Zelizer Reading The Past Against The Grain

REVIEW AND CRITICISM. JUNE 1995, Reading the Past Against the Grain: The Shape of Memory Studies BARBIE ZELIZER To remember is defined as the abili to recount something that happened in the past. Yer the act of remembering has many shapes, currencies, and valences, each of which prompts a slew of questions. Some of these questions have to do. with ‘memory itself: Which memory? What kind of memory? How complete a memory? How authentic a memory? Other questions focus more on the activity of remembering: Who remembers? Why remember? How does one remember? And for whom is remembering being accomplished? These questions, and others, underscore the incompleteness that characterizes our understanding of how memory works. And that incompleteness becomes no less compelling ‘when we consider what has been left out of the study of memory by virtue of its being left outof memory itself—the omissions, rearrangements, strategic mo- ments of forgetting. es Our literature, poetry, mythology, and drama have been peppered with personalities who personify this compelling facet of human activity. Through memory, internal selves have connected with ex: Barbs Dlr Asians Profesor of Come mination ample Unser. Ths sy tas comple he te tra rsh files” the Preion Forum, Cote [or ‘iedia Stes at Colombe Univoray. The shor thnks Ca oo ine, sn Jone Hodges or ping lo lcat mater athe eer a ons hoa Cl, {ny Gry, Peta Sankar Mill cha Son, Rabe Sider, and Robin Wagner: Petia for rating dro te ees ternal environments, pasts with presents, random experiences with unconscious routines. Memory has connected us with the larger world on many levels, linking the lived with the folkloric, the children of tomorrow with the ancestors of yester- year, the personal lives of individuals with the shared experience of the collec: tive. This essay addresses one recent move ‘memory studies—that which exam- 1s the shared dimension of remember- “public memory,” collective memory refers to recollections that are instantiated beyond the individual by and for the collec- Live. Unlike personal memory, which refers to an individual's ability to conserve information, the collective memory com- prises recollections of the past that are determined and shaped by the group. By definition, collective memory thereby resumes activities of sharing, discussion, negotiation, and, often, contest tion, Remembering becomes implicated in a range of other activities having as much to do with identity formation, power and authority, cultural norms, and social interaction as with the simple act, of recall. Its full understanding thus re- quires an appropriation of memory as. social, cultural, and political action at its broadest level. This essay argues that the move from individualized to collective action in the study of memory has given the act of remembering an all-new cast of charac- ters, activities, and issues. Substantially changing our understanding of how suc ‘memory works, contemporary memory studies possess the kind of aura that often accompanies the remake of movie classics: They feel right, timely, familiar, in pace with contemporary events and issues. But they also rest somewhat un- easily. At times seeming oddly vacant and inauthentic, they somehow make ‘one yearn for the original Much of this has to do with the na- scent character ofcontemporary memory ‘work and the fact that its still unfolding as this is being written. It may also have to do with the shape of memory studies, as they have grown. For in substituting individual memory with its social, collective cousin, we may: have moved too quickly, giving contemporary memory studies the feel ofa blended family grown too large too fast. We may have adopted tenets of study that are illftted to the dimensions ofremembering that we find, Perhaps it is time, then, to reconsider the pathways that memory studies have taken on their way to,popular expan- THE ESTABLISHMENT: OF COLLECTIVE MEMORY STUDIES Consider, first, the birthplace of contemporary memory studies. The original extended family of memory studies ‘was that of psychology. Psychologists re- ‘garded the act of remembering as a psy- Chologistic process or cognitive device that helped individual people retrieve information from the past. Memory was thought to reproduce events in personal, lived forms as they had happened ‘or with some explainable aberration. From scholars as wide-ranging as Freud. and Proust, we learned much about memory's accuracy and its evocative force. In most views, memory was assumed to fade as it gained distance from the focus ofits recollection, its authority lessening as time passed. Yet already by the early 1930s, notions of memory as merely a tool of re- 215 REVIEW AND CRITICISM trieval were proving insufficient, Henri Bergson contended that memory made time relative. Tt acted as a meeting- ‘ground between past and present, evok- ing all past perceptions that were analo- ‘gous to present ones, so that the sum result of memory work was “{prolong- ing] the past into the present” (1988, p. 210). In 1932, Frederic C. Bartlet’ clas- sic book Remembering argued that ‘memory was a type of constructive activity, the enunciation of claims about the past through shared frames for understanding. Using a series of psychological experiments to explore the conditions thataltered remembering, he concluded that memory could not proceed without some kind of social framework. Memory was also likened to an art. Frances Yates (1966) described a system of mnemotech- ics, of the technique of impressing ‘places” and "images" on memory, that ‘employed an intricate system of artificial memory created by the Greeks to retain internally large amounts of knowledge. These explorations into the nature of memory did not put to rest a fundamental uncertainty about the status of ‘memory itself, however. How did the power of memory persist over time? How did memory act as evidence for things and events of the past? How did it prove or disprove remembered events? Was the issue of proof even a relevant issue? Were other issues more important than proof in determining the value of memory? Within the last decade or so, the study of remembering as we know it has ‘changed to accommodate even questions such as these. It has blossomed under the watchful, and often creative, eye of the academy, largely following upon the renewed recognition of the work of French scholar Maurice Halb- ‘wachs (1992), a student of Durkheim. In this more recent vein of thought, scholars have come increasingly to see ‘memory asa social activity, accomplished ‘not in the privacy of one's own gray ‘matter but via shared consciousness with others. The study of memory now ex:a6 REVIEW AND CRITICISM. tends considerably beyond psychology, toanthropology, sociology, literary stud. ies, communication, and history. Ih pace With the constitution of the social sci- ‘ences themselves, which have influenced the interdisciplinary nature of much of ‘memory’ analysis, the study of collective memory has virtually erased interdisci plinary boundaries. Journals in many fields—including the fownal of American History, History ond Anthropology, presen (ations, and Communication —have pub- lished special issues on the topic. Begun in 1989, History and Memory: Studies in Represenition ofthe Past solely addresses it This has made the study of memory a place where scholars of different kinds Ean meet. It has created a shared forum for dissimilar minds, all of whom use different tools to poke about in it The development of new modes of inguiry into memory has had the most direct effect on the one academic field ‘uaditionally privileged to tell the story of the past—history. Traditional histori ans—who have "been concerned above all with the accuracy of a memory, with how correctly it describes what actually ccurred at some point in the past” (Thelen, 1989, p. 1119)—have viewed contemporary memory studies with some degree of distrust, suspecting that they are attempting to encroach upon histor 1y's authority. Arguing that memories should give way ultimately to the more hneavily-weighted mode of historical accounting where they canbe tested against other sources that will work agains their “passive, noninferential, and unveri- fied” nature (Mink, 1981, p. 284), they have claimed that memory studies upset that progression. Less traditional historians have allowed for a more complex relationship, arguing that history and collective memory can be complemen- tary, identical, oppositional, or antitheti- ‘al at different times. For instance, Jan Vansina 1965) and other oral hisorians have long argued that memory consti tutes the most authentic version of the past. People create versions of a harmo- ious past in response to various devel- JUNE 195, opments that make then fel uncomfort sbiein the present, such asthe too-rapid changes of industralization (Bodnar, 1989) The French Annales school of so- ial and intellectual history bas silly Brought memory into the forefront of attempts to link historical inquiry with other displines, notably sociology (that 5s, Braudel, 1980) From the perspective of memory studies,then, the most promising dscissions in heacademy have granted a fluidity to the distinction between history and memory. Memory has been seen as “Sometimes retreating, sometimes over- flowing" ints relationship to history (Le Goff, 1992, p. 58). History at umes has assumed a chamcleomlike role taking on some of memory's characteris, In Bernard Lewis’ work, for instance, we hear of “remembered history"—that roughly equivalent to the. collective temory; “recovered history”"—that re- Cuperated from an earlier rejection by the collective memory: oF “invented his: tory"—history with 3 purpose, whether