Realms of Memory

Remembering Europe’s Dictators

Continental Europe is littered with the memory sites of past dictators.  From birthplaces to summer residences, these remains from Europe’s darkest chapters present serious challenges to the democratic present.  How do Europeans confront this past?  Find out from historian  Xosé Manoel Núñez Seixas, author of Sites of the Dictators: Memories of Authoritarian Europe, 1945-2020, on the April 1st episode of the Realms of Memory podcast. 

Memory, Storytelling and the National Rifle Association

The National Rifle Association, known simply as the NRA, is often cast as a giant bogeyman for proponents of gun reform.  Fears about the NRA are largely based on a misreading and misunderstanding of the organization as a political lobby whose influence peddling in Washington is the chief impediment to sensible gun reform. Entirely off the radar is the true source of power and influence of the NRA, its ability to shape a dynamic American gun culture through the power of memory and storytelling. By using its substantial communications, education, and outreach resources the NRA tells memory laden, historically inspired stories that have had a profound impact on how American gun owners understand firearms and their desire to defend them.  A conversation with Noah Schwartz about his book On Target: Gun Culture, Storytelling and the NRA on this episode of Realms of Memory.  

Memory, Storytelling and the National Rifle Association

The National Rifle Association is often understood as a powerful political lobby able to influence politicians and shape legislation.  University of the Fraser Valley political scientist Noah Schwartz argues that the true power of the NRA is how it uses storytelling and memory.  Through its extensive cultural, educational, and communications resources, the stories and memories circulated by the NRA have much to do with how Americans understand guns and gun culture today.  A conversation with Noah Schwartz about his book On Target: Gun Culture, Storytelling, and the NRA, next on the March 4th episode of Realms of Memory.

American Memory in the Post-9/11 Era

The 9/11 2001 attacks on America unleashed a surge of memorial work unmatched since the Civil War.  New York City became a magnet for billions of dollars of spending on the construction of a memorial, museum, and high profile projects such as One World Trade Centre and the Oculus.  What do these projects reveal about the nature, constraints, and abuses of 9/11 memory? To what extent have they helped or hindered American efforts to understand and to come to terms with the past?  For more, listen to my conversation with New York University Professor Marita Sturken about her book Terrorism in American Memory: Memorials, Museums and Architecture in the Post 9/11 Era.  

American Memory in the Post-9/11 Era

The attacks of September 11th 2001 challenged core beliefs about how Americans understand themselves, their relationship to others and their place in the world.  How Americans responded to the attacks through their memorial work and the rebuilding of ground zero in New York City is the focus of Marita Sturken’s book Terrorism in American Memory: Memorials, Museums and Architecture in the Post 9/11 Era.  A conversation with New York University Professor Marita Sturken, next on the February 4th episode of the Realms of Memory podcast.  

Transformative Memory and the Mississippi Burning Murders

In 1989 and 2004 something unusual happened in the town of Philadelphia in Neshoba County, Mississippi.  After decades of silence whites finally joined their black neighbors in commemorating the 1964 murders of three young civil rights workers.  What was different about 2004, however, was that the commemoration was just the beginning. The organizers forged an identity, as the Philadelphia Coalition, and went on to achieve several transformative goals.  They helped bring justice to the Klan leader responsible for the murders, they helped make civil rights education mandatory across the state, and they helped establish a South African-style Truth and Reconciliation Commission to look at racially motivated crimes in the state’s past.  How commemorations can become something larger, something transformative, is the focus of Furman University sociologist Claire Whitlinger’s book, Between Remembrance and Repair: Commemorating Racial Violence in Philadelphia, Mississippi. 

Transformative Memory and the Mississippi Burning Murders

In 1964 three young civil rights workers were brutally murdered in Neshoba County Mississippi for their participation in the Freedom Summer voter registration campaign.  How did the white community silence this past while local African Americans kept it alive? Why did both white and black Neboba Countians ultimately come together to organize two commemorations of these murders with very different outcomes?  Find out from Furman University Professor Claire Whitlinger on the January 7th episode of Realms of Memory.  

Death Strip to Green Belt: Memory and Conservation in Germany

For decades the Cold War border between East and West Germany was one of the most militarized places on the planet.  Hundreds of East Germans died and thousands more were imprisoned in their attempts to cross it.  How did this former death strip become Germany’s largest conservation zone, known as the Green Belt?  How did memory become a core feature of the Green Belt and how can mnemonic, or memory strategies, found in the Green Belt help make conservation work more meaningful and lasting?  This is the focus of Bates College Environmental Studies Professor Sonja Pieck’s book Mnemonic Ecologies: Memory and Nature Conservation Along the Former Iron Curtain.  Episode logo courtesy of Thomas Stephan ©/Thomas Stephan/mail@thomas-stephan.com

Death Strip to Green Belt: Memory and Conservation in Germany

How did the death strip that once separated East and West Germany become the country’s largest protected ecological corridor?  Drawing from her recent book, Mnemonic Ecologies: Memory and Nature Conservation Along the Former Iron Curtain, Bates College Environmental Studies Professor Sonja Pieck explains the origins and evolution of what is known as Germany’s Green Belt.  In particular she details how conservation and memory work are interwoven in the transformation and revitalization of the former Cold War border that divided Germany. The full episode airs on December 3rd. 

Splintered Memories of the Great Depression and the New Deal

The Great Depression was perhaps the closest the capitalist system in the United States has ever come to complete collapse.  Equally unprecedented was Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal response which dramatically transformed the relationship between government, capitalism, and the American people.  How was it possible that there was no national memorial to Franklin Roosevelt in Washington D.C. until 1997, over fifty years after FDR’s death?  The conundrum of the absence of a shared American memory of FDR and the New Deal response to the Great Depression is the focus of University of Mississippi historian Darren E. Grem’s book project, Hard Times USA: The Great Depression and New Deal in American Memory.