Realms of Memory

Race and Slavery in U.S. Museums

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Since the 1990s countries around the world have been building a new type of history museum. Rather than glorifying the nation, these museums are purpose-built to spotlight the darkest and most shameful chapters in national histories. They are inspired by a post-Holocaust, “never again,” human rights memorialization culture anchored in the belief that nations can and should learn from past wrongs. Until recently, the United States lagged behind this trend. Few American museums offered a critical perspective on the nation’s history of racial violence. Sociologist Amy Sodaro, an expert on museums and the politics of past violence, offers her insights on three new U.S. museums that feature the history of slavery and racial violence. This is the subject of her recent book, Lifting the Shadow: Reshaping Memory, Race and Slavery in U.S. Museums.

Race and Slavery in U.S. Museums

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Despite the frenzied debates about what history we should be teaching in the United States, until recently most African American and mainstream history museums have continued to tell an uplifting story of racial progress and achievement. The United States has lagged behind museums in many other parts of the world which now give greater attention to recognizing past wrongs and injustices. In the July 7th episode I’ll be talking with Sociology Professor Amy Sodaro from the Borough of Manhattan Community College in the City University of New York about three new museums that feature the history of slavery and racial injustice. This is the subject of her latest book, Lifting the Shadow: Reshaping Memory, Race and Slavery in U.S. Museums.

The Homeless Remembered: Del Seymour's Story

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0400

How can we understand a problem so vast and complex as homelessness? After spending her career writing about the stereotyped and misunderstood, writer Alison Owings was eager to take on the challenge. While this was an omnipresent reality in her hometown of San Francisco, Alison had no idea where to begin. She found her answer on one of the Tenderloin Walking Tours named after the neighborhood with the city’s largest homeless population. The guide and founder of the tour, Del Seymour, became the subject of a decade-long project to tell the story of the homeless through the memories of one man. Del’s story is one of triumph and redemption. Del went from spending nearly two decades living on the streets of San Francisco to becoming an advocate for the homeless. First, first through the creation of the Tenderloin Walking Tours, then through the founding of Code Tenderloin, Del has drawn attention to the plight of the homeless while helping thousands from his community find jobs and a new life. In this episode, a conversation with Alison Owings about her book Mayor of the Tenderloin: Del Seymour’s Journey from Living on the Streets to Fighting Homelessness in San Francisco.

The Homeless Remembered: Del Seymour’s Story

Tue, 19 May 2026 05:00:00 -0400

The problem of homelessness in the United States has reached epic proportions. But how can we understand such a complex issue affecting so many different kinds of people? Writer Alison Owings decided to take on the challenge by exploring the memories of one man, Del Seymour. Del’s story is one of triumph and redemption. He went from living on the streets of San Francisco to becoming known as Mayor of the Tenderloin, the city’s neighborhood with the largest homeless population. Del earned this title not just because of the jobs he created through the Tenderloin Walking Tours, but because of thousands he helped to build new lives through the work of Code Tenderloin. Join me on June 2nd for a conversation with Alison Owings about her book Mayor of the Tenderloin: Del Seymour’s Journey from Living on the Streets to Fighting Homelessness in San Francisco.

Mr. Nobody Against Putin with Katya Haskins

Tue, 05 May 2026 05:00:00 -0400

The challenge of any documentary director with a mission is to make the viewer care. What makes the 2026 Oscar award winning documentary Mr. Nobody Against Putin resonate so powerfully is the love and honesty that inspires it. This is a production that showcases the unvarnished horrors of Putin’s militarization of Russia following the start of the war in Ukraine through the eyes of one man, Pavel “Pasha” Talenkin. A school teacher in a small town in the Urals, Pasha is the definition of a Mr. Nobody. His superpower, however, is his camera. He is the school videographer. Inspired by his deep love and attachment to his school and community, Pasha uses his camera to document Putin’s efforts to militarize Russian youth through the school system following the start of the war in Ukraine. From the Soviet-era industrial backdrop of the town of Karabash to Putin’s efforts to harness the spirit of sacrifice from the Great Patriotic War, memories function on multiple levels in this film. I had the opportunity to discuss the documentary with former guest and Penn State Professor of Rhetoric and Visual Communication, Katya Haskins. Katya’s book, Remembering the War, Forgetting the Terror: Appeals to Family Memory in Putin's Russia, is now available in paperback.

