I must conclude, then, that the notion of the interface refers to the opportunities digital technology affords for interacting with the past and, in considering putting in a proposal, this view has informed my thinking.
My preliminary thoughts have been either:
1. To propose a presentation summarising my PhD topic, focusing on the EU's digitisation agenda for cultural heritage through the Europeana project. Relevant to this discussion is the link between the concept of memory and the claims being made for digitisation as means of securing Europe's cultural inheritance. The connotations of collective memory and its potential for communicating or re-creating the past are also important issues.
 |
| An example from the Atlas of Digital Damages |
2. To propose a presentation on the The Atlas of Digital Damages, running on Flickr. Initiated by Ben Fino-Radin (Digital Conservator, Rhizome at The New Museum) after a blog post by Barbara Sierman of National Library of the Netherlands, the group highlights concerns about the limited life-span of some digital formats. A colleague of mine at the University of Leeds Library is the Project Manager of Sustainable Preservation Using Community Engagement (SPRUCE) (JISC-funded), and has contributed to the Flickr group. The presentation could publicise the Leeds project and provide a different perspectve on 'interfacing' with the past in the sense that technology presents a threat as well as an opportunity for cultural heritage. Perhaps the title could be 'Digital Damages: The Ugly (Inter)Face of Collections Online'.
So far, taking account of the limited time for presentations (15 mins), I'm leaning more towards the second option. I'll update this post at a later stage with draft abstracts.
Monday, 11 February 2013
Madness in the Method
METHODOLOGY - Recently this word has become something of a mental obstacle. Research Methods modules I completed at MA level never phased me. Back then, a method was just an approach to research, usually to finding and accumulating different research sources. But at PhD level, the word has taken on far more significant proportions. I seem to have lost sight of a method or a methodology as something that identifies the approach to my research topic and the word and its connotations are threatening to become a barrier to my project.
To attempt to resolve this mental block, I've been reading around research methodologies, particularly those relating to memory as that's one object of my research. However, I'm also interested in methodologies for analysing discourse, since my focus is on the use of memory in policy and policy sensitive documents relating to digitisation. In trying to get to grips with different approaches, I've been paying close attention to book and article intros, which sometimes seem closer to methodological disclaimers, as in the case of David Lowenthal (The Past is a Foreign Country):
It's tempting to proceed along similar lines; I've always thought that broader disciplinary and literary and art references can enhance critical writing. Unfortunately, I can't shake the feeling that there's also something undisciplined about wholly embracing this approach and that, since a PhD is a particular kind of assessment, for a PhD student, there's a danger of running into difficulties without a more clearly defined set of terms. So, for my purposes, I'm focusing on writers that explicitly deal with methodological issues and reflect my own research interests. Some highlight the dangers of deploying memory as a mode of cultural history, or privileging one aspect of collective memory to the detriment of alternative perspectives. Others provide a potential blueprint for my own project, although I'm not uncritical of all these methodologies. The positions I want to concentrate on (for now) are summarised below.
Uses of Heritage - Laurajane Smith
Laurajane Smith's central idea is that heritage does not exist in the sense that it is embodied in grand, monumental and historic sites. Instead, heritage is a discourse that 'validates a set of practices and performances, which populates both popular and expert constructions of 'heritage' and undermines alternative and subaltern ideas about 'heritage' (p. 11). Elsewhere, she writes that the way discourse is constructed 'is linked to the way heritage may be understood to be incorporated within the processes of remembering and forgetting' (p. 292, 'Envy of the World'). In her introduction, Smith gives a breakdown of the book, describing how the first chapter, informed by concepts of discourse analysis, 'identifies and examines the orders of discourse that surround heritage, and considers how and when they developed, and who engages in this dialogue' (p. 6). This process 'thus presents a theoretical and methodological underpinning for the rest of this chapter and the book' (p. 12). The analysis Smith constructs deals specifically with cultural and social work of heritage practices and performances and, while acknowledging Foucauldian modes of discourse, she anchors her approach in critical discourse analysis (CDA) so as not to lose sight of the materiality of heritage even as it is being problematised (see p. 13). CDA is concerned with illuminating the links between discourse and practice (more so than Foucault by implication, see critique on pp. 14-15), and with understanding how people organise themselves and act through particular discourses. Discourse is characterised as an 'irreducible part of social life' (p. 15) and competing discourses impact on on the way people live, both through legitimising social practices/relations and by potentially effecting social change. However, CDA does not just entail an analysis of discourse but also an analysis of the social and political context of that discourse. The notion of discourse advanced by CDA is summarised by Smith as 'both reflective of and constitutive of social practices' (p. 16). By extension, this is how heritage discourse is understood throughout the rest of the book.
