Research line 4: Transnational memories

Contesting the Past, Before and Beyond the Nation-State

 
This project brings together expertise regarding the history of cultural practices and beliefs, new archival technologies, and cultural diversity in order to provide an integrated account of the way cultural memory shapes individual and collective identities. Building on earlier studies of canon formation within national frameworks, the project will focus on memory practices at different historical periods that have worked outside and across national frameworks.

What distinguishes the Utrecht project is its long-term comparative perspective on the dynamics of cultural remembrance together with a focus on the role of commemorative practices, including religious ones, in negotiating and demarcating the conflicts between groups rather than in merely expressing consensus. Our aim is to develop a more systematic and sophisticated understanding of the dynamics and varieties of cultural memory that can help inform future practices in the field of heritage management and education.

Transnational Memories Position Paper (pdf)

Participating groups 

textual culture, medieval studies, women’s studies, musicology, art history, construction religious identities, media studies

Steering committee

• Prof. dr. Geert Buelens
• Prof. dr. Rosemarie Buikema
• Prof. dr. Robert Folger
• Prof. dr. Ann Rigney (project leader)
• Dr Els Rose

Related projects

Transnational Memories events 2011-2012

• 15 September: Lecture by Roberto Strongman: literary and filmic representations of trance possession
• 22 September: Lecture by Uğur Ümit Üngör: the Armenian genocide in Turkish and Armenian collective memory
• 3 November: Workshop new research projects
• 18 November: Workshop 'Does Memory have a History?' part 3: Myth
• 7-9 December: Conference 'Commemorating Writers in Europe 1800-1916'
• 26 January: Panel 'From Widukind to Wilders. Cultural Memory and the Resources of the Past'
• 24 February: Lecture by Susanne Knittel: ‘Black Holes and Revelations: Trieste’s Divided Memory’
• 22 March: Lecture by Ido de Haan: ‘Legislating Amnesia: Authority and History from the Early Modern Period to the Present’

 Download the events programme (pdf)