ithe devised, interpreted, or fabricated (1975, pp. I-12). Among those who favor collective memory over traditional modes of historical accounting, turning ints in historiography have. them ives come to be fegarded as “Tunda- mentally related to changes at various levels of collective memory” (Fried- lander, 1998, p. 38). In each of these cases, scholars in memory suidies have agreed that collective memory is both more mobile and mutable than history. ‘They have ths come to refer broadly o its being a Kind of history-in-motion ‘which moves ata different pace and rate than traditional history "The challenge to history's privl place in telling the story ofthe past Sko been complicated by popular cul ture, for popula circles have not only Spplauded the interest in collective ziemory but have helped shape it Per- haps de to our advancing proximity to the close ofthe millenium, popular cul ture has increasingly begun to lookback: ward forts themes: A Andreas Huyssen esmc. (2995, p. 6) has contended, “novelty in fur cultures ever more associated with temory and the past rather than with future expectation” Popular representa. tions of memory have thus been rapidly growing. One short-lived popular maga- Eine called Memories, begun in 1988, clas- Sted he memories a the American lation by decades and brought its Feaders a reassembled melange of key cients, phrases, personalities, and isues of times gone by. Television programs like Homafion, trtpomething, and The Wonder Yeas hve all presented themes reconstructing some significant moment inthe past, wth the program proceed- ing as a kind of dialogue between the past and its presentet reconstruction Fine such a Seid’ i, Done with Wales and JFK have aggressively taken ter the bos ofa, shang ade te finuristic visions that had topped the Sls in earlier decades. Ath suggest new imple the appropriation of memory az both a com- cept and activity. Colecive memory thrives on remaking the residue of pat Accades into material with contemporary resonance, its “filled with reused land reusable material” that at hedt of fers resources for making sense of the past (Irwin-Zarecks, 1994, p. 7). Much Show we act in the present has thus come to be seen in accordance with our onstructons and memories of past expe- fence, Memory, argued Halbwachs (G9026, p- 40), has given us a way of tonstititng the past within the present. Iris a proces “not of retrieval but of reconfiguration (that) colonies the past by obliging ito conform to present con- figurations” (Hutton, 1988, p. 314) “This teas that hie radional schol. arshipon memory presumed tat memo- Ties were at some point authentic, cred- ible recountings of events of the pas, we donot regard this as ecesearily the cas. In distancing themselves from personal fecal, collective memories help us fabt- ‘ate, rearrange, or omit detail from the past as we thought we knew it Istues of Eistorial accuracy and authendity are 27 REVIEW AND CRITICISM pushed aside to accommodate other is- Sues, such as those surrounding the es- tablshment of social identity, authority, solidarity, political affiation. Ths is because, as Robin Wagner-Pacific (in press, p. 1) has contended, “collective memory Vibrates" in its every form. Itis uncertain and everchanging by nature. Those vibrations are at issue here, for they suggest the degree to which ‘the study of collective memory inverts the ‘original premise through which the co- jgency of memory was assumed to fade ‘with time. Unlike individual memory, the power of collective memory can in- crease with time, taking on new compli ‘ations, nuances, and interests. We need only consider how narratives about the U'S. Western frontier have changed as new voices, notably those of Native Americans, have made public their dlaims. By stressing memory's vibrations, then, contemporary memory tud- ies a prori assume movement, motion, and ultimately a dissipation of the no- tion that one memory at one place and fone time retains authority over all the others. Memory studies presume mul- tiple conflicting accounts of the past. The important issue becomes “not how accu- rately a recollection fited some piece of 4 past reality, but why historical actors Constructed their memories in partew- lar way at a particular time” (Thelen, 1989, p. 1125). This recognition of con- flicing renditions of the past by definition necessitates a consideration of the tensions and contestations through which cone rendition wipes out many of the others. Memory becomes not only the construction of oial, historical, and cultural circumstances but a reflection of why one construction has more staying power than is rivals. “The study of collective memory, then, is much more than the unidimensional study of the past. It represents a graph- ing of the past as itis used for present aims, a vision in bold relief ofthe past as itis woven into the present and future. It is no surprise that collecive memory has been touted for acting as “a general cat-a8 REVIEW AND CRITICISM gory ofknowledge” (Schwartz, 1990, p 81), For new givens in memory studies have forced ut to reastign our sensibil tes concerning the at of remembering ‘They have made the past a product of ur collective memory. rather than the cher way around So where does this new approach to smemory fave cs eels that meres in collective memory is growing both within and ouside of the academy. Tt demonstrates that collective memory study offers different, less tradional Mew of the past And ifnothing eee. the new study of memory istot yet ea for the second-hand shop. It no cole dence that tie majority of articles and books used for this esay bear publishing dates within the last decade, But what, has it demonstrated about the ability of collective memory to act ata finding aid tothe pax Why nit orshould bey any ‘more fruitful stool than individualized memory? This essay argues tiat the an- fer to that question il not evident For collective memory studies are sl in the dressing room, wali tobe brought fento the font racks and display win- ‘ows of academic thought. PREMISES FOR COLLECTIVE REMEMBERING Despite the novel and ever-growing ature of contemporary memory stud= ies, we have developed certain premises about collective remembering. Atits most fundamental level, collective memory suggests deepening of the historical consciousness that becomes wedged in- between the official markings of the past and ourselves in the present. The study ofcollective memory thus offersan added layer through which to consider the past, and ourselves as reflected through it. Contemporary scholarship has developed on the back of six basic premises, each of which articulates different levels of political, cultural, and social organiza- tion around the act of recollecting. Each JUNE 1995 premise accounts for many instances of collective remembering, rather than all such instances; each also suggests a range of practices, much like vibrations, through which we accomplish memory work, rather than one set template for Practice. Together, these premises suggest much about the directions in which Collective memory studies have grown: Foritmay be that the nature of collective memory is ill-suited to the tenor of scholarship that has grown around it. A lack of fit seems to have developed, whereby ‘memory studies have failed to draw attention to the very characteristics of collective memory that are at its essence This is not because the scholarship is wrong, but simply because the limita: ions ofscholarly inquiry itselfhave made capturing the essence of what we mean by collective memory difficult. And when that core itself continually vibrates and changes around the premises through which we have generated its study, we face even greater difficulties in understanding how it works. Collective Memory is Processual Pethaps the greatest challenge to our knowledge of the workings of memory concern the ways in which we now un derstand the activity itgelf of remembering. From the viewpoint of contemporary memory studies, remembering i holonger seen as finite activity, with an ‘denuliable beginning snd end: Rather, icieseen asa procs that costa Unfolding, changing, and transform Unlike’ the individualized. study of memory, which regarded memory as an ct consituted at one point in tte and Space, contemporary ‘memory studies view memory a8 4 process continually evolving acrote many points in ume and spice Remembering is proctal ac ion by wh constantly trans form the recolectons that they, produce, ‘These uansformations are not incidental but instead constitute collec: tive memory’ defining mark. Centrally “inscribed in the logie of a system = ‘ese memories confront each other, inter- ingle, fuse, or erase each other, accord- ing to the destiny of the societies whose identity they help to define” (Wachtel, 1986, pp. 216-217). As Robin Wagner- Pacific and Barry Schwartz, sociologists who tracked the commemoration of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, admitted: ta given point in ime, we could find no way to decode it, no way to articulate its relation to society. Only by accounting for ite ince tion and development over time did we come to know how the memorial’ symbolic struc: ture expretses or emerges from the society's tales and remembrance ofthe war (1991, p. 385). In its skeletal state, remembering threads a linkage between two distinet activities, recollection and commemoration, both of which offer nodal points on the way to constituting ‘what we cal tmemory. Recollection isthe act of estab- lishing a relationship with some event, issue, or entity of the past, Yet even here the content of memory is a useful step- Ping-stone v0 confronting larger issues Zbout memory work, For John Bodnar, for instance, oral interviews with