Mr. Nobody Against Putin with Katya Haskins

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 05:00:00 -0400

The horrors Russia has been inflicting on Ukraine have sadly become a familiar sight on the daily news. Far less attention has been paid to the consequences of the war for the Russian people. This is the subject of the 2026 Oscar award winning documentary, Mr. Nobody Against Putin. It is the story of an ordinary teacher who risks everything to show the world how the war and Putin’s education policies are destroying the lives of Russia’s youth. To discuss the documentary Katya Haskins will be returning to the podcast. A graduate of Moscow State University who witnessed the final years of the Soviet Union, Katya is a professor of rhetoric and visual studies at Pennsylvania State University. She is the author of Remembering the War, Forgetting the Terror: Appeals to Family Memory in Putin’s Russia. Join me and Katya Haskins on May 5th for a conversation about the documentary, Mr. Nobody Against Putin.

George Washington's Legacy of Slavery

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Americans are divided over most things and the past is no different. We disagree about whether to celebrate or question the past. We’re at odds over whether history indoctrinates or educates and whether young minds are harmed or helped by exposure to the complexity of the past. Historian John Garrison Marks argues that the real problem is that Americans dislike ambiguity. There is no better example of this dilemma than George Washington. Responsible for the creation of a new American political order based on the ideals of democracy, liberty, and equality, Washington was to his dying day a slave holder. He was a supporter of gradual emancipation and freed his own slaves in his last will and testament but he never took a public stand against slavery during his lifetime. How we remember George Washington reveals much about how we understand ourselves and what it means to be American. A conversation with John Garrison Marks about his book, Thy Will Be Done: George Washington’s Legacy of Slavery and the Struggle Over American Memory, in this episode of the Realms of Memory podcast.

George Washington's Legacy of Slavery

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Americans have been struggling with the memory of George Washington since his death. Should we celebrate his role in the creation of the nation or lament that he actively participated in and profited from the business of slave owning? Should we underscore that he freed his own slaves in his last will and testament or highlight that he never took a public position against slavery during his lifetime? Depending on the political context, historian John Garrison Marks argues that Americans have preferred to cherry-pick from Washington’s past to support their agenda in the present. Only through a fuller understanding of Washington and his legacy of slavery can we arrive at a meaningful, shared past. A conversation with John Garrison Marks about his book, Thy Will Be Done: George Washington’s Legacy of Slavery and the Struggle Over American Memory, next on the April 7th episode of the Realms of Memory podcast.

Holocaust Distortion in Poland

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 05:00:00 -0500

99% of Poland’s pre-war Jewish population, the largest in Europe, perished during the Holocaust. Polish native and Canadian historian Jan Grabowski argues this death toll is inconceivable without the collusion of the general Polish population. Yet for decades Polish authorities have denied all responsibility. Instead, they have used the considerable resources of the state to posit that Poles suffered equally or even more than the nation’s Jewish community. In what Grabowski labels as Holocaust distortion, the memory of the past has been fundamentally divorced from reality, even at the most prominent Holocaust memorial sites. A conversation with University of Ottawa historian Jan Grabowski about his book, Whitewash: Poland and the Jews, in this episode of Realms of Memory.

Holocaust Distortion in Poland

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 05:00:00 -0500

Deeply flawed accounts of the Holocaust persist throughout Central and Eastern Europe. University of Ottawa historian Jan Grabowski argues that nowhere are the distortions of the Holocaust more glaring than in Poland. The almost complete eradication of the Jewish population in Poland, the second largest in the world, was simply not possible without the active and willing participation of Polish gentiles. Yet the Polish state continues to use its considerable resources to present Poles as either saviors of the Jews or the war’s greatest victims. A conversation with Jan Grabowski about his book, Whitewash: Poland and the Jews, and the story of Holocaust distortion in Poland. Next on the March 3rd episode of the Realms of Memory podcast.

Remembering the Spanish Civil War in Barcelona

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 05:00:00 -0500

Fifty years after Francisco Franco’s death Spain remains deeply divided over the past. For over twenty years British native and renowned history tour guide Nick Lloyd has made his living explaining the complexity of this past through his Spanish Civil War tours in Barcelona. Author of Forgotten Place: Barcelona and the Spanish Civil War and most recently, Travels Through the Spanish Civil War, Nick’s has developed a deep understanding of this multifaceted conflict and the ways it lives on in the present. I had the opportunity to take his tour in June 2025 and to interview him in August 2025 about the challenges of explaining this past and his perspective why it remains unresolved in the present.

