The Changing Place of Europe in Global Memory Cultures: Usable Pasts and Futures

by Christina Kraenzle (Editor), Maria Mayr (Editor)

Overview

This book investigates the transnational dimensions of European cultural memory and how it contributes to the construction of new non-, supra, and post-national, but also national, memory narratives. The volume considers how these narratives circulate not only within Europe, but also through global interactions with other locations.

The Changing Place of Europe in Global Memory Cultures responds to recent academic calls to break with methodological nationalism in memory studies. Taking European memory as a case study, the book offers new empirical and theoretical insights into the transnational dimensions of cultural memory, without losing sight of the continued relevance of the nation. The articles critically examine the ways in which various individuals, organizations, institutions, and works of art are mobilizing future-oriented memories of Europe to construct new memory narratives. Taking into account the heterogeneity and transnational locations of commemorative groups, the multidirectionality of acts of remembrance, and a variety of commemorative media such as museums, film, photography, and literature, the volume not only investigates how memory discourses circulate within Europe, but also how they are being transferred, translated, or transformed through global interactions beyond the European continent.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783319391519
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	12/10/2016
Series:	Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies
Edition description:	1st ed. 2017
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

Christina Kraenzle is Associate Professor of German Studies at York University, Canada. Her research focuses on modern German-language cultural studies, with an emphasis on issues of transnational cultural production, mobility, globalization and memory.

Maria Mayr is Assistant Professor of German Studies at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada. Her research analyzes contemporary German-language cultural productions, with a focus on migration, memory, transnationalism, and identity discourses.

Table of Contents

1.Introduction: The Usable Past and Futures of Transnational European Memories. Christina Kraenzle and Maria Mayr.- 2.Between the National and the Transnational: European Memories of the Second World War in the 21st-Century Museum in Germany And Poland. Stephan Jaeger.- 3.Contemporary Memory Politics in Catalonia: Europeanizing and Mobilizing the History of the Spanish Civil War. David Messenger.- 4.Memory Competition or Memory Collaboration? Politics, Networks and Social Actors in Memories of Dictatorship. Sara Jones.- 5.Towards a Transnational Ethics for Europe: Memory and Vulnerability as Gateways to Europe’s Future in Koen Peeters’ Grote Europese roman. Jan Lensen.- 6.Transnational Memory in Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon and Cate Shortland’s Lore. John O. Buffinga.- 7.Visions of Europe in Fatih Akin’s The Evil Old Songs: Divided Past, Transnational Future? Eva Maria Esseling.- 8.Beyond Foundational Myths: Images from the Margins of the European Memory Map. Christian Sieg.- 9.A Place in the Sun: Colonial Entanglements in Lukas Bärfuss’ Hundert Tage and Daniel Goetsch’s Herz aus Sand. Charlotte Schallié.- 10: Compelled to Share: Exploring Holocaust and Residential School Survivors’ Stories. Willow J. Anderson.- 11.From Europe’s Early Iron Age to a Shanzhai Village: Themed Environments, Global Property Markets, and the Role of Hallstatt’s Cultural Legacy. Markus Reisenleitner.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Christina Kraenzle and Maria Mayr’s edited volume, The Changing Place of Europe in Global Memory Cultures, is a needed contribution to the growing literature on Europeanization of memories, focusing especially on the “imaginative arts.” This book is at the cutting edge of theoretical and empirical research in memory studies, taking concepts like “multi-directional” and “travelling” memory seriously and problematizing notions of globalization, cosmopolitanization, and transnationalism. The contributions represent a wide range of disciplinary sensibilities, regions within Europe (Catalonia, Germany, Romania, Belgium, Austria, and Switzerland), and beyond (Canada, China), and texts (museums, memorials, film, novels).” (Eric Langenbacher, Georgetown University, USA)