This book discusses a number of ways in which the dialogue about Europe’s past and future could be rendered more inclusive, such as the promotion of critical and sentimental education and the creation of virtual and actual social spaces in which citizens and organised identity groups can participate. The discussion about European memory is far from being a “merely” symbolic issue with no political consequences. Imagining Europe and its past in different ways will lead to different real political outcomes. For instance, thinking about European integration as an embodiment of the values of the Enlightenment (such as human rights, liberal democracy, and reason), as a guarantor of peace on the continent, as a guarantor of prosperity, or as a guarantor that massive human rights violations like genocide will “never again” be committed on its soil, all entail different political objectives. Similarly, conflicting understandings of European memory as either a thing or a social construct, as either one memory or a plurality of memories, as either the end point of deliberation or a dialogical process, represent not merely inconsequential cultural “froth on the tides of society,” but crucially important issues with real political consequences. The book is intended to contribute to this discussion about the common European approach to the past (and thus to the future).

This book discusses a number of ways in which the dialogue about Europe’s past and future could be rendered more inclusive, such as the promotion of critical and sentimental education and the creation of virtual and actual social spaces in which citizens and organised identity groups can participate. The discussion about European memory is far from being a “merely” symbolic issue with no political consequences. Imagining Europe and its past in different ways will lead to different real political outcomes. For instance, thinking about European integration as an embodiment of the values of the Enlightenment (such as human rights, liberal democracy, and reason), as a guarantor of peace on the continent, as a guarantor of prosperity, or as a guarantor that massive human rights violations like genocide will “never again” be committed on its soil, all entail different political objectives. Similarly, conflicting understandings of European memory as either a thing or a social construct, as either one memory or a plurality of memories, as either the end point of deliberation or a dialogical process, represent not merely inconsequential cultural “froth on the tides of society,” but crucially important issues with real political consequences. The book is intended to contribute to this discussion about the common European approach to the past (and thus to the future).

An examination of the role of history and memory is vital in order to better understand why the grand design of a United Europe--with a common foreign policy and market yet enough diversity to allow for cultural and social differences--was overwhelmingly turned down by its citizens. The authors argue that this rejection of the European constitution was to a certain extent a challenge to the current historical grounding used for further integration and further demonstrates the lack of understanding by European bureaucrats of the historical complexity and divisiveness of Europe's past. A critical European history is therefore urgently needed to confront and re-imagine Europe, not as a harmonious continent but as the outcome of violent and bloody conflicts, both within Europe as well as with its Others. As the authors show, these dark shadows of Europe's past must be integrated, and the fact that memories of Europe are contested must be accepted if any new attempts at a United Europe are to be successful.

An introduction to key issues in the study of war and memory that examines significant conflicts in twentieth-century Europe

Conflict, Memory Transfers and the Reshaping of Europe discusses processes of memory construction associated with the realities of war and genocide, totalitarianism, colonialism as well as trans-border dialogues in the overcoming of conflict memories. It is based on the premise that there are no available clear-cut or definite positions to approach the problematic issues of conflict, memory and history. Consequently, it examines and articulates across several different media discourses, problems, contexts and considerations of value. Its scope is thus deliberately interdisciplinary, drawing on the cross-fertilization of diverse research methods. The book addresses a number of issues and raises questions that have been crucial to our modern thought, and problematic or even inexplicable to any cultural theory that approaches history with an ethical approach. It works through and evaluates ongoing representative processes, strategies and practices, next to longstanding constraints, dilemmas and taboos regarding discussions of contentious matters. The different perspectives from which the issues of conflict, identity and memory are examined, in authoritarian, new European and (post-) colonial contexts, provide examples of power and conflict memory intervening in discourse and areas of cultural practice, destabilizing fixed or encoded meaning. It examines how the “making sense” of our memories—so vital for the qualification of culture and social practices—is about concepts and ideas, as well as emotions and attachments, i.e. meaning resulting from effective social exchange framed by specific contexts of interpretation. As such, the book is also a contribution to a memory culture that is pushing forward the clarification of conflicts, crystallizations of tension and all sorts of threads that bind us, very often invisibly, to the past.

This book investigates the transnational dimensions of European cultural memory and how it contributes to the construction of new non-, supra, and post-national, but also national, memory narratives. The volume considers how these narratives circulate not only within Europe, but also through global interactions with other locations. The Changing Place of Europe in Global Memory Cultures responds to recent academic calls to break with methodological nationalism in memory studies. Taking European memory as a case study, the book offers new empirical and theoretical insights into the transnational dimensions of cultural memory, without losing sight of the continued relevance of the nation. The articles critically examine the ways in which various individuals, organizations, institutions, and works of art are mobilizing future-oriented memories of Europe to construct new memory narratives. Taking into account the heterogeneity and transnational locations of commemorative groups, the multidirectionality of acts of remembrance, and a variety of commemorative media such as museums, film, photography, and literature, the volume not only investigates how memory discourses circulate within Europe, but also how they are being transferred, translated, or transformed through global interactions beyond the European continent.