Travels in Time (Studies in Collective Memory)

Human beings are time travelers. Incessantly, we traverse past, present, and future through a process called collective memory. In Travels in Time, Astrid Erll addresses the question of how collective memory emerges through motion--the movements of people, media, forms, and practices. Grounded in literary, cultural, and media memory studies, this collection of essays undertakes forays into various dimensions of collective memory as traveling memory. It discusses the ways in which families and generations shape and are shaped by the past; how media such as literature, film, and photography make and remake collective memory; or how trauma, flashbulb memories, and implicit memory are interwoven with culture. The essays consider repercussions of recent historical events as well as long-term mnemonic processes, ranging from Greek antiquity to British colonialism in India, and from the First and Second World Wars to migration in Europe, 9/11, and the coronavirus pandemic. Developing a broad perspective on collective memory, this book outlines the horizons of interdisciplinary memory research.

Astrid Erll is Professor of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures at Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany. She specializes in memory studies, literary and media history, narrative theory, and transcultural studies. In 2011, she founded the Frankfurt Memory Studies Platform, a vibrant forum for international and interdisciplinary research on collective memory. She is author of Memory in Culture (2011), an introduction to memory studies, and co-editor of the Companion to Cultural Memory Studies (2010). Together with Jeffrey K. Olick, she edits the Oxford series Studies in Collective Memory.