[Antiquitas] 14.5. 10th Collegium Lecture by Gabrielle Spiegel: "The History and Historiography of Memory"

[Maijastina Kahlos]

Tervehdys!
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Antiquitas-listalaisia.
yst. terv.
Maijastina Kahlos

(Apologies for cross-postings)

Please circulate.

The 10th Annual Collegium Lecture

Professor Gabrielle M. Spiegel (Johns Hopkins University):

"The History and Historiography of Memory"

Time: Monday, 14 May 2012 at 4:15 p.m.

Venue: Small Assembly Hall of the main building of the University of
Helsinki, Fabianinkatu 33, 4th floor

Free admission. Welcome!

The lecture addresses the problem of what is often claimed to be an
excessive concern with memory in contemporary historical studies, often
figured as "the memory industry." The result, according to many scholars,
has been the over-privileging of subjectivity at the expense of objectivity,
the collapse of historical awareness, and, in effect, the coming "end of
history."  Contributing to the turn to memory has been the worldwide
proliferation of public controversies over divisive historical legacies,
both global in scope and traumatic in nature. This lecture argues that it is
an open question whether "the end of history" is the likely result of the
focus on memory over the last several decades or whether it is merely the
consequence of a particular historical moment in the history of
historiography. It argues that the return of history is much more probable
than its demise, and that history's "return" is something that is already
occurring, not least in studies of memory itself.



The lecture traces the return of history through a variety of memorial
channels, including work involved with "transitional justice" and the
emergence of judicial tribunals such as the Truth and Reconciliation
Commissions created to negotiate past grievances in the interest of new
historical "beginnings."  In conclusion, the lecture will take up the
methodological, historiographical and ethical implications of the rise of
memory studies in contemporary history.

***

Gabrielle M. Spiegel is Krieger-Eisenhower University Professor of History
at the Johns Hopkins University, where she has also served as Chair of the
History Department. She is a past President of the American Historical
Association and was Dean of Humanities at UCLA and Dean of Faculty at Johns
Hopkins University. She is a Fellow of the Medieval Academy and was named a
Gilman Scholar by President Daniels. She is a Fellow of the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences.

Her work centers on the theory and practice of writing history, both in the
Middle Ages and in the modern era. In addition to doing research on medieval
historical writing in Latin and Old French, she works on the implications of
postmodern critical theory for understanding contemporary historiographical
practices. Her publications on these topics include The Chronicle Tradition
of Saint-Denis: A Survey (1978); Romancing the Past: The Rise of Vernacular
Prose Historiography in Thirteenth-Century France, (1993); The Past as Text:
The Theory and Practice of Medieval Historiography (1997); translated into
Italian as Il Passato come Testo.Teoria e pratica della storiografia
medievale (1998), Ed., With an Introduction,  Practicing History: New
Directions in Historical Writing after the Linguistic Turn, (2005).  Trans.
with Stephen Nichols, Kantorowicz: Stories of a Historian, by Alain Boureau
(2001). Plus some 70 articles on medieval historiography and contemporary
theories of historical writing.


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Maijastina Kahlos
PhD, Docent (adjunct professor) in Latin language and Roman literature
Research fellow
Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies
Fabianinkatu 24 (P.O. Box 4)
00014 University of Helsinki
Finland
maijastina.kahlos at helsinki.fi
http://www.maijastinakahlos.net