'Engaging with Memory' - Emily Keightley
Emily Keightley's essay explores methodological approaches to memory as a topic of research, stressing that 'it is necessary to consider the commonalities and collective trends in memory, the features of their communication and representation, and their ritualised performances'; these traits 'suggest that memory is more than an expression of individual consciousness and is both socially and culturally constructed' (p. 176). However, memory is also understood to be in a reciprocal relationship between the individual and the collective in the generation of mnemonic texts (see p. 177). While suggesting that memory acts on and through the social world via a network of social structures that extend beyond the individual, Keightley guards against straighforwardly functionalist reasoning by emphasising the importance of memory's modes of representation and communication in this process. By way of an example, she references Jameson's (postmodern) account whereby memory, being intensely mediated, now only reaches us as a simulated version (see p. 178). Her summarising statement on the definition of memory borrows from Richard Terdiman: 'memory is central to understanding cultural life, not because it is the past but because it is the modality of our relation to it' (p. 179). In what follows, Keightley goes on to outline different ways of working with memory, one approach being an investigation of memory as the object of research. Like Smith's theory of heritage, she proposes that memory can be studied as a discourse, which is linked with the idea of memory as narrative: 'the codes, conventions and norms of representing the past as a memory can be examined, and in doing so routine ways that we make sense of past experience can be investigated' (p. 185). This approach to researching memory is intimately bound up with 'what memory provides for us in our contemporary lives' (p. 185). If I took a similar line to that outlined by Keightley, my study would be a largely theoretical consideration of the role and significance of memory in contemporary culture in relation to digitisation as a representation or mode of communication.
'Analysing Discourse' - Martin Barker
Martin Barker suggests that 'the seemingly inexorable rise of the concept of 'discourse' has made it almost unavoidable for cultural studies researchers, particularly since its invitation to theorise culture as 'like a language' coincides with so many impulses within our field' (p. 150). He describes how during the last thirty years discourse analysis has become one of the most pervasive areas of academic research, although the field is also distinguished by its diversity. Scholars are united by their interest in questions concerning 'the nature and role of language and other meaning-systems in the operation of social relations, and in particular the power of such systems to shape identities, social practices, relations between individuals, communities, and all kinds of authority [...] discourse work emerged from the collapse of academic Marxism, the rise of alternative social movements theorised by near-simultaneous academic constituencies, alongside the 'cultural turn' in various fields of the social sciences' (p. 152). After compiling a list of the seven main tendencies in discourse analysis, Barker offers a series of methodological tests that can be applied to specific cases to strengthen the integrity of discourse analytic claims, and make them more open to empirical testing by reception research. These are:
Defensible corpus - the corpus refers to the group of items studied by the qualitative researcher. If there is independent evidence of the cultural importance of the corpus, the researcher will have a better sense of what aspects may be most relevant to attend to and will have stronger grounds for the relevance of the outcomes of the analysis.
Defensible method - 'the conveniently small corpus is at greater risk of never being more than illustrative (i.e. it may favour cases which suit a conclusion reached on other grounds). In the act of becoming more than this, it inevitably grows. We have to face and find solutions to the problems of managing (both analytically and presentationally) large bodies of discursive materials' (p. 165).
