Containers of Collective Memory Flashcards
What does Astrid Erll mean with the term traveling memory?
That memory must stay in motion to stay alive. She speaks of transcultural memory.
What are the dynamics through which memory travels?
Carriers, forms, media, practices, and contents
What concept is Astrid Erll reacting against?
Against the idea of the nation-state as the container of collective memory. This is why she criticizes Nora.
Erll - carriers
Individuals themselves
Erll - media
Technologies and their circulation
Erll - remediation
the transmission of a memory from one medium to another
Erll - contents
shared images and narratives
Erll - Examples of contents
“The Holocaust,” “The Apartheid,” “The Fall of the Berlin Wall.” These are short phrases that encapsulate a much more complex process or memory
Erll - Practices
Rituals, languages of memory and commemoration
Michael Rothberg - multidirectional memory
memory that crosses boundaries of nation-states. It is a comparative approach that doesn’t negate groups’ particularities.
What is Rothberg reacting to with the term multidirectional memory?
To competitive memory, which strives for recognition in a zero-sum game.
In this sense, Rothberg wants to show that “multidirectional memory” has the potential to build solidarity amongst groups.
What is multidirectional memory similar to?
To Freud’s screen memory
What case does Rothberg analyze to prove the utility of multidirectional memory?
The memory of the Holocaust and its links to anticolonial and decolonial struggles
In what regards is multidirectional memory similar to screen memory?
In that one memory is “juxtaposed” with another.
What are key differences between screen memory and multidirectional memory?
Screen memory is personal and autobiographical.
Screen memory covers traumatic memory.
multidirectional memory is collective and historical.
multidirectional memory displaces one traumatic event for another.