Remembering the Spanish Civil War in Barcelona

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 05:00:00 -0500

Ninety years after the start of the Spanish Civil War the past is not past, it’s not even over. Nick Lloyd, who moved from Britain to Barcelona over three decades ago, explains that the left and right in Spain remain profoundly divided over the memory of the Civil War and these divisions have only deepened in recent years. Described by renowned television and travel personality Rick Steves as the “crescendo” of his visit to Barcelona, Nick has made his living over the past twenty-five years enthralling thousands, including myself, with his Spanish Civil War tours of Barcelona. In the February 3rd episode of Realms of Memory I will be sharing my conversation with Nick about his book, Forgotten Places: Barcelona and the Spanish Civil War and his experience telling the story of the Civil War past in Barcelona.

Forgetting the Victims: 2003 Paris Heat Wave

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 05:00:00 -0500

In the age of climate change and global pandemics how do we remember the victims? University of Madison, Wisconsin historian Richard C. Keller examines this question through his study of the 2003 heat wave in Paris. This was the worst natural disaster in French history claiming some 15,000 lives. In his book, Fatal Isolation: The Devastating Paris Heat Wave of 2003, Keller explains the myriad ways in which victims were forgotten and the disaster was misremembered. From the science of counting the dead to historically rooted animosity toward marginalized, elderly women, Keller unpacks the causes and consequences of the skewed memory of the 2003 heave wave.

Forgetting the Victims: 2003 Paris Heat Wave

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 05:00:00 -0500

In his study of the 2003 heat wave in Paris, historian Richard C. Keller reveals the myriad ways we forget the victims of natural disasters. We relegate marginalized and vulnerable populations to the most precarious housing then blame them for the inevitable outcome of their own life choices. We formulate categories of susceptible, at-risk populations whose subsequent deaths become unsurprising, anticipated, and less memorable. From the architecture of modern cities to the science of deciphering mass death counts, the reasons we forget the victims of natural disasters are increasingly relevant in our current age where calamity can strike any of us at any time. A conversation with Dr. Richard C. Keller about his book, Fatal Isolation: The Devastating Paris Heat Wave of 2003, next on the January 6th episode of the Realms of Memory podcast

The Anne Frank Phenomenon

Tue, 02 Dec 2025 05:00:00 -0500

How can we understand the extraordinary scope and magnitude of global fame and notoriety achieved by Anne Frank? The Anne Frank diary has been translated into over sixty languages and sold over twenty million copies. It has inspired everything from graphic novels and Japanese anime to movies and off-Broadway musicals. The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam has become a major tourist destination attracting over 1.2 million tourists in 2019. Dutch historian David Barnouw, world renowned Anne Frank specialist, explains the enduring memory of Anne Frank in his book, The Phenomenon of Anne Frank. A conservation with David Barnouw about the Anne Frank phenomenon and the Holocaust in the Netherlands.

The Anne Frank Phenomenon

Tue, 18 Nov 2025 05:00:00 -0500

How did the diary of a thirteen year old girl transform Anne Frank into an international memory sensation? Dutch historian David Barnouw, the world’s leading Anne Frank memory expert, has spent his career explaining the Anne Frank phenomenon. Find out more on the December 2nd episode of the Realms of Memory podcast.

Memory, Forgetting and the Planet in Peril

Tue, 04 Nov 2025 05:00:00 -0500

From global warming to mass species extinction we are now living in what Alan Weisman describes as the make or break century. What decisions we make now will determine how we come out on the other side. For the past quarter century Alan has traveled the globe reporting on the crises that imperil the planet. In The World Without Us (2007), which became a New York Times bestseller, he chronicles what would become of our environmental impact if we suddenly vanished from the planet tomorrow. In Count Down: Our Last Best Hope for a Future on Earth (2013), he explains the history and dangers of the population explosion we are now experiencing and what measures are being taken to address it. Most recently, Hope Dies Last: Visionary People Across the World Fighting to Find Us a Future (2025), Alan finds inspirational examples of innovative people from across the globe who are finding creative solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. I had the opportunity to engage Alan in a wide ranging conversation about all three books with a particular focus on the themes of memory and forgetting.

