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 DOI: 10.1177/1750698011424035b

2012 5: 100Memory StudiesAmy Sodaro

Book review: Memory: Histories, Theories, Debates  

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100 Memory Studies 5(1)

Bauer PJ, Van Abbema DL, Wiebe SA, Cary MS, Phill C and Burch MM (2004) Props, not pictures, are worth a thousand words: Verbal accessibility of early memories under different conditions of contextual support. Applied Cognitive Psychology 18: 373–392.

Howe ML (2000) The Fate of Early Memories: Developmental Science and the Retention of Childhood Experiences. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Markowitsch HJ and Welzer H (2010) The Development of Autobiographical Memory. Hove and New York: Psychology Press.

Nelson K and Fivush R (2004) The emergence of autobiographical memory: A social cultural developmental theory. Psychological Review 111: 486–511.

Povinelli DJ, Landau KR and Perilloux HK (1996) Self-recognition in young children using delayed versus live feedback: Evidence of a developmental asynchrony. Child Development 67: 1540–1554.

Reese E and Newcombe R (2007) Training mothers in elaborative reminiscing enhances children’s autobio-graphical memory and narrative. Child Development 78: 1153–1170.

Simcock G and Hayne H (2002) Breaking the barrier? Children fail to translate their preverbal memories into language. Psychological Science 13: 225–231.

Susannah Radstone and Bill Schwarz (eds) Memory: Histories, Theories, Debates New York: Fordham University Press, 2010. 500 pp. $35.00. ISBN 9780823232604

Reviewed by: Amy Sodaro, The New School for Social Research, USA

Memory: Histories, Theories, Debates is an impressive volume: composed of 30 essays commis-sioned for the collection by some of the leading memory scholars, it is an important new addition to the field of memory studies. Acknowledging that the volume is one of many manifestations of the pervasive interest in memory today, its editors aim for it to ‘bring out in the open what, intel-lectually and politically, is at stake in the contemporary debate’ over memory (p. 1). This is an ambitious undertaking and one that the editors admit is not possible in one volume. Yet they have made an admirable attempt at doing just this and through the broad, interdisciplinary scope of the book’s essays and arguments, they do indeed highlight many of the salient issues related to the study of memory today. And while the volume admittedly reflects the editors’ ‘location’ (p. 5) – Northern European with a background in the humanities – it should be of interest to anyone con-cerned with the many facets of memory.

Totaling over 500 pages and ranging from neuroscience to philosophy to anthropology, it is unlikely that many will read the volume from cover to cover as I did; and while I found this to be enriching and useful, the volume is open to many different readings according to one’s discipline and interests. Like most interdisciplinary collections on memory, this one is also primarily com-posed of essays written from within each author’s discipline and the chapters themselves rarely cross significant disciplinary boundaries – most notably the divide in memory studies between individual and collective memory. There are pieces, such as Howard Caygill’s ‘Physiological Memory Systems’, that are virtually impenetrable for a sociologist like myself; conversely, it is likely that some of the chapters about collective memory may raise questions among neurobiol-ogists and psychologists of whether the author is even really writing about memory. However, there are efforts to bridge this divide, such as John Sutton, Celia B. Harris and Amanda J. Barnier’s ‘Memory and Cognition’, which demonstrates the social dimensions of individual memory, and the discussion by Susannah Radstone (who is one of the editors) of the interplay between inner and outer worlds in the realm of cinema; each of these chapters stretches disciplinary boundaries and points toward possibilities for future interdisciplinary research.

Book reviews 101

Divided into three parts – ‘Histories’, ‘How Memory Works’ and ‘Controversies’ – the volume is well-organized, especially considering the extensive ground that it attempts to cover. Through these overarching topics and their sub-sections, many of the major debates within memory studies emerge and it is these that drive the volume: questions of individual subjectivity and the connection between the individual and the world, concerns about the fallibility of memory and its relationship to ‘truth’, and debates about the ethics and politics of memory today permeate the volume. Looming largest over the collection is the question of why memory holds such a privileged place in contem-porary experience: is it because our amnesiac modern society lacks ‘real’ memory, or is memory everywhere because it’s become an important political tool in response the challenges of moder-nity? While answers to these questions remain evasive, the book contributes to their ongoing dis-cussion and these overarching issues can structure various readings across the sections.

‘Histories’ presents the major theoretical foundations for the study of memory today and helps to remind us that memory was a concern long before the recent ‘memory boom’. Beginning with Mary Carruthers’s description of arts memoranda of the Middle Ages, the first section ‘Epochs’ moves through a discussion of memory in early-modern Europe, to an important essay by Bill Schwarz (who is the book’s other editor) on temporality, memory and history. ‘Imagining Modern Memory’ follows and while most of this section covers the well-trodden territory of contemporary memory studies such as Halbwachs, Freud, Proust and the Frankfurt School, many of the chapters are fresh in their approaches – especially Esther Leslie’s piece on Siegfried Kracauer and Walter Benjamin, and Brian O’Connor’s piece on Adorno – and together they present a solid background to memory studies today.

