Karl Galinsky

Gedächtnisgeschichte: some basic works

Assmann, A. 1999 (3^rd ed. 2006). Erinnerungsräume. Formen und Wandlungen des kulturellen Gedächtnisses. Munich.

Significant for its range and methodology.

Assmann, J. 1997. Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism. Cambridge, MA.

A pioneering study.

Boyer, P. and Wertsch, J., eds., Memory in Mind and Culture (Cambridge 2009).
Essays from the perspective of the humanities and psychology.

Connerton, Paul, How societies remember (Cambridge 1998).
Now in its 16th printing, this concise book has been deservedly influential. Connerton's
central thesis is that cultural traditions and memories are transmitted not just by literary texts or orality, but incorporated practices such as ritual

performances.

Erll, Astrid, Kollektives Gedächtnis und Erinnerungskulturen (Stuttgart 2005).
Excellent introduction. Useful and manageable (200 pp.) overview.

A brave attempt to bring some order - while avoiding systematization - into the memory boom sprawl.

________, ed., Cultural memory. An international and interdisciplinary handbook (Berlin: de Gruyter 2008).
Another, longer, and useful attempt, this time in English -

westward the course of memory takes its way :)

Fentress, J., and Wickham, C. 1992. Social Memory. Blackwell, Oxford.

Gedi, N., and Elam, Y. 1996. “Collective Memory – What is it?,” History and Memory 8.1.30-50.
Bracing critique of the usefulness of the term "collective memory." A welcome dose of iconoclasm.

Halbwachs, M. 1992. On Collective Memory. Translated by L. Coser. Chicago.

German translation: Das Gedächtnis und seine sozialen Bedingungen (Suhrkamp Taschenbuch 1985).

One of the classics in the field. H., a sociologist, advanced the view that not only individuals but groups, too, develop “collective” memory, which then becomes an essential factor in shaping and maintaining identity.

Laqueur, Th. 2000. “Introduction,” Representations 69:1-8.

Good introduction to the special issue of Representations, entitled “Grounds for Remembering.”

Le Goff, J. 1992. History and Memory. Translated by S. Rendall and E. Claman. New York.

Nora, P. 1996-98. Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past. Three volumes. Translated by A. Goldhammer. New York.

Another classic. The original French version, in seven volumes (1984-92), is entitled Lieux de mémoire and comprises some 120 articles, with widely scattered methodologies, on topics associated with French national memory and identity formation. The sprawling result covers places, holidays, statesmen and institutions, monuments, the French flag, and much more. The contemporaneity of the project and the increased immigration of foreigners and their cultures to France is hardly coincidental.

Oexle, O.G., ed. 1995. Memoria als Kultur. Gõttingen.

Olick, J., and Robbins, J., "Social Memory Studies: From "Collective Memory" to the Historical Sociology of Mnemonic Practices,"

Annual Review of Sociology 24 (1998) 105-40.

A key survey, useful as a starting point for any foray into memory studies. The authors lay out the history of these studies, review

basic definitional issues, and offer some good working definitions and suggestions for future work. Excellently informed and

sensibly argued. Now supplemented (with over 500 pp.) by

Olick, J., et al., The Collective Memory Reader (O.U.P., New York 2011).

The absolute go to resource for beginners and others.