Realms of Memory

Why do some countries choose to remember and take responsibility for their past actions as perpetrators? According to memory studies expert Itay Lotem, the emergence of self-critical, perpetrator memory is a novel post-World War II development which he locates in West Germany and France. Heroic memories of past victories and even losses have long been a feel-good staple in the national repertoire. But the idea that nations should take responsibility for shameful actions and that this could somehow be beneficial is based on an entirely new political rationale.  How that rationale emerged, gained global resonance, and ultimately failed to fill the hopes of its newest proponents is the subject of Itay Lotem’s book, Dealing with Dark Pasts: A European History of Autocritical Memory in Global Perspective.

Something novel happened after the Second World War.  Rather than just celebrating past victories or heroic defeats, nations began to memorialize their most shameful crimes and misdeeds.  From the Holocaust to the slave trade, memory studies expert Itay Lotem argues that West Germany and France pioneered this new form of auto-critical, perpetrator memory.  How auto-critical memory gained global resonance and why it ultimately failed to meet expectations is the subject of Itay Lotem’s most recent book, Dealing with Dark Pasts: A European History of Auto-Critical Memory in Global Perspectives.  A conversation with Itay Lotem about the rise and fall of auto-critical memory, next on the November 3rd episode of the Realms of Memory podcast. 

The army in Peru has long been held in high regard as the defender of Peruvian independence and the standard bearer for its large indigenous population.  Yet in the investigations that followed the two-decade conflict with the Maoist Shining Path insurgency, Peru’s security forces were found responsible for 36% of the deaths.  Beyond the revelations of massacres, torture, gendered violence, corruption and support for Alberto Fujimori's 1992 coup, Peru’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission reported that the overwhelming victims of human rights crimes committed by the security forces were indigenous peoples.  From facing criminal prosecution and imprisonment in the early 2000s, how have the security forces rehabilitated their image, won the support of the Peruvian people, and captured the highest offices in the land?  Find out from historian Cynthia Milton, author of Conflicted Memory: Military Cultural Interventions and the Human Rights Era in Peru. 

The civil war in Peru is often lumped together indiscriminately with neighboring conflicts in Latin America.  University of Victoria historian Cynthia Milton argues that we need to take into account the very different nature of the violence in Peru as well as the centrality of the military in Peruvian society to fully grasp how the conflict has been remembered.  In Conflicted Memory: Military Cultural Interventions and the Human Rights Era in Peru, Milton reveals how the military has successfully deployed the language of human rights memorialization to reframe their role in the conflict.  A conversation with Cynthia Milton about memory politics in Peru on the October 6th episode of the Realms of Memory podcast.  

The Holocaust is at the heart of German national memory culture.  From commemorative events organized on the floor of the parliament to mandatory instruction in public schools, «never again » is a much repeated refrain echoed throughout German society.  How then is it possible that Germans are unlearning the lessons of the Holocaust?  This is the contention of historian Juergen Zimmerer, renouned for his scholarship on the genocide in imperial German South West Africa.  Zimmerer argues that by making the defense of Israel, Staatsräson, or national policy based on the burden of the past, Holocaust memory is being used to stifle freedom of expression and to promote ethnonationalist thinking.  By reducing the causal factors of the Holocaust to antisemitism in the Nazi era, it becomes possible to bracket out an uncomfortable past as a problem resolved. Antisemitism can now be located either in the regressive thinking of unwanted Muslim minority communities or the horrors perpetrated by Hamas in the present.  Instead of embracing tolerance and respect for fundamental human rights, Germany is now unlearning the lessons of the Holocaust and moving towards a more intolerant, ethno-nationist future.  A conversation with Juergen Zimmerer about his book, Germany’s History Wars: Contesting Memory and Identity Today, in this episode of the Realms of Memory podcast. 

How singular was the Holocaust?  Historian Juergen Zimmerer sparked a firestorm of controversy in Germany for suggesting continuity between the colonial past and the Holocaust.  Any suggestion that the Holocaust needs to be understood within a broader framework that goes beyond antisemitism and the Nazi era strikes at the heart of the German national memory culture.  Drawing from his recently published edited volume, Germany’s History Wars: Contesting Memory and Identity Today, I had the chance to talk with Juergen Zimmerer about how the singularity idea has contributed to the unlearning of the lessons of the Holocaust.  A conversation with Juergen Zimmerer, renowned scholar of the genocide in German South West Africa, next on the September 1st episode of the Realms of Memory podcast.    

Jeff Olick has been one of the central figures in the making and shaping of memory studies, a burgeoning, multidisciplinary field of study drawing scholars from around the globe.  A professor of sociology and history at the University Virginia, Charlotte, I had the opportunity to engage with Jeff in a wide ranging conversation.  We talked about how memory studies and the work of Maurice Halbwachs helped him find a home in sociology for his interest in collective memory.  We discussed his work on how Germany’s political elite mastered the Nazi past, albeit with significant caveats.  He shared his thoughts on how, despite the recent backlash, American collective memory may finally be turning away from a celebratory approach to the past toward what he has labeled as the politics of regret.  A conversation with memory studies expert Jeffrey K. Olick, in this episode of the Realms of Memory podcast.  

Few scholars have influenced memory studies as much as Jeff Olick.  Professor of Sociology and History at the University of Virginia, Charlotte, Jeff was co-founder and past co-president of the Memory Studies Association, the leading association for this burgeoning, interdisciplinary field of studies. His books on Germany offer pathbreaking insights into how the country’s political elites attempted to master the Nazi and Holocaust past.  The Politics of Regret, has become a reference point for explaining why countries around the globe take up the challenge of confronting shameful histories.  From the The Collective Memory Reader to the six volume, A Cultural History of Memory, Jeff has helped compile a cannon of readings and an expansive history of collective memory.  A conversation with Jeff Olick about memory studies, the politics of memory in Germany, and the prospects for the politics of regret in the United States, next on the August 4th episode of the Realms of Memory podcast.

Since the 1990s countries around the world have been building a new type of history museum.  Rather than glorifying the nation, these museums are purpose-built to spotlight the darkest and most shameful chapters in national histories.  They are inspired by a post-Holocaust, “never again,” human rights memorialization culture anchored in the belief that nations can and should learn from past wrongs.  Until recently, the United States lagged behind this trend.  Few American museums offered a critical perspective on the nation’s history of racial violence. Sociologist Amy Sodaro, an expert on museums and the politics of past violence, offers her insights on three new U.S. museums that feature the history of slavery and racial violence.  This is the subject of her recent book, Lifting the Shadow: Reshaping Memory, Race and Slavery in U.S. Museums.

Despite the frenzied debates about what history we should be teaching in the United States, until recently most African American and mainstream history museums have continued to tell an uplifting story of racial progress and achievement.  The United States has lagged behind museums in many other parts of the world which now give greater attention to recognizing past wrongs and injustices.  In the July 7th episode I’ll be talking with Sociology Professor Amy Sodaro from the Borough of Manhattan Community College in the City University of New York about three new museums that feature the history of slavery and racial injustice.  This is the subject of her latest book, Lifting the Shadow: Reshaping Memory, Race and Slavery in U.S. Museums.