indi. viduals about the past are conducted “not only to discover: what re: incrabered bul oi bs done Mey they went about the process of organizing and creating their memories inthe frst place” (1989, p. 1201) ‘Moat studies of collective memory have focused on the activiy of commemoration. Commemoration reproduces the past for present-day aims, by bringing the original narrative of the community into foeus (Connerion, 1989, p. 5). In so doing, it both stabilizes and clarifies memory. In Durkheim's (1965, p. 420) tiew, it allows the society to “renew the sentiment which it has of itself and its unity" Through commemoration, cllec- tive memory “receives an anchor from ‘which it cannot easily dif. It serves the ‘eed of a community to resist change in its selfconeeptions” (Hutton, 1988, p. 315). Like recollection, commemoration dloes not insist on amy shared, direct experience for ts participants; one docs a9 REVIEW AND CRITICISM: not need tohave participated in awar in order to celebrate Veteran's Day. Com- temoration, as Schudson (1993) has a ged, need not be located within formal ‘mmemorative markers. It can be de- textualized to include all creations that have duration over time, inuding the human being. It can live on in individuals as the Kennedy astassination did the wiames of Walter Cronkite or Dan Rather, or Watergate did in the names of Jeb Magruder ot Cordon Liddy. In fac, Watergate has persisted in memory despite the fact that ie was an uncom aiemorated event in the formal sense, with no holidays, museums, or mont dnents to markit (Schudson, 1992). Thboth commemoration and recolec- sion, memory's collective. dimensions have forced us to reassign group loyal- des, constituting new groups 38 wide- siging as the neighborhood book cub and the nation-state. Such new groups have in turn rearranged the text of memory as it wat initally instantiated. Inthe cate of Holocaust memorials, for example, they extended the memorial outward to reflect the larger contempo- tary culture as well as mark the event of the past. For that reason, former tizens of Hast Germany changed the param. exersforrecollecting Jewsh vcimage the Nazis, twming the museum at the concentration camp of Buchenwald into marker ofthe rise of Communism over Zascim (Young, 1999). "The procestal nature of memory al tow ud to account for tansformanions that occur within the act of remember. ing. Some ofthese transformations have Concerned the lese-examined inverse tases ofboth commemoration and reco! lection. What happens, for instance, ‘hen commemoration i implemented ty overturning earlier commemorative work? The bringing down ofthe Berlin Wallis surely one such example. Or what about. cemeteries left untended? History books redone? Canons in sity curricula changed? In each case, car- Her persistent memories crumble through contestaion, leaving memory220 REVIEW AND CRITICISM work tobe conducted amidst the ruins of earlier recollections. ‘The most common transformation of memory concerns what has been regarded generally as memory undone— amnesia or forgetting. How memories fare erased, forgotten, of willed absent has come to be seen as equally important to the ways in which memories are set in place. As Halbwachs (199%, p. 172) him- Self argued: ‘Arecollection isthe richer when i reappears a the junction of. frameworks, which in fect intersect each other and over in part. Forgeting is explained by the disap- Petrance ofthese frameworks of of «part of them, ‘either because our attention is no longer able to focus on them or because i focused somewhere eee, But forgeing the deformation of certin recoleco also explained by the fact that these frame: works change from one period to another. Unlike the study of individual memory, where remembering at times seems (0 resemble an endurance test that equates ‘more memory with better memory, the study of collective memory values the negation of the act. Forgetting is “the substitution of one memory for another” (Dayis and Starn. 1989. p. 2). Itisconsid- ered not as a defect or deficit practice but a valued activity that is as strategic and central.a practice as remembering itself. Forgetting reflects a choice to put aside, for whatever reason, what no longer matters. American journalists con- veniently “forgot” about the problems that accompanied news coverage of Lee Harvey Oswald’s murder, because they needed to do so in order to construct, that coverage as a high point of television journalism (Zelizer, 1992). Forget ting is also seen as a "given of domina- tion” and the collective response to it (Boyarin, 1992, p. 2). By forgetting about the newly-established surrounding nation-state in the Maghreb region of ‘Southern Tunisia, for example, individuals refused to link their own history with that of a state that kepr them on the fringes of nation-building (Dakblia, 1993). Europe's amnesia about World JUNE 1965 War IL was both willed and strategie: beneath” the surface, “the lava’ of memory” smoldered, to erupt whenever 2 Biburg commemoration or Waldheim election took over the” public sage (Oiler, 1986, p30) Asa nation, Amer Cans have been cst a slightly more am- nesiac than other populations (Kam- men, 1991). Sometimes, amnesia occurs without synchrony wih the larger group. Ron ald Reagan, for instance, tried to force the group into forgetting before it was ready, His 1982 appraisal of the View rnam’War, when he declared that the public was “beginning to appreciate that they were fighting for a just cause” (New York Times, Noveraber 11, 1982, p. 1), provoked & public outery from those not Wiling to accept his wild forgetting of the controversy surrounding the war. Similarly. his tip to Bitburg and feeble omissions ofthe role played by Hitler's SS. suggested that he had rearranged memories ofthe Second World War in a say that filed to match that ofthe larger social group (Hartman, 1986). His cear- Fangement of group’ memories surrounding both Sven in history pro ‘oked indignation rather than consents Memory tamsformative nature un: derseores our inability to fasten memory ‘work long enough to generate consen- Sual notions about ie n'a sense, then, ‘memory appears to vibrate in excess of four abliy to anchor iin discourse. This ‘makes some consideration of process not Only crual tan understanding of how collective memory works; rather, process becomesa precondition forthe sharing of memory across groups. ‘Yer have we suficiently captured the centrality ofprocesin our discussions of memory? It may be that by virtue ofthe ature Of inquiry sel, our analysts as imposed a certain static nature to under- standings of memory work, frezing our Giscussions to. one point in time’ and place. Faced with the dificultyofcaptur- Jog its processual nature, we therefore may nat yet have ‘come fll circle in Tecognizing the various ways in which csmc collective remembering remainsa fundamentally processual activity. Collect Memory is Unpredictable” One clement that contemporary memory studies have clearly taught uss the unpredictability of collective memo Collective memory snot necessarily line ear, logical, or rational, It ean take on any of these characteris but i does fot depend on any of them for is const- tution” In many caves, memories pop up preciely where they ae leat expetted. This has had considerable repercussions on our ability to study memory in itscoleceed form. We cannot predict the instances in which memory takes on new transformations, We are also unable to prepare for which patts of the past be- ome significant dintensions of recolle- tion, which personalities are most effec: tive in activating memory, or, which contemporary circumstances servetoen- gender new rewritings ofthe past. How fhany of us were able to predict George Bush's invocation of World War Il to explain away the US. invasion of Iraq? Toidbers tcasory's uspsecetliy op pears toave significantly restricted our Inquiry, for we are unable to predict ‘many of those circumstances it which ‘memory takes on sew footholds. ‘Thus, memory work brings together tuna bits ofthe past in unpredicable ways. Recollections of pos-Vichy France have repaired more actively to contemporary attempts to uphold national dig. ity than to Consensual recollections ef the French experience in. wartime ousso, 1991), Collective memories of AIDS have taken new turns as the names of Eigabeth Glaser and Kimberly Berga. iis have complicaed common under. standings of the disease. The activity of ischeading, glorified during the French Revolution for reasons of expediency, Tar bees rereliied as a contbeporty address to the increasing presence of violence in high political echelons Janes, 1991}. Recent commemorations of D- 2a REVIEW AND CRITICISM. Day conspicuously lei out Russian participants, marking the Russians’ ‘une settled standing of 1994 as much as the historical reaityof50 yearsearlierSchud- son, 1995). The Nazi-hunting experi ences of Simon Wiesenthal have brought the threat of forgetting to the forefront of contemporary consciousness in ways that have positioned the response to the absence of memory as visibly as the original activites that motivated remembering. ‘The unpredictability of memory is compounded by the fact that it is not necessarily static or stable. As Fentress and Wickham (1992, p.59) have noted, collective memories are “not stable as information” but “at the level of shared ‘meanings and remembered images.” Yet the question remains “for whom?” The ‘memories of common people are often appropriated by elites, profesional and other cultural brokers. In most cases, over wins out. And even then, on the \way to appropriation, memory works er- ratially. Consider, for instance, the pal- lidness of the American character that has-emerged from U.S. history text- Ionks, which