Taking responsibility for implied claims - 'discourses inevitably make substantive claims about things beyond themselves. Most typically these are claims about reception'. We must take responsibility for these claims. A model of discourse analysis can be compromised if too many assumptions are made about audience reception; 'the moment we move beyond the loosest and least satisfactory use of terms like the 'audience'or 'the spectator', we begin to impute characteristics to them. The difficulty is that these imputations are simultaneously pseudo-empirical, and theoretically charged' (p. 166).
'Investigating Cultural Products' - Aeron Davis
Aeron Davis outlines what he describes as three of the most common research approaches to cultural production - political economy, textual analysis and sociological/ethnographic work. Case studies of cultural production can involve any combination of these methods. Although my case studies are not yet clearly defined (Europeana is likely to be one), broadly speaking the mode of cultural production I'm interested in is the digitisation of cultural heritage, although this is not linked to one specific industry. Here, I will concentrate on the first two approaches, although sociological/ethnographic methods will also eventually be relevant to my project.
A political economy approach involves studying cultural production at the macro level of industry and examining the conditions of cultural production, taking the view that these conditions influence cultural content, 'the researcher therefore attempts to link cultural outputs to the ecnomic, industrial and political factors that shape organisations and industries which then produce culture' (p. 53). Research is often carried out by collecting quantatitive data about industries. The important thing here is that cultural production is investigated indirectly; the focus is on structures, external factors and high-level decision makers not on individuals working in the industry (see p. 54); ' key practical operations involve locating, collating and aggregating data sources. Government institutions [...] professional associations and trade publications are all potential sources' (p. 66). Findings tend to give a more general representative account of the research object but if there's too much emphasis on quantatitive data, these findings can also be subject to manipulation.
A textual analysis approach investigates cultural production through an analysis of research outputs. Analysis can be applied to printed, audio and visual texts, to reports and historical documents. Here, cultural production is again studied indirectly. Assumptions about cultural production are inferred from the outputs themselves - 'in analysing texts researchers seek to highlight the common codes, terms ideologies, discourses and individuals that come to dominate cultural outputs. What can be said about the individuals featured in texts? Who are the contributors to the text? How are the texts framed and presented? What are the terms and phrases used and what is their symbolic meaning? What are the assumptions embedded in the texts?' (p. 56). The analysis may draw from qualitative or quantitative data; a qualitative approach would use a smaller sample of texts but look at them in more detail, whereas a quantitative approach would generate large quantities of numerical data (see p. 57). When looking at different organisational approaches to a set of issues (i.e. issues pertaining to digitisation), a comparative textual analysis can be illuminating. However, as Davis observes, 'in the past, rather grand claims about material and cultural relations have been deduced from limited and unrepresentative selections of texts' (p. 58).
Sociological and ethnographic approaches usually tend to involve interviews and participant observation. 'Key practical operations involve selecting, assessing and working with individuals - either elite professionals in the cultural industries or those who are part of a subculture (or field or network). Data collection, hypotheses and analysis must adapt during the research period' (p. 66).
'Collective Memory and Cultural History: Problems of Method' - Alon Confino
In Alan Confino's essay the concern is that 'memory studies lack a clear focus and have become somewhat predictable [...] The history of memory, in fact, has developed into a fragmented field. It lacks critical reflection on method and theory, as well as a systematic evaluation of the field's problems, approaches, and objects of study' (p. 1387). He also highlights the tendency to label historical events as a form of memory, warning that 'though the label is an attractive one, in itself memory does not offer any true additional explanatory power. Only when linked to historical questions and problems, via methods and theories, can memory be illuminating' (p. 1388). For Confino, memory is at its most useful when it communicates connections between the cultural, the social, and the political, between representation and social experience. He also expresses the view that the construction of memory should be inseparable from its contestation and reception, a relationship he compares to that of text and context (see p. 1398). Memory is in danger of falling prey to political reductionism and functionalism when it is defined solely through the 'politics of memory' or the 'politics of identity'. A neglect of its social and cultural dimensions can reduce memory to 'an illustrative reflection of political development' and become 'relativized to ideology' (p. 1393); thus 'we transform memory into a 'natural' corollary of political development and interests' (p. 1394). Confino summarises by suggesting that 'perhaps the first task of the history of memory is to historicize memory' (p. 1403). [Pierre Nora has made a contentious attempt to do this]
'Finding Meaning in Memory: A Methodological Critique of Collective Memory Studies' - Wulf Kansteiner
In his article, Wulf Kansteiner takes a similar view that 'while memory has clearly become a central concept in the humanities and the social sciences, it remains unclear to what extent this convergence reflects actual common intellectual and methodological interests' (p. 180). He draws two main conclusions about the state of collective memory studies:
1. That collective memories have not yet been sufficiently distinguished from individual memory, and that the dynamics of collective memories are misrepresented through references to psychological methods (see p. 180). On the scale of large collectives, these references can be misleading - 'nations can repress with psychological impunity; their collective memories can be changed without a 'return of the repressed'' (p. 186).
