Any life story, whether a written autobiography or an oral testimony, is shaped not only by the reworkings of experience through memory and re-evaluation, but also art. Any communication has to use shared conventions not only of language itself, but also the more complex expectations of genre, of the forms expected within a given context and type of communication.

Narrative, the process of making or telling a story, is a prime concern of social science today. The essays and editorial commentary in this volume focus on the inter-relationship between experience, self and society and offer to advance understanding of the implications of the narrative turn in social sciences. International contributors assess the methodological implications, and present a fascinating range of case studies, from the Princess Diana interview to the memoirs of the wives of US nuclear scientists. Morality USA: Representations of Morality in Contemporary Culture Squire...

War memory and commemoration have had increasingly high profiles in public and academic debates in recent years. This volume examines some of the social changes which have led to this development, among them the passing of the two World Wars from survivor into cultural memory. Focusing on the politics of war memory and commemoration, the book illuminates the struggle to install particular memories at the centre of a cultural world, and offers an extensive argument about how the politics of commemoration practices should be understood.

Between 1977 and 1985, some 20,000 Ethiopian Jews left their homes in Ethiopia and embarked on a secret and highly traumatic exodus to Israel. Due to various political circumstances they had to leave their homes in haste, go a long way on foot through unknown country, and stay for a period of one or two years in refugee cames, until they were brought to Israel. the difficult conditions of the journey included racial tensions, attacks by banditys, night travel over mountains, incarceration, illness and death. A fifth of the group did not survive the journey.
This interdisciplinary,...

This volume represents, explores and interrogates the current developments in the study of memory, engaging directly with the place of memory in culture, and with memory's meaning/s and history.

This inter-disciplinary volume demonstrates, from a range of perspectives, the complex cultural work and struggles over meaning that lie at the heart of what we call memory. In the last decade, a focus on memory in the human sciences has encouraged new approaches to the study of the past. As the humanities and social sciences have put into question their own claims to objectivity, authority and universality, memory has appeared to offer a way of engaging with knowledge of the past as inevitably partial, subjective and local. At the same time, memory and memorial practices have become sites of...

Any life story, whether a written autobiography or an oral testimony, is shaped not only by the reworkings of experience through memory and re-evaluation, but also art. Any communication has to use shared conventions not only of language itself but also the more complex expectations of 'genre': of the forms expected within a given context and type of communication. This collection of essays by internationl academics draws on a wide range of disciplines in the social sciences and the humanities to examine how far the expectations and forms of genre shape different kinds of autobiography and...

Analysing Stasi files and interviews with one time informers, the author examines the confrontation with this legacy in united Germany. She discusses the daily machinations of the state and the motivation and justification of being an informer.

In this volume, academics explore the relationship between the experiences of terror and helplessness, the way in which survivors remember and the representation of these memories in the language and form of their life stories.

Ranging historically from the French Revolution to the beginnings of Modernism, this book examines the significance of memory in an era of furious social change. Through an examination of literature, history and science the authors explore the theme of memory as a tool of social progression. This book offers a fresh theoretical understanding of the period and a wealth of empirical material of use to the historian, literature student or social psychologist.