The Disciplines of Memory Studies

Abstract

Since the 1980s, with the emergence of the ‘new’ cultural memory studies, ‘memory’ has widely been understood as a genuinely transdisciplinary phenomenon whose functioning cannot really be understood through examination from one single perspective. Cultural memory studies is therefore not merely a multidisciplinary field, but fundamentally an interdisciplinary project. Nonetheless, many concepts of memory have evolved over the past two or three decades which are specific to individual disciplines. In fact, within historical studies or the social sciences, literary studies or psychology, ‘memory’ is nowadays constituted in such widely varying manners that it seems that we are dealing with a different object on each occasion — with ‘memories’, as a matter of fact. Nevertheless, the disciplines of memory studies are steadily moving towards one another, and scholars are increasingly interested in the possibilities offered by interdisciplinary exchange. Successful cross-fertilization, however, presupposes a knowledge of discipline- specific concepts, methodologies and background assumptions. The focus of this chapter is therefore on both the approaches to memory taken within specific disciplines and also the possibilities of designing interdisciplinary and integrative models of memory in culture.