On Memory

The book consists of 16 case-studies on issues relating to memory, the majority of which stem from a conference in April 2005 at the Institute of Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Public memory is tackled from a variety of angles and various disciplines, ranging across the humanities, the social sciences and the exact sciences. First and foremost the reader will obtain a comprehensive overview of the results of scholarship published in recent years about public memory. Second, the book provides a profound insight into how public memory works within societies of different nature and at different junctures of their histories. The volume begins by offering a glimpse into individual memory, and then goes on to discuss religious societies, ethnic groups, secular groups, institutions and larger segments of society, ultimately reaching the nation state. The authors, each in his or her own discipline, have addressed the complexities involved in the creation of public memory, the media that promote and preserve it within groups and societies, and finally the nature of memory and how it «behaves» during changing circumstances and changing regimes.

The Editor: Doron Mendels is The Max and Sophie Mydans Professor in the Humanities in the Department of History at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. He is the author of many books and articles of which the two most recent books are: Memory in Jewish, Pagan and Christian Societies of the Graeco-Roman World (2004) and The Media Revolution of Early Christianity: An Essay on Eusebius- Ecclesiastical History (1999).

Contents: Alexander Yakobson: Us and Them: Empire, Memory and Identity in Claudius' Speech on Bringing Gauls into the Roman Senate - Arye Edrei: Holocaust Memorial: A Paradigm of Competing Memories in the Religious and Secular Societies in Israel - Jeffrey Andrew Barash: Analyzing Collective Memory - Yoram Bilu: Saint Impresarios in Israel as Agents of Memory - Nili Cohen: Memory and Forgetfulness in Law - Dan Diner: From Society to Memory: Reflections on a Paradigm Shift - Idan Segev: What Changes in the Brain When We Learn - Bianca Kühnel: Memory and Architecture: Visual Constructions of the Jewish Holy Land - Dan Laor: How Are We Expected to Remember the Holocaust? Szenes versus Kasztner - Amia Lieblich: The Second Generation of Kfar Etzion: A Study of Collective Memory - Tamar Liebes: 'Hear O Israel': Radio, Nationbuilding and Collective Memory - Doron Mendels: A Model of Public Memory and a note on Günter Grass's Crabwalk - Moshe Shokeid: Anthropological Texts: Mirrored Memories of Researchers and Subjects - Jonathan H. Slavin: Personal Agency and the Possession of Memory - Gabriel Zimmerman/Hermona Soreq: Remembering Trauma: The Role of Acetylcholinesterase in the Formation of Fear Memories - Yael Zerubavel: Antiquity and the Renewal Paradigm: Strategies of Representation and Mnemonic Practices in Israeli Culture.