Theories of Memory: Remembering the 1980 Turkish Military Coup d‘État (Elifcan Karacan)
"The institutionalization of memory in the discipline of history was not only due to the invention and wide usage of print technology, and to humanity's interest in recording past events. It was also a result of the fact that the rise of the need to construct a national identity for the new nation states in Europe in the 18th century led to the adoption of new understandings of the past. Memory became used as a political tool to legitimate the nation state by simply constructing national identity through myths, commemorations and rituals"
historical memory vs collective memory (Halbwachs)
"It was Halbwachs who demonstrated the interacting and conflicting characteristics of historical memory and collective memory"
"Historical memory gives us the basis for reconstructing our group
memories and continuity in time, which is crucial to identity."
"Halbwachs is the person who conceived that memory is a matter of social construction and who brought memory into the field of sociology."
"Halbwachs transfers Durkheim's theory of social consciousness and historical continuity for group solidarity to collective memory theory."
"According to Halbwachs' theory of collective memory, to provide solidarity and
continuity, groups modify the memory of the past according to the necessities of
the present. This is a dynamic process of constructing the past, and of generating
a collectively shared present which is based on an 'agreed' common past."
"In Halbwachs' theory of collective memory it is hard to speak about the present's
superiority over the past."
Hobsbawm:
"His theory of collective memory as a twofold process with reconstruction of the past and construction of the present both as active elements is further supported by historian Eric Hobsbawm (1983) in his introduction to the book he edited together with Terence Ranger, The Invention of Tradition"
"“'Invented tradition' is taken to mean a set of practices, normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past” (Hobsbawm 1983: 1)."
"Hobsbawm warns his readers of two phenomena that should not be understood as tradition: customs and convention, or routine."
"National anthems, flags, even new calendars are adopted as symbols of a collectively 'imagined past', and are employed in rituals and commemorations in order to provide a historical continuity for groups or nations in a wider sense"
Althusser:
"Although there are many similarities between Halbwachs' theory of collective memory and Louis Althusser's theory of ideology, this relationship has not been highlighted by researchers into memory."
". Sontag argues that there is no such thing as collective memory, but rather collective instruction; “[a]ll memory is individual, unreproducible – it dies with each person. What is called collective memory is not a remembering but a stipulating: that this is important, and this is the story about how it happened, with the pictures that lock the story in our minds” (Sontag 2003: 86)"
Collective memory vs Individual memory:
"An individual remembering does not mean that his memory is freed from its social construction, which also includes 'collective instructions'."
"it is important to examine the question of how individuals are turned into subjects of collective memories, or, in Sontag's words, 'collective instruction'."
"What, then, is ideology? For Marx, ideology is a superstructure: “the system of the ideas and
representations which dominate the mind of a man or a social group” (Althusser
practised both by Repressive State 1972: 158). For Althusser, ideology is Apparatuses (the Army, the Police, Courts, Prisons) – where 'violence' combined with ideology – and by Ideological State Apparatuses (the family, religion, schools, trade unions etc.)"
“ideology interpellates individuals as subjects”
"The second essential similarity between Halbwachs' collective memory and Althusser's ideology is the historical/presentist explanation of the concept."
"Halbwachs' theory of collective memory constituted the basis for later
works on memory studies which provide further discussion of the functions of collective memory."
"Communicative memory is memory which is practised in daily life (the Assmanns also call it “Everyday memory”), but since it has no 'fixed points' such as rites, monuments or texts, it lasts as long as it is
needed by the existing generation. Cultural memory, on the other hand, is 'distanced from the everyday', and has its own fixed points (“faithful events of the past, [...] and institutional communication,” which the Assmanns call “figures of memory” (1995: 129)), and these help it to survive longe"
"As Durkheim argues, it is most probably in religious activity that we are most
easily able to observe the functions of the rites and the elements which construct
myths."
"Connerton shows how the National Socialist regime used old
Christian myths while inventing new ceremonies which are based on pagan
components"
"Commemorations are tools for making sense of history and constructing an agreed past."
"The commemorating individual is no longer the active agent of the practice of
remembering, but becomes the passive subject of collective memory work."
“We speak so much of memory because there is so little of it left.” Pierre Nora (1989: 7)"
"Furthermore, the mass media has had the effect of demolishing the hegemony of historians, whereas “the fixers of the past for the present are journalists. Collective consciousness is not under the authority of historians (anymore) but mass media” (Schwarz 2010: 44)"
"collective memory approaches “are not adequate to grasp the current dynamic of
media and temporality, memory, lived time, and forgetting”"
Postmemory:
"The particular relation to a parental past described, evoked, and analyzed in these works has
come to be seen as a “syndrome” of belatedness or “post-ness” and has been variously termed “absent memory” (Fine 1988), “inherited memory,” “belated memory,” “prosthetic memory” (Lury 1998, Landsberg 2004), “mémoire trouée” (Raczymow 1994), “mémoire des cendres” (Fresco 1984), “vicarious witnessing” (Zeitlin 1998), “received history” (Young 1997), and “postmemory.” These terms reveal a number of controversial assumptions: that descendants of survivors (of victims as well as of perpetrators) of massive traumatic events connect so deeply to the previous generation's remembrances of the past that they need to call that connection memory and thus that, in certain extreme circumstances, memory can be transmitted to those who were not actually there to live an event (2008: 105-106).Hirsch"
"Hirsch's concept of postmemory"
"Experience, for Sarlo, cannot be re-experienced, but only re-narrated by others, and therefore there is no need for a new term to describe second generation memories."
historical memory vs collective memory (Halbwachs)
"It was Halbwachs who demonstrated the interacting and conflicting characteristics of historical memory and collective memory"
"Historical memory gives us the basis for reconstructing our group
memories and continuity in time, which is crucial to identity."