‘How Memory Works’ is the most technical part of the volume and covers vast ground, from synapses in the brain to individual subjectivity, to public life, politics and media. This section most clearly exposes the divide between the positivistic study of individual memory and the study of collective memory in the humanities and social sciences, and can present the biggest disciplinary challenge. The chapters on ‘The Inner Self’, for example, while compelling reading, were some-times so far outside of my area of expertise that their conceptions of memory seem hopelessly reductionist – a concern articulately addressed by Stephen Rose, who acknowledges the tendency toward reductionism in his own studies on chicks and argues that neurobiologists must sometimes come out of the lab. Moving from the inner self to ‘Subjectivity and the Social’, Mark Freeman’s piece on memory and narrative stands out as another way of thinking about bridging the sometimes seemingly vast divide between the inner self and the world.

The last chapter of ‘How Memory Works’ focuses on public memory, and works well with the final part of the volume, ‘Controversies’. As the editors point out in their introduction, the cases and questions addressed in these sections are necessarily partial, and accordingly the selection can feel arbitrary. Some of the major spheres in which public memory manifests are addressed in the excellent pieces in this section: ritual, sites of memory (broadly conceived here by Jay Winter), television and new media, cinema and technology. Others manifestations of public memory – such as truth commissions and trials, political acts such as apologies, social movements and ‘memory activism’ – are left out, in part no doubt because of space, but also reflecting the editors’ humanities background. ‘Controversies’ makes up for some of this lack and is perhaps the most exciting part of the book for the new research that it presents. Again, the cases presented can seem arbitrary, and it’s not clear that all of the chapters address real controversies in the study and/or practice of memory. The Holocaust, for example, has been written about so frequently in memory studies that even the outstanding pieces by Marianne Hirsch, Leo Spitzer and Eva Hoffman hardly seem to present novel controversies in the field, though Levy and Szaider’s notion of cosmopolitan mem-ory (2006) that Hirsch and Spitzer briefly address is worthy of its own chapter in this part of the

102 Memory Studies 5(1)

book. Also notable is Stephan Palmié’s piece on memory of slavery, which compellingly illustrates some the most pressing issues at stake in the study and practice of memory, such as questions of truth and authenticity, the moral power and ethical use and abuse of memory, the problem of repa-rations, and the ongoing tension between memory and history. Palmié’s chapter, together with Ghassan Hage’s on food, migration and memory, indicate additional important future directions for memory research.

The lingering questions that dominate the field of memory studies today that are raised in this volume are not necessarily answered in it. However, in its broad scope, the volume does give a solid basis for understanding the questions themselves and why they are so prominent in studies of memory today and suggests areas for future research. There are important themes and topics that are missing: issues related to transitional justice, human rights, and democratization that are crucial battlegrounds for memory are almost entirely left out; likewise, whole continents are missing in the empirical cases presented here – notably South America, where some of the most important ‘mem-ory work’ has occurred. There is also not a single contribution from sociology, a striking omission, as so much current research on memory is sociological. This again can be attributed to the editors’ background, but means that the volume misses out on other crucial debates and issues driving the field today. However, no one volume can encapsulate the whole field and this one does an admira-ble job of covering as much ground as it does. Its breadth means that it will appeal to anyone interested in memory studies and the quality of the work ensures that it will not only make an important contribution to the field, but will also play a key role in continuing to shape the study of memory.

Reference

Levy D and Sznaider N (2006) The Holocaust and Memory in the Global Age. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

Brian Conway Commemoration and Bloody Sunday: Pathways of Memory Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. 213 pp. $84.95. ISBN 9780230228887

Reviewed by: Guy Beiner, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

On 30 January 1972, British paratroopers opened fire on a civil rights march in the city of Derry, Northern Ireland, killing 13 people on the day and injuring 14 (one of whom was to subsequently die of his wounds), in what was soon to become a cornerstone of modern Irish memory and a widely recognized landmark in contemporary global history. Just two and a half years earlier, the Northern Irish ‘Troubles’ erupted in the Catholic neighborhoods of Derry (or as the town was offi-cially known at the time – Londonderry) with the outbreak of uncontainable street riots known as of the ‘Battle of the Bogside’ (12–14 August 1969), which were in turn provoked by the annual loyalist parade on 12 August commemorating the late-17th-century Siege of Derry (a central ‘lieux de mémoire’ of Northern Irish unionism; see Nora, 1989). The deployment of British troops on 14 August 1969 was initially met with approval by Catholics, who believed that they would put an end to the heavily prejudiced police-keeping practices of the Northern Irish state. But this investment of good faith soon dissipated in the face of the overwhelmingly one-sided enforcement of a policy of interment (introduced in August 1971) that sparked a new series of protests, pitting civil rights demonstrators against the military, ultimately culminating in the catastrophe of Bloody Sunday,