Books & ideas

The State's Imprint on Memory

Marie Inés Harté — 2025-04-15T07:02:14Z

Sarah Gensburger dismisses the idea of the French state being overwhelmed by the fragmentation and proliferation of memory-related demands. Rather, the state is the primary creator of society's memorial frameworks, even using them as a powerful means of reasserting its own legitimacy.

Such Beautiful Debris

Géraldine Sfez — 2023-02-16T08:03:00Z

In his monumental history of ruins, Alain Schnapp gives an account of the multiple ways to resist oblivion, both material and immaterial. Ruins are not so much objects as processes implemented by societies in order to contemplate their place in history.

The Militarisation of Russian Society

Clémentine Fauconnier — 2019-11-25T08:00:00Z

Russia has seen a huge increase in commemorations of the Soviet victory. Some of these parades are organized by civilians, while others are more official. But all of them reveal a rise in a nationalism that Putin would like to epitomise.

The Thorny Memory of the Russian Revolution

Korine Amacher — 2017-07-03T07:00:00Z

During the Soviet era, October 1917 was the central political and cultural reference. One hundred years later, Russian society is still deeply divided over its past. Will the centenary of the Revolution be the great moment of national reconciliation the Russian power wants it to be?

The City of Tears

Christophe Litwin — 2017-05-22T07:00:00Z

Ancient philosophy offered consolation for loss, separation, and death. Modern philosophy no longer does so, considering that it should limit its role to the quest for truth. This renunciation has, according to Michaël Fœssel, deep consequences for our current politics and their lack of any broader perspective.

The Weight of Memory

Éric Méchoulan — 2016-10-13T07:00:00Z

In a multidisciplinary book, Catherine Coquio shows that behind the contemporary cult for memory and truth lies a crisis that is preventing us from moving forward.

The Recovered Memory of Stolen Works of Art

Cristelle Terroni — 2016-02-22T08:00:00Z

Works of art, prime objects of desire at the best of times, are intimately connected to the history of wars, annexations and conquests. In this history, Bénédicte Savoy discusses the transnational history of spoliations or “patrimonial translocations”, and the long-lasting memory of such traumatic events. “

The Shape of a City

Vincent Jacques — 2015-09-07T05:30:00Z

Poet Jean-Christophe Bailly argues that contemporary urban spaces, whether sites of historic importance and cultural heritage or serving a purely functional purpose, no longer lend themselves to wandering and strolling. He compares the memories imposed in museums and on the construction sites of new cities with those of passers-by as they wander through the cityscape, the latter pensive memories he believes are the sole source of utopia.

The Ministry of Memory

Valentin Behr — 2014-11-27T09:00:00Z

In order to tell the history of the communist period, Poland created a mechanism that is uniquely Eastern European: an Institute of National Remembrance, which combines legal investigations with scholarly research. Though it was created for political reasons, the Institute has become a fixture of Poland's academic and historiographical landscape.

Time and Collective Memory

Lucie Campos — 2013-12-05T09:00:00Z

Historical episodes of collective violence in the 20^th century have given rise to a series of debates which can be seen as “crises of memory”, according to Susan Rubin Suleiman. As these crises of memory unravel, they have an impact not only on collective memory but also on literature and the public sphere.