have portrayed each national conflict as ultimately reasonable and without passion or prejudice Figerald, 1980, Unanticipated changes in the ways in which we appropriate the form of re membering have been most pronounced when dealing with issues of time and space. While Such changes at times occur in patterned ways, they too underscore the unpredictability of memory work. This is paradoxical, for traditional stud jes of memory always assumed the accuracy ofa recollection to be dependent on its predictable linkage with time and space. As historian David Thelen (1989, p. 1119) remarked, his traditional col: leagues “expect the accuracy of a memory to be shaped by the observer's physical proximity in time and space to the event.” Yet itis precisely these com- monsensical assumptions about memory, ‘on the one side, and time and space, on22 REVIEW AND CRITICISM. the other, that are undone in contemporary memory studies. Memory and Time One of the most peculiar traits that have come to charaterize the form of collective memory has been its relationship to time. The study of collective memory has had litle to do with the Passage of time in iis expected form. Rather, collective memory s predicated upon a distodation between the act of remembering and the linear sequencin of ime. Chronology, dismissed by David Lowenthal (1985, p. 221) a8 “history- book time,” is of vale insofar as it provides a contrast to the interrupted na- {ure of memory. ‘Time's recreation is fo" central that studies of collective memory are often consticuted by their ‘ery invocation of onsequential tempo- Tal patterning. Time becomes a socal Construction, the target of strategic rear- rangement. Because "every relic exists Simultaneously in the past and present ‘what leads us to identify tings 38 antiquated or ancient varies with sn ronment and history, with individual and Culeure, wit historical awareness and inclination” (Lowenthal, 1985, p. 241) In fact, the role of collective memory in helping communities deal with time & more than just central. When taken to the extreme, the linkage between com- ‘munities and time helps them to under. imine themselves Time undoes ts ability to shape communities by virtue of is never being able to stop shaping them: Silly, the group rue the rick of ls- ing its common framework if time becomes 40 subjected that it no longer Sn ora shared pas linked wid life events. It is here that collective memory proves most useful, for it holds both dine and the group at abeyance from cach other and gives them a frame in which to interact. Collective memory allows the group to se ime ina full ‘way at the same time ait allows time to Function to the group's benefit. Collec- JUNE 1995 tive memory thereby repairs the ex: cesses built into the time-community Kink ‘Thue, Abraham Lincoln has been remembered differently by subsequent generations of Americans; ear im ges of a folksy Lincoln gave way to. portrait of a remote and dignified indi ‘dual (Schwartz, 1990). France's inabi- ity to deal withthe Vichy experience has played out in various phases over the ecades since Workd War Il al of which underscored the replay of the past to fuitpresentaims (Rousso, 1991), Statues inthe Capitol Building in Washington, D.C have reflected the changing div sions in the country at the time they were commissioned, thereby marking Successive phases of the nation’s col lected memory (Schwartz, 1982). “The temporality of memory is rear ranged to accommodate the needs of certain groups by several mechanisms One practice is what I cll retrospective nominaization. This refers to the rena ing of early event, issues, oF place accordance with other events, ses, or places that have occurred in later years For instance, the Holocaust. became Known asthe Holocaust only during the seventies, some thirty years following the vents that motivated that name. Simi larly, World War I was given that label only decades after the war had ended, ‘once the Second World War came in collective consciousness, Before then, had been called the Great War. This ‘means that at the same time asthe use of the ald secures and soldibes the new, the new helps assign and reassign mean ing o the old. Time, then, and its con- Contant tits of sequent, Linearity, Sand chronology, become used up as re- Sources for the eaablishment and condin- ted maintenance of memory in ts socal collective form. Yet this understandin of memory assumes afar more cyel Sind nonlinear relationship to tine than hasbeen traditionally assumed. ‘Collapsing commemoration is another way o rearrange Ume. Here, commemo- Tative dates or holidays are used to re member more than one event at the cswe same time, For instance, Lucete Valensi hhas demonstrated how one date on the Jewish calendar—the ninth ofthe month ‘of Av—has cometo commemorate many vents ranging over hundreds of years in Jewish history, including the destruc: tion ofthe First femple, the destruction of the Second Temple. the fall of the Jewish Kingdom of Paiestinc, and the Bar Kochba revolt. In memory, these events were collapsed into the same day (Walensi, 1986, p. 285). Similarly, the patering of rial ime, by wich re ous or magical rites are repeated in Similar temporal circumstance, has gen- ‘rated temporal parallelsin diferent cultural systems. Easter and Passover, for Instance, are celebrated ata similar temporal point within the larger cycle of Events which they are responsible for repeating (Connerton; 1989, p. 66) Sil nother example surrounds the erection of the tombs to the unknown soldier, which were set in place following the First World War. As John Gils (1994, p. 11)has pointed out, these tombs offered away to remember everyone "by remembering noone in particular.” In this case, shin others, memory work mecteded Over time by undoing the activity with which ie had traditionally been assoc ted. Memory and Space Another issue central to the study of the form of collective memory has been its relationship to space. In Nathan ‘Wachte’s (1986, p. 213) view, “the pres- ervation of recollections rests on their anchorage in space.” That anchorage ‘occurs through monuments, artifacts, even texts, which themselves bear a de- fhnitive relationship to space. From a house to a neighborhood to a nation, space has always helped define the boundaries of memory. . ‘Among contemporary scholars, Frances Yates (1966) contributed much to our understanding of the relation between space and memory, when she demonstrated that one of the Brst steps a8 REVIEW AND CRITICISM. aaa ancmer Eeeae cememne erin ian ees eee ie ce oe ee eles ose ina cana Sma ar ueereniete amps, memorials, and bond drive post Sot teaer .noaenes rounded treatments of the past that Rave broadened into a key paradigm of Lien eeaane Sa oesaerecee™ biblical Holy Land was really no more Secor terrain ofthat was then ead Palestine aes pe aley REVIEW AND CRITICISM Rather, the collective memory ofthe Jews tas been tied toa place—Iorael—where few of them live. Similarly, considerations of outer space have provided territory on which to map out our projec: tions ofpower and authority (Kaufman, 1904) Yetsuch considerations bave been setforh onan occupation of space which few have actually experienced Here, too, there fas been rearrany ment, We can easly call to mind tn. ances in which the physical borders of nation-states have reflected contained ‘narratives about the pat that those nations produce. The contested status of memories ofthe land in contemporary Inracl isa cate in point (Katrel, 1994, Zclier, 19930). Yer Eastern Europe— both nits days of spatial inflexibility and ite more recent days offux—is a reveal- ing example of how space has filed to contain the leakage of contesting memo- fics within is terrain, Recent bales between Serbs and Croats in the former Yugoslavia bring to mind the oftited sory of fighting children who ate unable to agree on heir punctuation ofthe same event. Each begins narration of the vent at the point at which the other struck ‘Moreover, the relationship © space often reconiigures remembering in dis- tinedy unamdpated ways. At Andzeas Huysten (1995, p. 250) has argued, "init aot a consivative strength of memory that it can be contested from new per spectves, with novel evidence, from the tery spaces it had blocked out?” Infact, the space of memory thrives by being subject to diverse interpretations. It bet comes, as John Gills (1994, p. IA) has demonstrated, both more global and more local at the same dme=global by tirtue ofthe symbolicmeanings attached to sites lke Auschwitz, Chernobyl, or Hiroshima, and local thanks tothe gence of interest in family, ethni, oF Sher particularstc memories. In effect, the colective memory redefines space as wwe have come o reference itn popular ‘Al of this suggests that collective JUNE 1995 ‘memory is at best unpredictable. It can ‘occurin untoward shapes, around unsus- pecting personalities and issues, and at Surprising times and places. Patterning that does occur does so around variant coordinates that bring certain kinds of ‘memory together and keep others apart, For instance, the point at which memory can no longer be made relative might differ significantly in events like the Ho- locaust and the Kennedy assassination, but might bring Holocaust recollections and memories of atrocities in Bosnia into ‘lose quarters Not surprisingly, however, the study ‘of memory has not sufficiently captured its unpredictability. In its own search for repeatable patterns that help us make sense of how memory works, inquiry has focused more on memory's predictable elements, Laying claim to patterns has notonly allowed us to map out the workings of memory but also to control its ofien erratic nature. Yet such a perspective has captured only part of