Mediation, Remediation, and the Dynamics of Cultural Memory

This collection of essays brings together two major new developments in cultural memory studies: firstly, the shift away from static models of cultural memory, where the emphasis lies on cultural products, in the direction of more dynamic models where the emphasis lies instead on the cultural and social processes involved in the ongoing production of shared views of the past; and secondly, the growing interest in the role of the media, and their role beyond that of mere storage, within these dynamics. The specific concern of this collection is linking the use of media to the larger socio-cultural processes involved in collective memory-making. The focus rests in particular on two aspects of media use: the basic dynamics of mediation and remediation. The key questions are: What role do media play in the production and circulation of cultural memories? How do mediation, remediation and intermediality shape objects and acts of cultural remembrance? How can new, emergent media redefine or transform what is collectively remembered? The essays of this collection focus on social, historical, religious, and artistic media-memories. The authors analyze the memory-making impact of news media, the mediation and remediation of lieux de mémoire, the medial representation of colonial and postcolonial, of Holocaust and Second World War memories, and finally the problematization of these very processes in artistic media forms, such as novels and movies.

Autorentext

Astrid Erll, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Germany; Ann Rigney, Universiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Klappentext

This collection links the use of media to the larger socio-cultural processes involved in collective memory-making. The focus in particular is on mediation and remediation as two fundamental aspects of media use, and on the dynamics between them.Key questions are:What role do media play in the production and circulation of cultural memories? How do mediation, remediation and intermediality shape objects and acts of cultural remembrance? How can new, emergent media redefine or transform what is collectively remembered? This book first appeared as a hardback volume in the De Gruyter series Media and Cultural Memory Studies. With the present book the original articles are reissued in an affordable paperback edition for graduate students and scholars in the field of Media and Memory Studies.