"Halbwachs is the person who conceived that memory is a matter of social construction and who brought memory into the field of sociology."
"Halbwachs transfers Durkheim's theory of social consciousness and historical continuity for group solidarity to collective memory theory."
"According to Halbwachs' theory of collective memory, to provide solidarity and
continuity, groups modify the memory of the past according to the necessities of
the present. This is a dynamic process of constructing the past, and of generating
a collectively shared present which is based on an 'agreed' common past."
"In Halbwachs' theory of collective memory it is hard to speak about the present's
superiority over the past."
Hobsbawm:
"His theory of collective memory as a twofold process with reconstruction of the past and construction of the present both as active elements is further supported by historian Eric Hobsbawm (1983) in his introduction to the book he edited together with Terence Ranger, The Invention of Tradition"
"“'Invented tradition' is taken to mean a set of practices, normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past” (Hobsbawm 1983: 1)."
"Hobsbawm warns his readers of two phenomena that should not be understood as tradition: customs and convention, or routine."
"National anthems, flags, even new calendars are adopted as symbols of a collectively 'imagined past', and are employed in rituals and commemorations in order to provide a historical continuity for groups or nations in a wider sense"
Althusser:
"Although there are many similarities between Halbwachs' theory of collective memory and Louis Althusser's theory of ideology, this relationship has not been highlighted by researchers into memory."
". Sontag argues that there is no such thing as collective memory, but rather collective instruction; “[a]ll memory is individual, unreproducible – it dies with each person. What is called collective memory is not a remembering but a stipulating: that this is important, and this is the story about how it happened, with the pictures that lock the story in our minds” (Sontag 2003: 86)"
Collective memory vs Individual memory:
"An individual remembering does not mean that his memory is freed from its social construction, which also includes 'collective instructions'."
"it is important to examine the question of how individuals are turned into subjects of collective memories, or, in Sontag's words, 'collective instruction'."
"What, then, is ideology? For Marx, ideology is a superstructure: “the system of the ideas and
representations which dominate the mind of a man or a social group” (Althusser
practised both by Repressive State 1972: 158). For Althusser, ideology is Apparatuses (the Army, the Police, Courts, Prisons) – where 'violence' combined with ideology – and by Ideological State Apparatuses (the family, religion, schools, trade unions etc.)"
“ideology interpellates individuals as subjects”
"The second essential similarity between Halbwachs' collective memory and Althusser's ideology is the historical/presentist explanation of the concept."
"Halbwachs' theory of collective memory constituted the basis for later
works on memory studies which provide further discussion of the functions of collective memory."
"Communicative memory is memory which is practised in daily life (the Assmanns also call it “Everyday memory”), but since it has no 'fixed points' such as rites, monuments or texts, it lasts as long as it is
needed by the existing generation. Cultural memory, on the other hand, is 'distanced from the everyday', and has its own fixed points (“faithful events of the past, [...] and institutional communication,” which the Assmanns call “figures of memory” (1995: 129)), and these help it to survive longe"
"As Durkheim argues, it is most probably in religious activity that we are most
easily able to observe the functions of the rites and the elements which construct
myths."
"Connerton shows how the National Socialist regime used old
Christian myths while inventing new ceremonies which are based on pagan
components"
"Commemorations are tools for making sense of history and constructing an agreed past."
"The commemorating individual is no longer the active agent of the practice of
remembering, but becomes the passive subject of collective memory work."
“We speak so much of memory because there is so little of it left.” Pierre Nora (1989: 7)"
"Furthermore, the mass media has had the effect of demolishing the hegemony of historians, whereas “the fixers of the past for the present are journalists. Collective consciousness is not under the authority of historians (anymore) but mass media” (Schwarz 2010: 44)"
"collective memory approaches “are not adequate to grasp the current dynamic of
media and temporality, memory, lived time, and forgetting”"
Postmemory:
"The particular relation to a parental past described, evoked, and analyzed in these works has
come to be seen as a “syndrome” of belatedness or “post-ness” and has been variously termed “absent memory” (Fine 1988), “inherited memory,” “belated memory,” “prosthetic memory” (Lury 1998, Landsberg 2004), “mémoire trouée” (Raczymow 1994), “mémoire des cendres” (Fresco 1984), “vicarious witnessing” (Zeitlin 1998), “received history” (Young 1997), and “postmemory.” These terms reveal a number of controversial assumptions: that descendants of survivors (of victims as well as of perpetrators) of massive traumatic events connect so deeply to the previous generation's remembrances of the past that they need to call that connection memory and thus that, in certain extreme circumstances, memory can be transmitted to those who were not actually there to live an event (2008: 105-106).Hirsch"
"Hirsch's concept of postmemory"
"Experience, for Sarlo, cannot be re-experienced, but only re-narrated by others, and therefore there is no need for a new term to describe second generation memories."
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