memory work, and may have sideswiped much that is essential to its shaping. Collective Memory is Partial Yet another basic premise in our un- dersanding of colleetve memory con cerns its partality. No single ‘memory Contains all hat we know, or e0uld know, bout any given event, personality, of issue: Rather, memories are often picced together lke a mosaic. This influences not only their internal validity but also thcirrelativecogency visa vis ech other Ulimately, collective memories can be tested. most effectively against other memories, andless effectively againgtany absoltist past Here, too, however, there are limitations asthe Holocaust makes evident The partiality of memory has powerful repercussions on what we thik we Know sbout the past We ean easly recall attempts to remake the past in ways that tellonly partof the tory. Fourth of July celebrations during the carly 1800s look Unfamiliar to those of us acustomed to esme parades down Main Street and firework extravaganzas. The working-class pur- sued leisure activities rather than practices expressing loyalty to the nation- state, German immigrants frolicked at local beer-gardens, and native-born groups in Milwaukee listened to orators ‘espouse civic values (Bodnar, 1992). The celebrations were partial displays of what independence meant to the different communities responsible for commemoration; yet together they comprised a somewhat fuller range of how America came to celebrate its birthday. Each, ‘moreover, was related to the fundamen" tal fact that the Fourth of July only became a national celebration after Ameri ‘eas sense of a heroic past had begun to slip away (Bodnar, 1992), Similarly, recent commemorations of the 25th anni- versary of Stonewall—commonly seen as. the beginning of contemporary gay consciousness—displayed the struggles 10 claim an authoritative voice in collec tively remembering the event. They also showed how partial were the recollections that ensued. At question were both the identity and number of people who claimed to have been present during the 1969 police raid on the gay bar. In each ase, memories constituted partial representations of the past; when brought together with other similarly partial recol- Iections, however, they were able to provide a more complete construction of erates as continuum of memories reproduces an event in its entirety, That b to sy, the partiality of memory is almost never fully Fesled,regardienof how many reo lectons are put together to that flea. Consider for instance, retelings of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, where recollections by the family, the govern: tent and othr official bodies, journal ints, independent researchers, and other interested ctizens have generated a pas- fiche ofmemory which has had the peculiar effect of generating mote, rather than fewer, questions about what happened (Zelizer, 1992). Less. volatile 225 REVIEW AND CRITICISM events, too, are characterized by a similar incompleteness that persists despite vigorous attempts to launder the incon- sistencies of memory. Yet partiality has its useful side. I helps us move forward. We need only think about the shape of medical research and its ability to generate new resolutions to old problems in order to understand the fundamental functionality of a partial approach to the past Often, but not always, the partiality of| ‘one recollection is complemented by that of another. Thus, David Lowenthal (1985, p. 271) recounted how the ivy on Harvard College buildings was defended because it was thought to lend Harvard Yard a picturesque unity with its distant past, despite the fact that the ivy dated ‘only from the 1880s. Only during debates of the 1980s over whether to keep the ivy did this point emerge. Likewise, the debate over the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial in Washington, D.C. reflected two sets of equally partial recollections— those wishing to commemorate lives lost in the war and those striving to erect a monument to U.S. patriotism. Neither conveyed all that was remembered about the Vietnam War yet both found expression in the monument to it that resulted (Bodnar, 1992). In other cases, memories have existed in a temporal con- ‘tinuum with the memories that they have replaced. Anniversaries, for instance, fill a special need in cases in which the insti- tutionalized memories they embody sub- stitute for lived memories that have faded. (Schudson, 1995). On another conti- nent, the ideology of social banditry and honor that has long encapsulated popular visions of the Sicilian Mafia emerged through a matrix of partial recollections, representations, and mythologies that date back to the 15th century (Fentress and Wickham, 1992), ‘Sometimes, memories gain resonance only when they are pieced together beyond the group that engineered their ‘Construction, In an evocative treatise on the workings of Holocaust memory in different nations, Judith Miller demon-228 REVIEW AND CRITICISM oak hone crt fehl sm seo Tae tai ere isis tec irre eee bor ee rs that of eters the patally of memory sees eh a eye erie Sohne Sie mares ry a at ne pean cree a on ir cb Ace een ad veinretaarte nice! Seen Mie pee ayaa era Sein eamacgicnd Sameer JUNE 1995, ample, have produced documents about the past that are constructed through the recollections of an array of partci- pants. Anthologies, television retrospectives that present reassembled pieces of an event or issue, and oral histories have all generated similar accounts. Their recollections offered partial views of the past that, when brought together with other recollections, assume a collective authority derived from their assembled presence. Alone, the recollections lacked the authority to persuasively tell their version of the past but in repertoire with other voices, they worked as collective Yet how successful have we been in capturing the partiality of memory? Other than lodging memories within the recognized boundaries of predefined groups, we may have understated memo- 1Y's partiality in our scholarly inquiry. For inquiry tends to search for the complete picture in the circumstances that it explores. And the partiality with which memory work tends to go public may have undermined its own recognition by the academy. Collective Memory is Usable The move from individual to grou memory has alo ratled givens in out Understanding of the “function of ‘memory. Ithas brought the sue of purpose to the forefront of our analysis. For Eollective memory is always a means t0 something else, Rather than be taken at face value as simple act of recall, colle tive memory i evaluated forthe waysin which it helps us’ to make ‘connec- tions—to each other overtime and space, and to ourselves. At the heart of memo: ‘ys study, then, isis usability, ts inwoca- Uon'as a tool to defend diferent ams nd agendas, Tt is significant that in moving avay fiom he individualized dimension ofe- membering, we have not yet agreed on where to house the Rinctons of collec: tive remembering that we find, Wagner- Pacifier and Schwartz (1991) point the csmc social, policil, and culeural functions of Temetnbering. Such trajectories under- teore the wiesranging uses to which memory can be put. While it could be argued that none exists independently ofthe other, each signifies a slightly di ferent orientation to the act of remembering “The sca trajectory of memory studies sefers primarily to tacking the constitu. tion and reconstitution of social groups around sues of memory. Memory in this sense extends the act of remembering for recalls sake into a consideration ofthe use of memory to shape belong” ing exclusivy, sal order, and commu nity. Other activites also come to mind, but even such an iigsynchronic ist cap- tures the sprit and rage ofthe areas of {octal practice upon which memory impacts. Remembering becomes a marker tha signals social existence and all that such existence invokes Im this view, remembering helps com- auties sick together in certain ways did break partis odherse Collecive memory provides narratives about the past, artcts that signal central events Of the past, and ways of meaniagflly signifying the past through fashion, ar htecure, holidays, and legal charters here isto effect belonging for certain individuals or groups and exchi- Sivity for others, making a certain level of diferendal address a necessary accou- frement of memory. That, Faxeror- nied television programming acts a a tue to remember for those who observe the holiday, whileit goes relatively unno- ticed by members of other religious communities. Remembering is ed up also whats oso onde, where tbr logether the past, present and fucure in tome meaningful way for members of the group. Whether i be the Depression of the 1080s, the Nazi occupation, oF Hiroshima, the past “enables us to know what is worth defending and preservin in tociety}, and what should be over” thrown of destroyed” (Chesneaux, 1978, 11), Natonal celebrations of Mother's Bay thereby began in Europe and 297 REVIEW AND CRITICISM. America on the eve of World War Ia a way of valorizing motherly sacrifice wile infording the endered nature ofcom- memoration Gils, 1994). ‘The socal consequences of memory are similarly wideranging. Schadson (1998) has argued tat collecive memory has significant social effects under v0 conditons: when. personal or institu. tional reputation is bankable, as i the marketplace, the sciences, of the arts and witen collective identity is mobi able, asin war or ethnic confit. This, to me, seems to draw in just about every Siation in which we Invoke collective memory, suggesting that some degree of social effec s inevitable. Yer the socal study of memory has a bias, Ie threatens tooverdo what Schudson (1993), follow. ing Geertz, has