Theorizing Social Memories: Concepts and Contexts (Routledge Advances in Sociology)

Public debates over the last two decades about social memories, about how as societies we remember, make sense of, and even imagine and invent, our collective pasts suggest that grand narratives have been abandoned for numerous little stories that contest the unified visions of the past. But, while focusing on the diversity of social remembering, these fragmentary accounts have also revealed the fault-lines within the theoretical terrain of memory studies. This critical anthology seeks to bridge these rifts and breaks within the contemporary theoretical landscape by addressing the pressing issues of social differentiation and forgetting as also the relatively unexplored futuristic aspect of social memories. Arranged in four thematic sections which focus on the concepts, temporalities, functions and contexts of social memories, this book includes essays that range across disciplines and present a variety of theoretical approaches, from phenomenological sociology and systems theory to biography research and post-colonialism.

Gerd Sebald is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany. His research is in the area of social memories and the sociology of knowledge. He has recently published Generalisierung und Sinn: Überlegungen zur Formierung sozialer Gedächtnisse und des Sozialen [Generalizations and Meaning: Considerations on the Formation of Social Memories and of the Social] (2014).

Jatin Wagle is Assistant Professor of American Studies at the University of Osnabrück in Germany. His doctoral research is on the translatability of T. W. Adorno, and his publications are in the area of Critical Theory.