War memorial in Nottingham

June 10, 2020, by Ross Wilson

Memory and Culture

How do we remember the past? How do the events of the last century impact us? How do we remember as a society? In the latest episode of The Things That Made Us, we look at these issues in relationship to the First World War. From this work, we can understand how ‘social memory’ functions for contemporary society. The way this conflict is remembered tells us about our present just as much as the past.

Rather than viewing the remembrance of events as stable, we can see how social, cultural, political and personal factors frame the way in which communities commemorate the past. This is discussed extensively in Paul Connerton’s (1989) How Societies Remember. In this podcast, we talk about why we remember together, why we sometimes remember differently and what this means for our society.

The Things That Made Us

Posted in Uncategorized