Realms of Memory

Joel Waldman on Family Memory and True Crime

When do we choose to suppress the past not just as a coping mechanism but to protect our loved ones?  Can refusing to dwell on the past and fixing our sites on the future be understood as a conscious and deliberate choice to reject the label of the victim and to adopt an optimistic outlook on life?  A conversation with Joel Waldman about his book, Surviving the Survivor: A Brutally Honest Conversation about Life (& Death) with My Mom: A Holocaust Survivor, Therapist and My Podcast-Cast Co-Host and his hit true crime podcast, Surviving the Survivor: Best Guests in True Crime.  Next on the October 7th episode of Realm of Memory. 

The Power of Objects from Sites of Mass Atrocities

Objects recovered from sites of mass atrocities have a special significance today.  This is because we live in what University College Dublin Professor Lea David labels as a human rights memorialization culture.  Central to this culture is the conviction that we should face difficult histories, we should remember human rights abuses, and victims should be the focus of our memorization efforts.  Objects from sites of mass atrocities are deployed by an array of new memorial museums to pull on the emotional heartstrings of visitors to identify with this new human rights memorialization agenda. In her book, A Victim’s Shoe, a Broken Watch and Marbles: Desire Objects and Human Rights, Lea David explains how shoes are now the most potent example of what she describes as desire objects.  Transcending the confines of the museum, shoes have become powerful memory containers and rallying symbols for diverse movements that often have nothing to do with the human rights memorialization agenda.

The Power of Objects from Sites of Mass Atrocities

A broken wristwatch, battered glasses or a tattered wallet, how can ordinary objects discovered at sites of mass atrocities become powerfully moving?  University College Dublin Professor Lea David calls them desire objects because they take on new and ever changing meanings from their discovery to their use in courtrooms and museums.  The most emotionally charged of all of these objects are shoes.  Now almost mandatory memory pieces for Holocaust museums, shoes have migrated to the wider public sphere helping to mobilize diverse groups around causes ranging from climate change to the war in Gaza.  A conversation with Lea David from University College Dublin about her book, A Victim’s Shoe, a Broken Watch and Marbles: Desire Objects and Human Rights.  Next on the September 2nd episode of Realms of Memory.  

Argentina Betrayed: Memory, Mourning & Accountability

There are limits to our ability to cope with traumatic events.  When we are unable to mourn, process, and come to terms with the past we run the risk of suffering from sociocultural trauma.  This is what Tony Robben argues afflicts the people of Argentina.  Utrecht University Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, Tony Robben explains how repeated forms of betrayal of trust are the root cause of sociocultural trauma in Argentina.  As a result Argentina is splintered into competing memory communities and ever shifting frameworks for narrating the past.  Explaining the memory rollercoaster in Argentina is the subject of Tony Robben’s book Argentina Betrayed: Memory, Mourning and Accountability. 

Argentina Betrayed: Memory, Mourning & Accountability

The number of disappeared from the years of dictatorship in Argentina (1976-1983) is still unknown.  What is clear is the lingering trauma.  Anthropologist Tony Robben has spent his career studying the repercussions of this era.  Robben argues that the inability to mourn the dead and the military’s continued refusal to take responsibility for the past has splintered Argentina into competing memory communities. A conversation with Tony Robben about his book, Argentina Betrayed: Memory, Mourning and Accountability, next on the August 5th episode of Realm of Memory.  

The Perils of Memory

Beginning with calls for never again, we’re living in an age where the duty to remember has become sacrosanct.  Memory has become a means of righting past wrongs, fostering trust and strengthening social cohesion.  But is it also possible to see memory as a destabilizing force, undercutting the prospects for peace and stability?  This is precisely what David Rieff argues in his book In Praise of Forgetting: Historical Memory and its Ironies.  Informed by a decades-long career as a journalist and writer covering conflict zones around the globe, Rieff contends that forgetting is often the best way to reduce harm and suffering.  Listen to my conversation with David Reiff and find out how forgetting can sometimes be the answer.  

The Perils of Memory

When should we remember difficult and divisive histories?  After a career of covering conflicts around the globe, writer and political analyst David Reiff offers his thoughts on the question. In Praise of Forgetting: Historical Memory and its Ironies, Rieff posits that in some cases there is a consensus around the need to remember past crimes.  More often, however, there is no agreement.  The only way out of messy conflicts is to agree to forgive and forget.  Find out more about possibilities and perils of memory on the July 1st episode of Realms of Memory. 

Remembering the Lost Counties of Ulster

The people on the borders have been forgotten and left out of the story of the partition of Ireland.  Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan, the three lost counties of Ulster, are both a source of shame and embarrassment for the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.  They are an unrecognized minority within the largely homogenized Catholic nation of Ireland.  They are also the abandoned kin of the people of the six counties of Ulster that comprise Northern Ireland.  Listen to University College Dublin Professor Edward Burke, author of Ulster’s Lost Counties: Paramilitarism and Loyalism since 1920, and find out why we can’t understand the story of the partition of Ireland without including the lost counties.  

Remembering the Lost Counties of Ulster

Typically left out of the story of the partition of Ireland are the three lost counties of Ulster.  These are the counties of Donegal, Cavan, and Monaghan that were excluded from what became Northern Ireland despite their historic ties and shared stand against the creation of an independent Irish state.  If Dublin and Belfast failed to form closer ties, it is impossible to understand why without considering the lost counties.  If the Republic of Ireland struggled to come to terms with its own diversity, the history of the lost countries was a significant impediment.  Remembering the lost countries of Ulster with University College Dublin Professor Edward Burke, coming to the June 3rd episode of Realms of Memory.  

The Great Patriotic War and Family Memory in Putin's Russia

The memory of the Soviet triumph in World War II, or what is known as the Great Patriotic War, has become the centerpiece of Russian nationalism today. Penn State Professor Katya Haskins argues that the propensity to remember the victory over Nazi Germany and to forget Stalin’s terror contributes to the Russian willingness to support the war in Ukraine. Steeped in the memory of the Great Patriotic War, Russians are inclined to believe Putin’s claims about foreign threats and the need for a “special military operation” in Ukraine. How the memory of the Great Patriotic War hinges appeals to family memory is the focus of Katya Haskins’ book and the subject of this episode–Remembering the War, Forgetting the Terror: Appeals to Family Memory in Putin’s Russia.