Memory Studies

Sociologists and psychologists have independently identified the same general period in individual development for the formation of many memories. Yet the cross-disciplinary similarity is rarely recognized, because most psychologists study autobiographical memories of personal events, while sociologists focus on collective memories of national and world events. We examine autobiographical and collective memories together within a large national cross-section survey of Americans. Both types of memory are located primarily in the same broad period, identified here as ages 5–30 years. However, within that period, autobiographical personal memories as measured by cue-word associations typically refer to earlier ages, while collective memories assessed with a standard open-ended question typically refer to somewhat later ages. Other types of questions yield still other memory content and ages. Reconceptualizing the reminiscence bump or critical period reconciles these diverse results.

This study deals with the historian Jan T Gross’ book Fear, published in 2006 in the United States and in 2008 in Poland. The book deserves special attention because it became one of the most discussed historical works in post-Communist Poland. In Fear, just as in his previous book Neighbors (2000), Gross challenged the Poles’ view of themselves as solely innocent victims of German Nazism and argued that anti-Semitism could and did lead them to kill Jews, both during and after the war. The author of the article seeks to answer the question as to what made the Poles react so strongly to Fear. She argues that the reasons are not only to be found in the book’s message and the political context in which it appeared but also in the mode of historical representation applied by Gross. The specific rhetoric of Fear has been noted by its critics, but no one analysed it closely. This study intends to fill that gap. The present author’s thesis is that in Fear, Gross uses the rhetorical design of a deliberative speech, and by so doing, anchors his narrative in the present and demands future action by his readers. This combination of telling about past events and pointing to their present relevance makes his narrative performance very different from conventional historiography. The value of Gross’ work lies not primarily in his contribution to the body of existing knowledge but in its functionality and performativity.

This article draws upon research into the practices within and later memories of Displaced Persons camps in Germany. These camps, set up immediately after the close of the Second World War, stayed open much longer than had first been anticipated, some remaining in operation well into the late 1950s and early 1960s. During this period, specific notions and practices of nation and culture became established, and the camps came to serve as complex sites of identity, belonging and also of difference. Through investigation of the oral and visual narratives of former Displaced Persons, this article examines the initial construction and later (re)viewing of old photographs as well as the reframings involved in the taking of new photographs, and assesses their role in the imagined and physical spaces of embodied memory, place and the shifting sites of belonging and identity.

Since its inception in 1957, the statue of General Douglas MacArthur at Incheon City in South Korea has been a robust signifier of the American rescuing mission during the Korean War that originally was meant to evoke gratitude among the South Koreans. Yet, South Korean activists in 2005 took iconoclastic actions against the statue, calling the public’s critical attention to both MacArthur’s actions and to the role of the United States during the Korean War. This case study of MacArthur’s statue reveals two processes at work: first, how a statue, in a time of transition, transforms itself from a mere signifier of intransigent history into a reflexive medium of transient memories of a past event and second, how a statue, in its surrounding space, can embrace the conflicting gestures that audiences from two different generational and ideological positions simultaneously perform. I conclude that a statue, reconfigured in time and space, has a strong potential to become a dissenting medium that effectively reemerges subversive memories to confront consensual notions of a past event.

This article reports on research into the little-known process of how documents of memory, in this case biographical narratives of life under the communist regime, are received by members of the community of memory. The research is based on an experiment in which three generations of family members (two generations of eyewitnesses of communism and one postcommunist generation) were asked to infer the political identity of narrators from very short fragments of biographical texts concerning the communist era. Using a semiotic approach, the authors perform a detailed analysis of how readers, in their formulation of an acceptable interpretation of the narratives, cooperate with these excerpts of biographical texts. The results show that behind generally weak intergenerational differences in cooperation with the texts, there are certain specific differences in such cooperation between the young postcommunist generation and the generations of their parents and grandparents. The authors suggest that these distinctions indicate the role semiotic competencies play in determining what memory will be accomplished in a given situation.

Catalan television journalism disrupted the existing hegemonic discourses of the 1990s and 2000s by broaching unknown or silenced topics regarding civilian suffering and the post-Civil War atrocities of Franco’s fascist dictatorship. The author introduces the concept of ‘narrative democratization’ to highlight the existence of alternative narratives regarding the Spanish Civil War and its consequences, paying special attention to a number of documentaries by award-winning journalists Montserrat Armengou and Ricard Belis. It is suggested that narrative democratization is grounded in four discourse strategies: giving the victims a voice, unveiling untold or unknown stories, representing remembrance as an act of justice and internationalizing the narratives of the Civil War. Taking a Foucauldian approach to the concept of ‘will to truth’ (volonté de vérité), the author argues that television documentaries presented new perspectives on the public story of the Spanish Civil War.

In the 1980s, an anti-drunk-driving movement emerged, seemingly out of nowhere. How is it that this movement could flourish and have such dramatic effects? More significantly, how has Mothers Against Drunk Driving continued to flourish even today? In this article, I demonstrate that more than a strong organizational basis, the right historical context, and the appropriate management of material and symbolic resources, the continuing success of Mothers Against Drunk Driving and drunk driving depends on Mothers Against Drunk Driving’s ability to evoke intense emotions and fears surrounding drunk driving. Generalizing from Alexander et al.’s cultural trauma theory, I introduce two concepts: perpetual trauma and the trauma organization. Perpetual trauma is based on potentiality, a sense of future danger, and iconic victims/perpetrators. Beyond an improved understanding of Mothers Against Drunk Driving and drunk driving, perpetual trauma theory offers a sociological explanation for how individuals and societies understand their deepest fears and emotions in postmodern society.