2. 'Collective memory studies have (also) not yet paid enough attention to the problem of reception both in terms of methods and sources. Therefore, works on specific collective memories often cannot illuminate the sociological base of historical representations' (p. 180).
His recommendation is that 'we should reonceptualize collective memory as the result of the interaction among three types of historical factors: the intellectual and cultural tradtions that frame all our representations of the past, the memory makers who selectively adopt and manipulate these traditions, and the memory consumers who use, ignore, or transform such artifacts according to their own interests' (p. 180).
While Keightley outlines useful strategies for thinking about memory as an object of research, Olick and Robbins point out that 'memory is a process, not a thing, and it works differently at different points in time'. Likewise, the importance of reception in relation to collective memory emerges as a strong theme (most notably in Barker, Confino and Kansteiner). The particularly significant point in these essays is that any theory of collective memory should be mindful of making lazy assumptions about its audience or overstating the effect of theory-based claims, particularly in discursive analyses of memory. The political, social and cultural context is also important; as Jacques Derrida suggests, we '… must practice a politics of memory and, simultaneously, in the same movement, a critique of the politics of memory' (p. 63). However, memory should not be defined solely through its connection to political ideology, something that Laurajane Smith is in danger of doing with her uptake of CDA, applied to heritage discourse. Finally, any text-based or discursive analysis should draw from credible and representative sources, which may involve collating data from a large sample or ensuring that the cultural importance of documents can be independently verified.
N.B. In 'Twilight Memories', Andreas Huyssen defines his discussion of memory and the museum in the following terms: 'The purely institutional critique (of the museum) along the lines of power-knowledge-ideological apparatus, which operates from the top down, needs to be complemented by a bottom-up perspective that investigates spectator desire and subject inscriptions, audience response, interest groups, and the segmentation of overlapping public spheres addressed by a large variety of museums and exhibition practices today. Such a sociological analysis, however, is not what I will offer, as I am interested in broader cultural and philosophical reflections regarding the changing status of memory and temporal perception in contemporary consumer culture' (p. 17).
References
Barker, Martin, 'Analysing Discourse', in Michael Pickering (ed.), Research Methods for Cultural Studies, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008, pp. 150-172.
Confino, Alon, 'Memory and Cultural History: Problems of Method', The American Historical Review, 102:5 (December 1997), 1386-1403.
Davis, Aeron, 'Investigating Cultural Producers', in Michael Pickering (ed.), Research Methods for Cultural Studies, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008, pp. 53-67.
Derrida, Jacques and Bernard Stiegler, Echographies of Television. Filmed Interviews. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002.
Fairclough, Norman, Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London: Routledge, 2003. [CDA Ref from Uses of Heritage]
Foucault, Michel, 'Governmentality', in Graham Burchell, C. Gorden and P. Miller (eds.), The Foucault Effect, London: Wheatsheaf Harvester, 1991.
Huyssen, Andreas, Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia. New York: Routledge, 1995.
Jameson, Fredric, 'Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Capitalism', New Left Review, no. 146 (July-August 1984), 53-92.
