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ESPaCH - School of English, Sociology, Politics & Contemporary History

Memory Studies

About this Cluster

The interdisciplinary Memory Studies cluster is headed up by Professor Antony Rowland (Holocaust studies and testimony), and also comprises Dr Matt Boswell (Holocaust literature, music and film), Dr Scott Brewster (Irish studies and psychoanalysis) and Professor Lucie Armitt (gender theory), alongside Dr Jane Kilby (trauma studies), other colleagues from the Centre for Communication, Cultural and Media Studies (CCM), and the University's Vice-Chancellor, Professor Martin Hall.

The University's research in memory studies originated in Holocaust studies but has come to encompass a wide range of historical periods and events. The research in this cluster focuses on the representation of memory in a variety of texts and contexts, including literature, history, archaeology, autobiography, journalism, cinema, documentary, television, popular music, museums, photography and illustration.

Projects

Antony Rowland and Jane Kilby were recently awarded an AHRC interdisciplinary network grant for a project entitled 'Testimony' (£26,000). The network will bring together international academic experts and practitioners in the areas of Holocaust, trauma and memory studies to discuss future directions in the critical analysis and practice of testimony.

Since the 1992 publication of Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub's book Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis and History, the concepts of witnessing and testimony have been central to scholars working in these fields. There has, however, been little opportunity for such scholars to interact with those already interested in testimony, but working outside academia. The rationale of this network is to provide an interactive forum for the discussion and exchange of ideas among a range of academics and practitioners, including criminologists, medical sociologists, oral and military historians, lawyers, and practicing clinicians. Thus the network will constitute the first investigation of testimony across several disciplines and areas of professional practice.

Key Publications

These include (in reverse chronological order):

  • Antony Rowland, Jane Kilby and Rick Crownshaw (Goldsmiths) eds., The Future of Memory (forthcoming, Berghahn, 2010), with an introduction by Antony Rowland on Holocaust museums and an essay, 'Reading Holocaust Poetry: Genre, Authority and Identification', by Matt Boswell.
  • Antony Rowland and Robert Eaglestone (Royal Holloway) eds., special edition of Critical Survey on Holocaust poetry (2009), with an introduction co-authored by Antony Rowland and an interview with Tadeusz Pióro (about Tadeusz Borowski's Selected Poems)
  • Matt Boswell, '"Black Phones": Postmodern Poetics in the Holocaust Poetry of Sylvia Plath' in Antony Rowland and Robert Eaglestone eds., special edition of Critical Survey on Holocaust poetry (Berghahn, 2009) (view publication).
  • Martin Hall, 'Revealing Memories from Darkness' in Memories from Darkness; Archaeology of Repression and Resistance in Latin America (1960s-1980s), eds. Pedro P. Funari, Andrés Zarankin and Melisa Salerno (forthcoming 2009), pp. 177-185.
  • Martin Hall (with Noeleen Murray and Nick Shepherd) ed. Desire Lines: Space, Memory and Identity in the Post-Apartheid City (London: Routledge, 2007)
  • Martin Hall (with Pia Bombardella), 'Paths of Nostalgia and Desire Through Heritage Destinations at the Cape of Good Hope', in Noeleen Murray, Nick Shepherd and Martin Hall (eds), Desire Lines: Space, Memory and Identity in the Post-Apartheid City (London: Routledge, 2007)
  • Martin Hall, 'Afterword: Lines of Desire' in Noeleen Murray, Nick Shepherd and Martin Hall (eds), Desire Lines: Space, Memory and Identity in the Post-Apartheid City (London: Routledge, 2007).
  • Jane Kilby, Violence and the Cultural Politics of Trauma (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 2007).
  • Matt Boswell, 'The Black Book: John Berryman's Holocaust Requiem', in Philip Coleman and Philip McGowan ed., 'After thirty Falls': New Essays on John Berryman (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2007) (view publication).
  • Jane Kilby, Violence and the Cultural Politics of Trauma (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006).
  • Martin Hall, 'Identity, Memory and Countermemory: the Archaeology of an Urban Landscape', Journal of Material Culture 11(1-2) (2006), pp. 189-209.
  • Antony Rowland, Holocaust Poetry: Awkward Poetics in the Work of Sylvia Plath, Geoffrey Hill, Tony Harrison and Ted Hughes (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005).
  • Scott Brewster, ‘Borderline Experience: Madness, Mimicry and Scottish Gothic’, Gothic Studies, vol. 7, no. 1 (2005).
  • Scott Brewster, chapter on psychoanalysis in The Year’s Work in Critical and Cultural Theory, vols 11-13 (2005).
  • Lucie Armitt, ‘“Stranger and Stranger”: Alice and Dodgson in Katie Roiphe’s Still She Haunts Me’, Women: A Cultural Review, vol. 15, no. 2 (Summer 2004).
  • Jane Kilby, 'Trauma in the City: from Auster to Austerlitz', in M Crinson ed. Urban Memory: History and Oblivion in the Modern City (London: Routledge, 2004).
  • Jane Kilby, 'The Writing of Trauma: Trauma Theory and the Liberty of Reading' , New Formations: a Journal of Culture/Theory/Politics, 47, pp. 217-230 (2002) (view publication).  
  • Antony Rowland, Tony Harrison and the Holocaust (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2001).

Events

The work of this cluster is supported by the Memory Studies Research Seminar Series, launched in May 2007 by Professor Robert Eaglestone from Royal Holloway University. Other speakers have included Professor Sue Vice from the University of Sheffield, an international expert on Holocaust literature, who gave a paper entitled 'False Memoir Syndrome: the Case of Holocaust Testimony'.

2010/11 events:

The AHRC network on testimony runs for two years and will incorporate the memory studies seminar series. Details of events are available here.

Highlights of previous events

Staff from this cluster also organised and gave papers at ‘The Future of Memory: An International Holocaust and Trauma Studies Conference’, along with colleagues from the University of Manchester, in 2005.

The image on this page shows the Imperial War Museum North, located at Salford Quays. The museum's Holocaust exhibition is the subject of an introductory essay by Antony Rowland in The Future of Memory (Berghahn, forthcoming 2010).