Präsenzveranstaltung

The last decade of the 20th century was marked by a memorial boom and the widespread dissemination of ideas about memory studies. In Europe after 1989, this meant the return of memories that had been censored by communist regimes, as well as the development of a liberal approach to issues of historical memory. Then, in the first decades of the 21st century, under the influence of right-wing populism, “illiberal politics” of memory emerged as a reaction to globalization. At a minimum, it rejects a critical approach and the idea of historical multiperspectivity. Over the past 5-6 years, the concept of “illiberal memory” has come to be widely used both in relation to the dominant situation in a number of European countries and as a description of the threat to liberal and democratic politics of memory in other parts of Europe.

The aim of the seminar is to analyze the concept of “illiberal memory” and the context of its emergence in contemporary Europe.

Rosenfeld, Gavriel D. "The rise of illiberal memory.", in: Memory Studies, 16.4 (2023), S. 819-836.