Kansteiner, Wulf, ‘Meaning in Memory: A Methodological Critique of Collective Memory Studies’, History and Theory, 41:2 (May 2002), 179-197.
Keightley, Emily, 'Engaging with Memory', in Michael Pickering (ed.), Research Methods for Cultural Studies, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008, pp. 175-192.
Lowenthal, David, The Past is a Foreign Country. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
Smith, Laurajane, Uses of Heritage. London: Routledge, 2006.
Smith, Laurajane and Emma Waterton, ''The Envy of the World?' Intangible Heritage in England', in Intangible Heritage ed. by Laurajane Smith and Natsuko Akagawa. London: Routledge, 2011, pp. 289-301.
Terdiman, Richard, Present Past: Modernity and the Memory Crisis. New York: Cornell University Press, 1993.
To attempt to resolve this mental block, I've been reading around research methodologies, particularly those relating to memory as that's one object of my research. However, I'm also interested in methodologies for analysing discourse, since my focus is on the use of memory in policy and policy sensitive documents relating to digitisation. In trying to get to grips with different approaches, I've been paying close attention to book and article intros, which sometimes seem closer to methodological disclaimers, as in the case of David Lowenthal (The Past is a Foreign Country):
I have not conducted exhaustive research on most of the topics this book surveys. Instead I have tried to fashion a plausible synthesis out of heterogeneous materials. Necessarily trespassing beyond my own putative disciplines, I am bound often to have misinterpreted the art and architectural historians, the psychologists and psychoanalysts, the archaeologists and Renaissance scholars and others on whose research I have relied; for this I beg their pardon and my readers' forbearance (xxv).
It's tempting to proceed along similar lines; I've always thought that broader disciplinary and literary and art references can enhance critical writing. Unfortunately, I can't shake the feeling that there's also something undisciplined about wholly embracing this approach and that, since a PhD is a particular kind of assessment, for a PhD student, there's a danger of running into difficulties without a more clearly defined set of terms. So, for my purposes, I'm focusing on writers that explicitly deal with methodological issues and reflect my own research interests. Some highlight the dangers of deploying memory as a mode of cultural history, or privileging one aspect of collective memory to the detriment of alternative perspectives. Others provide a potential blueprint for my own project, although I'm not uncritical of all these methodologies. The positions I want to concentrate on (for now) are summarised below.
Uses of Heritage - Laurajane Smith
Laurajane Smith's central idea is that heritage does not exist in the sense that it is embodied in grand, monumental and historic sites. Instead, heritage is a discourse that 'validates a set of practices and performances, which populates both popular and expert constructions of 'heritage' and undermines alternative and subaltern ideas about 'heritage' (p. 11). Elsewhere, she writes that the way discourse is constructed 'is linked to the way heritage may be understood to be incorporated within the processes of remembering and forgetting' (p. 292, 'Envy of the World'). In her introduction, Smith gives a breakdown of the book, describing how the first chapter, informed by concepts of discourse analysis, 'identifies and examines the orders of discourse that surround heritage, and considers how and when they developed, and who engages in this dialogue' (p. 6). This process 'thus presents a theoretical and methodological underpinning for the rest of this chapter and the book' (p. 12). The analysis Smith constructs deals specifically with cultural and social work of heritage practices and performances and, while acknowledging Foucauldian modes of discourse, she anchors her approach in critical discourse analysis (CDA) so as not to lose sight of the materiality of heritage even as it is being problematised (see p. 13). CDA is concerned with illuminating the links between discourse and practice (more so than Foucault by implication, see critique on pp. 14-15), and with understanding how people organise themselves and act through particular discourses. Discourse is characterised as an 'irreducible part of social life' (p. 15) and competing discourses impact on on the way people live, both through legitimising social practices/relations and by potentially effecting social change. However, CDA does not just entail an analysis of discourse but also an analysis of the social and political context of that discourse. The notion of discourse advanced by CDA is summarised by Smith as 'both reflective of and constitutive of social practices' (p. 16). By extension, this is how heritage discourse is understood throughout the rest of the book.