called the "memory for" dimension of remembering. This “pre- sentist approach, which wews memory ss constandy shifting, faitates the mis interpretation of historical dats by view- ing it dirough its own categories Te un- Aides hitony sand vik touering he ‘sablishment of coninuisy and sabi, Sen asinstrumentalforthe group'siden- tiy (Schwartz, 1982, p. 398). When pushed to the extreme, then, presentism Undermines all historical continuity. social continuity is implied by a group's Collective appropriation ofthe past, the Sct of remembering must then Be inked with other areas of practice that extend Beyond the sca wih ispresentt bis, This takes the very study of memory into political and cultural arenas of practice. ‘The pallial trajectory of memory studies might be defined 24 all activites that aMfect the political at its broadest and narrowest levels, including those con- Cerning deny, continuity stability, re pression, and politcal power. Each type practice gains its authority from some cutmulatves rather than présenist, di mension of memory work ‘The establishment and maintenance of politcal identity emerges a8 supreme here. Poliical traditions are validated through some sense of a sable: past ‘Thus, work on collective memoryin Ru228 REVIEW AND CRITICISM sia (Tumarkin, 1987, 1991), Afiica aki, 1998}, or China (Schwarer, 1901; Hiing, 1991) has involved the re: construction of the past in ways that resonate with the present.” Political tmemory reflects “the concrete concepti- alization of the experience of a people,” with the nation-states founding aflord- ing a useful focus by which the political community can structure its recalletion of the past (Smith, 1985, p. 21). In this ‘ase, memory work does not end with simple recall Rather, "in the founding are’ lodged common’ symbols, images and memories, that, when taken to- {ether, constitute the identity ofa people Sd give them an orientation in dine and space” (Smith, 1985, pp. 262-3) In Tanguage remembrance i also accom: plished for political ends, as Hannah rend (1958, p. 204) demonstrated in showing that there can be mo remem. bance without speech. Speech, she sd, is needed to materialize and memorial incall actions, however tentatively. ‘Often, the link between memory and identity’ disrupts group goals of tohe- sion, such as continuity oF stability. One up's politcal gue becomes the unray- Sling of another. in studies of repres- Sion, for instance, memory silences the vices of those who seek to interpret the past in contradictory ways. Studies of China have aply demonstrated the ways fn which power struggles intrude upoa all memory work, however innocuous i may seem (Hung, 1091), The wavering satus ofthe memory of Lenin illustrates hhow ‘specific political memories have been jdged dangerous to the larger polidl unit (Tunarkin, 1987). And perhaps the most eloquent voice has Been that of Milan Kundera (1981, p. 8), who aimed, in another poltical milieu, that “che aroggle of man again power the struggle of memory against Forgetting.” In each cate, the stability created by memory changes, i altered, ad is ule mately historially contingent. And itis within such mutability hat one comes manage the resonance of memory. Even. thallyinterestin memory becomes acon JUNE 1995, sideration of power and a reflection of the ways in which power has historically been assigned. As Connerton (1988, p. 1) wrote, “control of a society's memory largely. conditions the hierarchy of power.” Le Goff (1992, p. 54) similarly argued that "to make themselves the master of memory and forgetfulness is one of the great preoccupations of the ‘asses, groups, and individuals who have dominated and continue to dominate historical societies." In using the past to forge identity, then, one remains part of the “community of memory” (Bellah et al, 1985, pp. 152-155) by playing off of inemorys uabiiy, Dependence on shared frames of reference about the past in effect helps one hold onto one’s Identity in ways that are meaningful not only to the individual but to the collee- tive. And the meaning that each holds does not necessarily have tobe the same. “This has been the case not only for large-scale. political collectives but for smaller-scale groupings, such as interest {groups oF professions. Michael Schud- son (1998, p. 11), for instance, argued thatthe premium on revisionism in historiography exeates an incentive to dis- establish conventional renditions of the past. This dynamic has legitimated cer- {ain professional groups, such as journalists and professional historians. In mak- ingittheir professional business to muck about in the collective memory, such froups have ended up validating them- Selves as well as the memories they invoke. By definidon, chen, memory work isatsome level always politica. ‘A third area of practice on which the act of remembering impacts is the do- ‘ain of culture. The culeual trajectory Of memory studies has. conceptualized memory as ‘meaning-making activity Recollections are seen here as “a kind of refuge, a place to which a people may repair for warmth and inspiration” (Smith, 1985, p. 263), or, alternately, a place of disrepair. Both positive and negative cultural implications decode the act of remembering as an act lending meaning to the larger surround and csme. cone's place within it, Debates about the past take place within a larger culeural Framework. They do not occur at random. How is the past made to matter? Whether it be the conversion of Euro- pean castles into expensive bed-and- Breakfasts or the recreated experience of the Pilgrims in the museums of Plimoth Plantation, different folks make the past meaningfulby employing difer~ fentstrokes, For some, the moral impera- tives surrounding notions of justice, di tinctions between right and wrong, and integrity are uppermost. These recogni- tions of debts to the past take many forms. For example, the careers of Jimmy Carter and William Safire were themselves carriers of Watergate's collective ‘memory (Schudson, 1992). Reputation, 40 solidly examined by Kurt and Gladys Lang (1988), is itself a carrier for memory. For others, the issue ofa recollection’s accuracy has given way to how a ‘memory feels at the moment ofits reconstruction (Thelen, 1988). We need only consider debates about the ability of lm to retell history, in events as wide-ranging 1s the U.S. frontier narrative, the assassination of John’ F. Kennedy, or Vietnam. “The emphasis on meaning in the cultural study of memory waylays the insis: tence on accuracy. Not surprisingly, the proliferation of popular cultural forms has been key here. From comics to popu lar films, popular culture has assumed an active presence in the shaping and reshaping of memory. George Lipsitz (1990), for instance, has argued that popular cultare has precipitated a crisis ‘ofmemory, in which all dentity conseruc- tion comes to rest at least in part on ‘memory work. This has changed expee- tations of what vessels of memory ought to do. As historian Michael Frisch (1986, p. 8) offered in his discussion of remem. bering Vietnam: Fils ike The Derhter and Apocalypse Now said almost nothing about the real bistory fnd impact of the war, Bue they have an normous amount to teach, sn all their pre 220 REVIEW AND CRITICISM tentious posturing, about how we have been encouraged to deal with ‘such traumatic Saleciseexperence, Memorys congruence with the events that it represents becomes secondary to the larger issue of making sense of the Pic's relationship with those representations. /FK the movie matters lest a8 historical representation and more as a way of making sense ofthe incongruities emerging from the story of Kennedy's Steath GZelizer, 1992). The work of Ger- ‘man painter Anselm Kiefer constitutes as much an attempt to deal with the past as the offering ofan aesthetic experience CHiuyssen, 1985). Making the past matter involves eas- ing a fundamental tension between the customary and the unusual that characterizes memory work. While remembering as an activity tends to preserve some customary dimension of 4 memory—ss in the lighting of candles on the Jewish Sabbath or the wearing ofthe colo‘ green on St. Purick’'s Day—the content of ‘memory itself often dwells upon the un- Usual, spectacular, or extraordinary Memory work proceeds on the assump- tion that a manageable lnk can be ce- ated between the two. And in cases in which this ils we areleft with incongra- tus and lingering questions that high- Tight our unease at being asked to te- member. The recent atempt to stage a Woodstock revival, for instance, repre- seats unsuccessful memory work. When the festival’ organizers falled to draw in crows of people, they wondered where they had gone wrong. Perhaps the tension between that memory’ customary and extraordinary dimensions was not Sulicienty resilient to capture its poten- Gal rememberers. Attimes, too, the link is refuted by those amongst whom its resilience should matter ‘most. Holo. ‘aust deniers would fall into such a eat gory, in that their claim thatthe Holo- aust never happened i itself a form of memory (Vidal Naquet, 1002) Tn. her anthropological work om memory, Mary Douglas explored the ways in which iatitional memory work290 REVIEW AND CRITICISM offers an intricate interweaving of patterned remembering and forgetting. In- stitutions, she said, create categories by which new items of knowledge are cat- ‘egorized and stored for further use: Just a5 each different kind of social system Fests on a specific type of analogy from nature, so the memories ought to be different too... Coherence and complexity in public ‘memory will tend (0 correspond to coher: tence and complexity atthe social level (Doug: Jas, 1986, p. 80). Memory work, then, ultimately impacts upon and is