Remembrance of Things Past - Historical and Collective Memories
Remembrance of Things Past - Historical and Collective Memories
Friday, 11 July 2025: 15:00-16:45
Location: FSE008 (Faculty of Education Sciences (FSE))
RC56 Historical Sociology (host committee) Language: English
This regular session will explore how individual and collective aspects of historical memory continue to shape and affect people’s self-identities in contemporary societies. It will draw on a relatively neglected area in the sociological work of Norbert Elias, historical memory - Elias’s perspective points to the possibility of addressing three main theoretical issues in memory studies:
- the individual-society, or agency-structure dichotomy,
- the lack of discussion with natural and cognitive sciences, and
- the essentialisation of memory.
Elias addresses these three problems by developing a relational and process approach, one that overcomes the mind-body or nature-culture dichotomies, opening up the possibility of developing interdisciplinary research by working with other disciplines, especially in the natural sciences.
Themes that will be explored:
- Forgetting and Remembering - Individual and collective processes of memory
- Generational habitus and the early transmission of feelings of national belonging or ‘nationalism’ to children
- National habitus and the formation of ‘we-I’ identities’
- Intergenerational trauma and national habitus
- Processes of civilisation and time
Session Organizer:
Oral Presentations