'Engaging with Memory' - Emily Keightley
Emily Keightley's essay explores methodological approaches to memory as a topic of research, stressing that 'it is necessary to consider the commonalities and collective trends in memory, the features of their communication and representation, and their ritualised performances'; these traits 'suggest that memory is more than an expression of individual consciousness and is both socially and culturally constructed' (p. 176). However, memory is also understood to be in a reciprocal relationship between the individual and the collective in the generation of mnemonic texts (see p. 177). While suggesting that memory acts on and through the social world via a network of social structures that extend beyond the individual, Keightley guards against straighforwardly functionalist reasoning by emphasising the importance of memory's modes of representation and communication in this process. By way of an example, she references Jameson's (postmodern) account whereby memory, being intensely mediated, now only reaches us as a simulated version (see p. 178). Her summarising statement on the definition of memory borrows from Richard Terdiman: 'memory is central to understanding cultural life, not because it is the past but because it is the modality of our relation to it' (p. 179). In what follows, Keightley goes on to outline different ways of working with memory, one approach being an investigation of memory as the object of research. Like Smith's theory of heritage, she proposes that memory can be studied as a discourse, which is linked with the idea of memory as narrative: 'the codes, conventions and norms of representing the past as a memory can be examined, and in doing so routine ways that we make sense of past experience can be investigated' (p. 185). This approach to researching memory is intimately bound up with 'what memory provides for us in our contemporary lives' (p. 185). If I took a similar line to that outlined by Keightley, my study would be a largely theoretical consideration of the role and significance of memory in contemporary culture in relation to digitisation as a representation or mode of communication.
'Analysing Discourse' - Martin Barker
Martin Barker suggests that 'the seemingly inexorable rise of the concept of 'discourse' has made it almost unavoidable for cultural studies researchers, particularly since its invitation to theorise culture as 'like a language' coincides with so many impulses within our field' (p. 150). He describes how during the last thirty years discourse analysis has become one of the most pervasive areas of academic research, although the field is also distinguished by its diversity. Scholars are united by their interest in questions concerning 'the nature and role of language and other meaning-systems in the operation of social relations, and in particular the power of such systems to shape identities, social practices, relations between individuals, communities, and all kinds of authority [...] discourse work emerged from the collapse of academic Marxism, the rise of alternative social movements theorised by near-simultaneous academic constituencies, alongside the 'cultural turn' in various fields of the social sciences' (p. 152). After compiling a list of the seven main tendencies in discourse analysis, Barker offers a series of methodological tests that can be applied to specific cases to strengthen the integrity of discourse analytic claims, and make them more open to empirical testing by reception research. These are:
Defensible corpus - the corpus refers to the group of items studied by the qualitative researcher. If there is independent evidence of the cultural importance of the corpus, the researcher will have a better sense of what aspects may be most relevant to attend to and will have stronger grounds for the relevance of the outcomes of the analysis.
Defensible method - 'the conveniently small corpus is at greater risk of never being more than illustrative (i.e. it may favour cases which suit a conclusion reached on other grounds). In the act of becoming more than this, it inevitably grows. We have to face and find solutions to the problems of managing (both analytically and presentationally) large bodies of discursive materials' (p. 165).
Taking responsibility for implied claims - 'discourses inevitably make substantive claims about things beyond themselves. Most typically these are claims about reception'. We must take responsibility for these claims. A model of discourse analysis can be compromised if too many assumptions are made about audience reception; 'the moment we move beyond the loosest and least satisfactory use of terms like the 'audience'or 'the spectator', we begin to impute characteristics to them. The difficulty is that these imputations are simultaneously pseudo-empirical, and theoretically charged' (p. 166).
'Investigating Cultural Products' - Aeron Davis
Aeron Davis outlines what he describes as three of the most common research approaches to cultural production - political economy, textual analysis and sociological/ethnographic work. Case studies of cultural production can involve any combination of these methods. Although my case studies are not yet clearly defined (Europeana is likely to be one), broadly speaking the mode of cultural production I'm interested in is the digitisation of cultural heritage, although this is not linked to one specific industry. Here, I will concentrate on the first two approaches, although sociological/ethnographic methods will also eventually be relevant to my project.