impacted by other surrounding structures for meaning-making. Yet here, too, we seem to have made insufficient’ headway in addressing all the purposes that memory serves. Is it because its multi-purpose nature is too ‘wide-ranging to be encompassed by one analytical framework? Or, in some sense, do memory studies themselves dissoci- ate our understanding of memory from its functional role in social, political, and cultural action? Collective Me is Both Particular and Universal Collective memories are peculiar in that they canbe simultaneously particn- larstic and universal. That i, the same memory can actat a particular represeo- tation ofthe pat for certain groups while taking on a universal significance for others: One need only consider the dit ference resonated by the term “Ausch- wits" for survivors ofthat concentration ‘amp versus that assumed by contempo- ary scholars in genocide studies. The Eigtiicance of memory rests in interde- pendence between the two, yet a group Exm subscribe to one meaning wiout Actively emphasizing the other To an extent th flows fom rather basic fac that everyone partic Pates in the production of memory, though not equally. Some. people a: tively construct memories, while others perform activides thatare crucial to thelr Eansmission, retention, or contestation. JUNE 1995, Memories have been lodged in the groups that populate work setings (Orr To90r Bodnar) 1989). They have co prised the cultural lore of profesional roups, ike journalias (Zalizer, 1992, 10058), politicians and waiters of history textbooks (Schudson, 1902}, of artists (Lang and Lang, 1988). Memories have ‘been found within the terstorial spaces of ethnic groups, as in John Botnar’s explanation of ethnic memory among Mennonites, Swedes, and Norwegians America, each of whose “memories of the ethnic past were grounded ule imately in the social realy of the pre- ent” (Bodnar, 1992, p. 75, Lucete Va- lensi's compelling discussion of Jewish memory argued that memory among Jewshas aken on specic qualives" Wit thelr dispersal the Jews borames people fof memory. To be Jewish is to remember” (1986, p. 286) And memories have been found at the ‘margins of other groups. In Social Memory James Fentrest 8nd Chris Wickham (1882) tracked the group memories of several marginalized groups in Britain, inchuding women, the Pessaniry, and the working clas. ‘The sue of marginalization in their study s key, in that underscored the negota. son acne by which each of these groupe struggled to gan a voce in shap- ie clear evtin dome the pat a they knew ic was iretrevably altered. Communities have even grounded their very maintenance on the act of remem bering. From lineage memory in North ‘Avican vilages (Dakhlia, 1908) to the ‘memory of monuments in Tiananmen Square (Hung, 1991), memory acts.as a ‘etial, cultural, and politeal glue 1 does so via the tension between its particulars and universal dimensions ‘Tiss posible because oncofthe funda: mental ironies of collective memory is that its collective nature is not necestar™ ly unified. As Irwin-Zarecka (1994, p. 67) has argued, the term “collective” suggests an ideal rather than a given. Consider, for instance, the role that specific events play in remembering. From the Prohibition to the Gulf War, the sme moon landings to Omaha Beach, events give memory a platter on which to serve historical accounting. They tend to shat- ter orreinforce a certain moral, cultural, or political consensus, as in discourse surrounding Watergate (Schudson, 1992), the emergence of the Masada tale in Jewish memory (Schwartz, Zerubavel, and Barnett, 1986; Lewis, 1975), or re- (ellings of the Kennedy’ assassination (Gelizer, 1992). A particularly large body ‘of work has focused on war and memory. For instance, the ways in which we remember World War I has illuminated ‘memory's vagaries (thats, Ekstein, 1989; Fussell, 1975). Fussell claimed that the very “actof fighting a war becomes something like an ynwiting act of conserva tive memory,” in whichreveryone “tends to think off in terms of the last (war) he knows anything about” (1975, p. $14). Yet the relationship between the particular and the universalistic has another dimension, for the particularistic event is enveloped by a universal aura that attaches itself to much memory work ‘That is to say, memory in turn gives events a platter. This universal dimension of remembering fashions events into generalizable markers about suffering, Joy. commitment, and endurance. ‘The photograph of small boy being herded y German soldiers out of the Warsaw Ghetto, his hands raised above his head, hhas come to symbolize the indignities of war. Likewise, decorative street lights and storefront displaysin December have come for many to symbolize the holiday season, regardless oftheir religious per- suasion. Events in effect become boiling points for the eruption of memory in tries. World War II, to take an obvious ‘example, is recalled not just as an event Dut as an interweaving matrix of inter- secting agendas and memories—about Bitburg, Leni Reifenstahl, Iwo Jima, and Primo Levi, While each name is ‘connected to the same large-scale event, each also conjures up different orders of the pastand by implication, the present and ature. Vibrations between the particular and 21 REVIEW AND CRITICISM the universal are remarkably evident in the memories adopted by elites, where Powerful groups have manipulated the fensions to thetr advantage. Attempts to make so-called “official” history have Come to be seen 28 litle more than the memories adopted by the dominant cul ture (Wachtel, 1986, p. 207), The scholarship of Pierre Nora (1984-6) on France, Charles Maier (1988) on Ger- many, or Michael Kammen (1991, 1992) fon the United States has contributed to ocumenting an increasingly intricate repertoire of practices by which nation- hoods have creatively established and fertilized their collective selves overtime. Pierre Nora's (1984-6) mult-volume set, for instance, provided an inventory of the monuments, holidays, commemorations, and symbols that comprise French national memory. In each case, history has had different resonances for differ ent groups under a system's administra tion, preventing many conficting recol lections and memories that ink up with the manipulation of memory's particu. larand universalistic dimensions. Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983) are among the most-cted. contemporary Scholars to argue that many national tra ditions were in fact invented s0 38 10 consolidate specific versions of nation- hhood. Their edited collection surveyed a range of British national traditions, including the monarchy, and persuasively dlemonstrated that each was st in place jn conjunction with the sim of natonal tunity. So-called “national. memories” were far from national but were instead the fruits of labors on the part of the Sristocracy, monarchy, clergy, inteligen- tsia and upper-middle cavses. Other Scholars have made similar claims. For insance, the recovery ofthe lost glories of Muslim Spain required a construction of Spanish Islam as non-discriminatory and tolerant, despite the fact that it was neither (Lewis, 1975). The concept of “She Britsh people," grown cozy by rep- tition, has been declared a racist construction that did litle to include the people of color (Popular Memory Group,22 REVIEW AND CRITICISM 1982, p. 218). Recent attempts by Ger- ‘man revisionist historians to rearrange the place of the Holocaust in German national memory have been labelled a strategic manufacture of acleaner, more comfortable national identity that had litde to do with what happened during. wartime (Habermas, 1993). This shared presence of both univer. sal and particularistic dimensions of re- _membering has been difficult to capture in scholarship on contemporary memory studies, however. Perhaps because the nature of inquiry typically filters out that which is least relevant to the focus of analysis, we have tended to address one or the other dimension of memory. Rather than capture both particularistic and universal dimensions, we have not yet illuminated either their simulta ‘eous presence oF the ways in which one leads to the other. Equally important, we do not yet know how one pushes the other out of collective consideration, Collective Memory is Material One of the most marked characteris tis of collective memory is that t has texture. Memory exist in the world father than in 3 person's head, and so i tmbodied in diffrent cultural forms, We find memory in objects, narratives about the past, even the routines by which we structure ourday. No memory isembod- ied in any ofthese artifacts, But instead bounces fo and fro among all of them, on ts way to gaining meaning, ‘Memory studies assume that evidence ofthe past exists in every mode of public expression in everyday bfe—in welding felebrations, clothes, gestures, house: hold ‘artifacts, reputations, art exhib tions, public memorials, and television retrospectives. These artifacts, made Similar by their endurance over time, notonly presume that colecive memory isunlike individual memory by vire of the fact hat it is external the human body they alo suggest that its through such forins that iemory is collected, JUNE 1995, shared, contested, or neutralized. As Pierre Nora (1989, p. 18) has argued, “moder memory is, above al, archival Ie relies on the materiality of the trace, the immediacy of the recording, the vis. ‘bility of the image.” ‘This means that collective memory of: ten resides in the artifacts that mark its existence. Cultural forms, such as monu- ‘ments, diaries, fshion trends, television retrospectives, muscum openings, and fashion shows, all house memories in a durable fashion, anchoring the transient and variable