European memory

between Jewish and cosmopolitan

Natan Sznaider

pp. 59-78

in: Uilleam Blacker, Alexander Etkind, Julie Fedor (eds), Memory and theory in Eastern Europe, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013

Abstract

At the start of the twenty-first century, globalization represents a challenge to the integration of the temporal and spatial durability of what it means to be human and social in the modern age. At the same time, as a result, the basic institutions of nation-state sovereignty (like national memory) move into the foreground and with them the question of whether the developments of the past decade constitute an epochal break within modernity. History and borders may no longer be the only form of social and symbolic integration. This begs the question: do territorial, geographical, and political distinction, such as Western or Eastern Europe, or even "The West" or "The East," make any sense in our day and age? And, crucially, what does this mean for the study of memory?