Memory culture | Gedächtniskultur
The relationship between social memory and identity forms a framework for the analysis of representations of memory in a range of different social practices, for example the creation of visible symbols of memorial culture in public space, and of narratives which construct concepts of the ‘Self’ and the ‘Other’. 'Places of Memory' are generally understood as those locations – both topographical and metaphorical – which are assigned a collective 'memory function' by a given community. One particular area of investigation is the question of how societies engage critically with a traumatic past (e.g. National Socialism and the Holocaust) at a local, national and trans-national/European level.