nature of memory itself This makes the materiality of memory user-friendly. It also makes cultural forms a necessary part of memory's analysis. Tn between one’s head and the world, therefore, is a repertoire of different agents of mediation—media that help us to remember. As these media—invoked here in the broadest configuration and not justin reference to the mass media— have helped organize information at a point contemporaneous to the event, so too have they helped organize information at a point somewhat distant from the event. In the view of John Nerone and Ellen Wartella (1989, p. 87) media offer sites for “the creation of social memory.” Yet how and in what shape media help—and hinder—the activity of remembering has not been made sufficiently clear. For instance, acts of memory often rest with language, where they re articu- lated and given meaning. Bernard Lewis claimed that the earliest expressions of a community's collective memory have tended to be language-based—chants sung by tribes during cattle round-ups, sagas ofthe Icelanders, Homeric epics of the ancient Greeks (Lewis, 1975, p. 43). ‘The preference for a “language first” mentality persists in the contemporary age, to, where the proliferation of gate” ignify political scandals—as in illygate,” “Irangate,” “Koreagate"— designates the continued resonance of smc Watergate for Americans (Schudson, 1992), ‘Yet memory looks for other carriers, land its enunciation has thereby gone beyond language. Vansina (1985) showed how much of Aican collective ‘memory is preserved in rituals acted out by the group. Connerion (1989) dis- cussed the ways in which playing the piano, leaning to type, oF court et quette at Versailles have all depended Gn the transmission of some shared memory. He also argued that memories have been encoded in bodily practice, skilfully demonstrating that habitual gestures, postures, and movements in e constitute a mnemonics of the body. Lo- wenthal (1989) examined the ways in ‘which landscapes and dther material artifacts of place have offered a. social memory of sorts. Kamnen (1992) di cussed images of the fast as seen in ‘American painting, while Stallybrass (1998) located the shared memories ofa Renaissance England in dothing. “Memory has taken on various formsin conjunction with the medium acting as its vessel. Some scholars have argued for memory’s fundamentally oral nature, and for the fact that early forms of re: membering were associated with oral sources and the oral tradition (for example, Yates, 1966). Others have main- tained that a passage from orality to writing has facilitated the abandonment of what Le Goff (1992, p. 55) called “ethnic memory.” In the contemporary age, memory has come to be seen as depending on an array of media tech- nologies, from radio, cinema, and com- puters «0 the printed prose. Externaliz- dng memory outside of Ue human brain has thereby engendered diverse alterna- Lives for its embodiment elsewhere. “The most obvious memory function in each case has been that of transmission. Media technology has been constituted as an aid to the act of recollection by Virtue of the fact that it facilitates access to group memory. But the study of memory calls into focus another use of 28 REVIEW AND CRITICISM media —its function ofstorage. The stor- ‘age of information about the past pro- Vides “a means of marking, memorizing, and registering events” (Le Goff, 1992, 60), thus directly impacting upon is ues of legitimation, just 26 “public memory is the storage system for the social order” (Douglas, 1986, p. 70), so do the media offer memory its own ware- house. This becomes even more the case ‘when we consider the extent to which we today record the event even as itis taking place. What this has not made ex- plicit, however, is the degree to which even storage produces a recycling of historical knowledge. Maier (1988), for instance, demonstrated how the creation ‘of @ historical museum in West Berlin forced Germans to figure out where Jew- ish history fit alongside their own. Relevant here is the visual dimension ‘of memory. Visual records stabilize the transient nature of memory itself, which, not unlike reality, is subject to continued reconstruction. From art to cinema to television to photography, the visual dimension of memory aids inthe recall of things and events past. Here, too, the reconstructive potential is enormous yet generally unspoken, a fact which has Senerated a seemingly endless number ‘of debates, all of them renditions of the Same song. The painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware River, painted by Emmanuel Leutze in 1851, Felevated a minor episode of the Ameri- can Revolution to mythic event" (Lo- ‘wenthal, 1985, p. 307). The amateur recording by’ dressmaker Abraham Zapruder of the shooting of Joho Kennedy became probably one of the most debated filmic sequences in Ameri- an history (Zelizer, 1992). Photogra- her Joe Rosenthal’s memorable image ofthe flag-raising on Iwo Jima suited the national temper for remembering the battle below Mt, Suribachi—no blood- shed, the triumphant waving of the Stars and Stripes, the sculptural calm. None- theless, others closer to the event dis- puted both the representativeness and24 REVIEW AND CRITICISM. senchndy verge sateen ceere cs iid posek ueonae once SST at reed eee tet over those with keys to access it Two ooterard saa po ape ae Soca ear east de cs cc, aenuyaiinien oe a sieetratce Cer of their military unit ‘and shared among the other members, the phe Se ac earns Geile “been (hee to bere the Seem =e Soe hang creer Se eee seek ee emer fen-Belben and Dacha, Due to their Biers pee Bridsh Imperial War Museum until the EE eats mie a epee Tete nonraee mage ee amen Seu ree cece a eres ni somewhat of 4 problem, however, for Sonar aes Sees aes eae ne aaa anes JUNE 1905, primacy of memory, but most academic inquiry tends to rest with books rather than museums. This has had the curious effect of making the materiality of ‘memory into an obstacle to scholarship ‘on memory work THE FUTURE OF COLLECTIVE MEMORY STUDIES UNCOLLECTING MEMORY’S COLLECTIVE NATURE Each ofthese premises points to teri tory stil uncharted in contemporary memory studies, The. presealy-tray- tiled routes may not remain intact, fort tay be that memorys own collective tatireis responsible for memory studies having taken up such wide-ranging, yet insuficiently cavelled, routes of expan- Forinstance, in adopting new assump- tons about memory, ne have generated new questions that goaw and trouble, ‘We sll do not know where and among vrhom socal memory is most actrely operative. We sill lack precise know: clige 3s to how remembering i accom plished for diferent social groups. How fo che memories of different groups in- tersec? How do we handle the ultimate subjectivity of collective memories? And are there points at which the mastery of memory dbstrucs » fruitful appropta- fon oft content? ‘One central area in which collective memory snidies bear rerouting i in the ofits study. The colecve nature of memory has grown so broad that now scent to include ll thoughts, sent= ‘ments, and actions about the past that remot recognized a5 traditional hisory. In moving beyond its individuaived o- tain, memory has come vobe as everpre- sent as oxygen molecules, lurking be- hind every nook nd cranny ofeveryday smc life This has begun to position collective mmeiory ava eaicval eategory That theoretical impulse 8 a danger- cous one, for it threatens to undo the Snalyeal specificity ofthe concep. Even ifieis collected, shared, negocted, and Constituted by the group, collective memory needs to retain its uniqueness Sra catogory of knowledge, Perhaps the ‘nuances that separate “public memory" from “cultural memory” from “collec tive memory.” and 20 forth, should be snore closely probed. Perhaps focusing more acively on speifi collected mentor Hes—whether they be those of specific froupr or those about specific evens Would counter the leakiness four schol mship ; Tn 30 doing, we’ may address yet a second problem with collective metnory Seidies. They postesinsutfcient concep {hal clarity. Why iit, for instance, that ‘many memory sidies are sl plagued bya lack of deinen ay fo wha eae five memory, beyond admitting that t isnot individualized? Why do we not yet Know when remembering i being used assimple recall and when is being used to alfece a slew of other aciviiest And why are we not sufBclently bothered by this conceptal murkiness? It maybe thatin our rush to eritorialize this nom txt frame for studying the past, we haven't paid sufficient stent to what the foot oldiers have been doing along the way. Much ofthis has to do with the fundamental lack of between the char. acteiste tats of colecsve memory and ‘ur ability to explore them, We need to examine more closely the terms that have become the fotholds of our scholarship. 235 REVIEW AND CRITICISM. Paradoxically, these two problems tell us to undo much that is spedal about collective memory itselt They advise us to slow down, tghten up, narrow our focus—when collective memorys most useful unit has been to open up new Spaces fom which to think about the Past-Itis within this paradox, however, that the future of memory studies seems tolie—initsvibradons, in adual perspec: tive hat both broadly defines memory as akin to an array of socal, poltical, and tultural practices yet narrowly restricts its analysis to the mott grounded forms 1s it not possible to think broadly but practice narrow? "This snot to xy that ll social memories, because they are collecive in nature, must necessarily become uniform. 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Zelizer Reading The Past Against The Grain

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