A political economy approach involves studying cultural production at the macro level of industry and examining the conditions of cultural production, taking the view that these conditions influence cultural content, 'the researcher therefore attempts to link cultural outputs to the ecnomic, industrial and political factors that shape organisations and industries which then produce culture' (p. 53). Research is often carried out by collecting quantatitive data about industries. The important thing here is that cultural production is investigated indirectly; the focus is on structures, external factors and high-level decision makers not on individuals working in the industry (see p. 54); ' key practical operations involve locating, collating and aggregating data sources. Government institutions [...] professional associations and trade publications are all potential sources' (p. 66). Findings tend to give a more general representative account of the research object but if there's too much emphasis on quantatitive data, these findings can also be subject to manipulation.
A textual analysis approach investigates cultural production through an analysis of research outputs. Analysis can be applied to printed, audio and visual texts, to reports and historical documents. Here, cultural production is again studied indirectly. Assumptions about cultural production are inferred from the outputs themselves - 'in analysing texts researchers seek to highlight the common codes, terms ideologies, discourses and individuals that come to dominate cultural outputs. What can be said about the individuals featured in texts? Who are the contributors to the text? How are the texts framed and presented? What are the terms and phrases used and what is their symbolic meaning? What are the assumptions embedded in the texts?' (p. 56). The analysis may draw from qualitative or quantitative data; a qualitative approach would use a smaller sample of texts but look at them in more detail, whereas a quantitative approach would generate large quantities of numerical data (see p. 57). When looking at different organisational approaches to a set of issues (i.e. issues pertaining to digitisation), a comparative textual analysis can be illuminating. However, as Davis observes, 'in the past, rather grand claims about material and cultural relations have been deduced from limited and unrepresentative selections of texts' (p. 58).
Sociological and ethnographic approaches usually tend to involve interviews and participant observation. 'Key practical operations involve selecting, assessing and working with individuals - either elite professionals in the cultural industries or those who are part of a subculture (or field or network). Data collection, hypotheses and analysis must adapt during the research period' (p. 66).
'Collective Memory and Cultural History: Problems of Method' - Alon Confino
In Alan Confino's essay the concern is that 'memory studies lack a clear focus and have become somewhat predictable [...] The history of memory, in fact, has developed into a fragmented field. It lacks critical reflection on method and theory, as well as a systematic evaluation of the field's problems, approaches, and objects of study' (p. 1387). He also highlights the tendency to label historical events as a form of memory, warning that 'though the label is an attractive one, in itself memory does not offer any true additional explanatory power. Only when linked to historical questions and problems, via methods and theories, can memory be illuminating' (p. 1388). For Confino, memory is at its most useful when it communicates connections between the cultural, the social, and the political, between representation and social experience. He also expresses the view that the construction of memory should be inseparable from its contestation and reception, a relationship he compares to that of text and context (see p. 1398). Memory is in danger of falling prey to political reductionism and functionalism when it is defined solely through the 'politics of memory' or the 'politics of identity'. A neglect of its social and cultural dimensions can reduce memory to 'an illustrative reflection of political development' and become 'relativized to ideology' (p. 1393); thus 'we transform memory into a 'natural' corollary of political development and interests' (p. 1394). Confino summarises by suggesting that 'perhaps the first task of the history of memory is to historicize memory' (p. 1403). [Pierre Nora has made a contentious attempt to do this]
'Finding Meaning in Memory: A Methodological Critique of Collective Memory Studies' - Wulf Kansteiner
In his article, Wulf Kansteiner takes a similar view that 'while memory has clearly become a central concept in the humanities and the social sciences, it remains unclear to what extent this convergence reflects actual common intellectual and methodological interests' (p. 180). He draws two main conclusions about the state of collective memory studies:
1. That collective memories have not yet been sufficiently distinguished from individual memory, and that the dynamics of collective memories are misrepresented through references to psychological methods (see p. 180). On the scale of large collectives, these references can be misleading - 'nations can repress with psychological impunity; their collective memories can be changed without a 'return of the repressed'' (p. 186).
