Saturday, April 16, 2016
Rhapsody (DoubleTree by Hilton Philadelphia Center City)
The concept of countermemory can be traced back to Michel Foucault’s essay “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History” (1998 [1971]). The essay is widely recognised for its explanation of the concept of genealogy and, therefore, for an explanation of Foucault’s writings in general. The concept of “countermemory” (ibid. 385) on the other hand receives only passing mention in the essay. Nevertheless, the term was included in the title of an important publication of Foucault’s central essays and interviews in the English speaking world: Language, Counter-Memory, Practice (1977). Since then the concept of countermemory has been variously applied and reformulated.
Discussing collective memory in US American popular culture, George Lipsitz in Time Passages (1990, 213) uses the concept of countermemory as “a way of remembering and forgetting that starts with the local, the immediate, and the personal.” Birgit Neumann (2003, 65), highlights that countermemories are “are distinctly different from the dominant representation of memory in society.” Since then the concept has been applied in various other ways but a generally acknowledged definition is still missing.
My aim is to rethink the concept of countermemory to find a productive and applicable definition. I will show that some of the definitions applied still work with concepts from early memory studies. Since then the field of memory studies has evolved considerably. I will suggest that rethinking countermemory might even entail returning to the suggestions presented by Foucault. Memory’s resilience, I argue, can best be understood through the dynamics between cultural and countermemory.
Discussing collective memory in US American popular culture, George Lipsitz in Time Passages (1990, 213) uses the concept of countermemory as “a way of remembering and forgetting that starts with the local, the immediate, and the personal.” Birgit Neumann (2003, 65), highlights that countermemories are “are distinctly different from the dominant representation of memory in society.” Since then the concept has been applied in various other ways but a generally acknowledged definition is still missing.
My aim is to rethink the concept of countermemory to find a productive and applicable definition. I will show that some of the definitions applied still work with concepts from early memory studies. Since then the field of memory studies has evolved considerably. I will suggest that rethinking countermemory might even entail returning to the suggestions presented by Foucault. Memory’s resilience, I argue, can best be understood through the dynamics between cultural and countermemory.
