The Politics and Rhetoric of Collective Remembering

This book critically examines the ways that collective pasts are commemorated and contested in a wide variety of national locations, media and genres.

Collective remembering is a dynamic process, through which narratives about the past, about ‘us’ and ‘them’ as well as beliefs, values and affective conditions contained in these stories, are produced and reproduced. This facilitates room for not only the creation of unity but also the potential for contestation and conflict, given that different interpretations of the past are often vehicles for opposing political interests. This book reflects the geographical breadth and empirical depth of the field of collective remembering. Foregrounding the idea that collective remembering always entails contestation, individual chapters explore the field of remembrance and its various genres – including murals, memorials, museums, newspaper reports, speeches, textbooks, tourist tours and the work of community activists – in countries as diverse as Australia, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Portugal, South Africa, the UK and the USA.

This volume will be of interest to advanced students and researchers in Critical Discourse Studies, Memory Studies, Rhetoric and Communications. The chapters in this book were originally published in Critical Discourse Studies.

John E. Richardson is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Liverpool, UK. His research interests include critical discourse studies, rhetoric and argumentation, British fascism and commemorative discourse. He is Editor of the international journal Critical Discourse Studies.

Tommaso M. Milani is George and Jane Greer Professor of Applied Linguistics, Jewish Studies and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at The Pennsylvania State University, USA. His research interests include critical discourse studies with a focus on space and time. He is Co-Editor of the international journal Language in Society.