2. 'Collective memory studies have (also) not yet paid enough attention to the problem of reception both in terms of methods and sources. Therefore, works on specific collective memories often cannot illuminate the sociological base of historical representations' (p. 180).
His recommendation is that 'we should reonceptualize collective memory as the result of the interaction among three types of historical factors: the intellectual and cultural tradtions that frame all our representations of the past, the memory makers who selectively adopt and manipulate these traditions, and the memory consumers who use, ignore, or transform such artifacts according to their own interests' (p. 180).
While Keightley outlines useful strategies for thinking about memory as an object of research, Olick and Robbins point out that 'memory is a process, not a thing, and it works differently at different points in time'. Likewise, the importance of reception in relation to collective memory emerges as a strong theme (most notably in Barker, Confino and Kansteiner). The particularly significant point in these essays is that any theory of collective memory should be mindful of making lazy assumptions about its audience or overstating the effect of theory-based claims, particularly in discursive analyses of memory. The political, social and cultural context is also important; as Jacques Derrida suggests, we '… must practice a politics of memory and, simultaneously, in the same movement, a critique of the politics of memory' (p. 63). However, memory should not be defined solely through its connection to political ideology, something that Laurajane Smith is in danger of doing with her uptake of CDA, applied to heritage discourse. Finally, any text-based or discursive analysis should draw from credible and representative sources, which may involve collating data from a large sample or ensuring that the cultural importance of documents can be independently verified.
N.B. In 'Twilight Memories', Andreas Huyssen defines his discussion of memory and the museum in the following terms: 'The purely institutional critique (of the museum) along the lines of power-knowledge-ideological apparatus, which operates from the top down, needs to be complemented by a bottom-up perspective that investigates spectator desire and subject inscriptions, audience response, interest groups, and the segmentation of overlapping public spheres addressed by a large variety of museums and exhibition practices today. Such a sociological analysis, however, is not what I will offer, as I am interested in broader cultural and philosophical reflections regarding the changing status of memory and temporal perception in contemporary consumer culture' (p. 17).
References
Barker, Martin, 'Analysing Discourse', in Michael Pickering (ed.), Research Methods for Cultural Studies, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008, pp. 150-172.
Confino, Alon, 'Memory and Cultural History: Problems of Method', The American Historical Review, 102:5 (December 1997), 1386-1403.
Davis, Aeron, 'Investigating Cultural Producers', in Michael Pickering (ed.), Research Methods for Cultural Studies, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008, pp. 53-67.
Derrida, Jacques and Bernard Stiegler, Echographies of Television. Filmed Interviews. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002.
Fairclough, Norman, Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London: Routledge, 2003. [CDA Ref from Uses of Heritage]
Foucault, Michel, 'Governmentality', in Graham Burchell, C. Gorden and P. Miller (eds.), The Foucault Effect, London: Wheatsheaf Harvester, 1991.
Huyssen, Andreas, Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia. New York: Routledge, 1995.
Jameson, Fredric, 'Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Capitalism', New Left Review, no. 146 (July-August 1984), 53-92.
Kansteiner, Wulf, ‘Meaning in Memory: A Methodological Critique of Collective Memory Studies’, History and Theory, 41:2 (May 2002), 179-197.
Keightley, Emily, 'Engaging with Memory', in Michael Pickering (ed.), Research Methods for Cultural Studies, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008, pp. 175-192.
Lowenthal, David, The Past is a Foreign Country. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
Smith, Laurajane, Uses of Heritage. London: Routledge, 2006.
Smith, Laurajane and Emma Waterton, ''The Envy of the World?' Intangible Heritage in England', in Intangible Heritage ed. by Laurajane Smith and Natsuko Akagawa. London: Routledge, 2011, pp. 289-301.
Terdiman, Richard, Present Past: Modernity and the Memory Crisis. New York: Cornell University Press, 1993.
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