Memory, Forgetting and the Planet in Peril

Tue, 28 Oct 2025 05:00:00 -0400

For the past quarter century journalist and non-fiction writer Alan Weisman has traveled the globe to write about the existential crises that now imperil the planet. In The World Without Us (2007), which became a New York Times bestseller, he kills off humanity in the opening pages to help us imagine what would become of our environmental impact after we’re gone. In Count Down: Our Last Best Hope for a Future on Earth (2013), he chronicles the causes and responses to the population explosion that is pushing the planet to the brink. Lastly, in Hope Dies Last: Visionary People Across the World, Fighting to Find Us a Future (2025) he showcases the extraordinary people rising to meet the challenges that threaten our survival. A conversation with Alan Weisman, through the lens of memory and forgetting, next on the November 4th episode of the Realms of Memory podcast.

Remembering Intimate Partner Violence

Tue, 21 Oct 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Most cases of intimate partner violence are never made and the stories never told. Joy Neumeyer did both. The victim of an abusive relationship while a graduate student at Berkeley, Joy succeeded in having her former boyfriend and fellow graduate student expelled through the Title IX process. Equality important, she gained recognition for the truth of the physical and emotional harm she suffered. Through the lens of her training as a historian of the Soviet Union, Joy finds parallels with her own experience with women in both the Soviet and American past. She explains the history and challenges of the Title IX process which is at once under assault and a vital support for victims of intimate partner violence. A conversation with Joy Neumeyer, author of A Survivor’s Education: Women, Violence and the Stories We Don’t Tell, on this episode of Realms of Memory.

Remembering Intimate Partner Violence

Tue, 14 Oct 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Weaving together her own survivor story with her doctoral research on the Russian past, Joy Neumeyer offers a personal and historical account of intimate partner violence. How do we fall victim to abusive relationships? What makes it so difficult to break free? Why are these stories so often silenced? Find out how Joy sought recourse through the Title IX process at the University of California, Berkeley and the rights and protections women have gained since the 1960s. A conversation with Joy Neumeyer about her book, A Survivor’s Education: Women, Violence, and the Stories We Don’ t Tell, next on the October 21st special episode of the Realms of Memory podcast

Joel Waldman on Family Memory & True Crime

Tue, 07 Oct 2025 05:00:00 -0400

As the host of the hit true crime podcast, Surviving the Survivor, Joel Waldman spends his days airing commentary on the nation’s most heartbreaking and horrific crime stories. Yet Joel grew up knowing very little about how his own mother Karmela, or Karm as he affectionately calls her, survived the Holocaust while her father and grandfather were gassed at Auschwitz. Joel’s book, based on interviews with his mother, Surviving the Survivor: A Brutally Honest Conversation about Life (& Death) with My Mom: A Holocaust Survivor, Therapist and My Podcast-Cast Co-Host, is by no means limited to the subject of the Holocaust. Filled with warmth, love and humor, Joel shares Karm’s thoughts on subjects ranging from marriage to money. But throughout, the book raises important questions about why we sometimes choose to bury the past and whether this is ever truly possible.

Joel Waldman on Family Memory and True Crime

Tue, 16 Sep 2025 05:00:00 -0400

When do we choose to suppress the past not just as a coping mechanism but to protect our loved ones? Can refusing to dwell on the past and fixing our sites on the future be understood as a conscious and deliberate choice to reject the label of the victim and to adopt an optimistic outlook on life? A conversation with Joel Waldman about his book, Surviving the Survivor: A Brutally Honest Conversation about Life (& Death) with My Mom: A Holocaust Survivor, Therapist and My Podcast-Cast Co-Host and his hit true crime podcast, Surviving the Survivor: Best Guests in True Crime. Next on the October 7th episode of Realm of Memory.

The Power of Objects from Sites of Mass Atrocities

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Objects recovered from sites of mass atrocities have a special significance today. This is because we live in what University College Dublin Professor Lea David labels as a human rights memorialization culture. Central to this culture is the conviction that we should face difficult histories, we should remember human rights abuses, and victims should be the focus of our memorization efforts. Objects from sites of mass atrocities are deployed by an array of new memorial museums to pull on the emotional heartstrings of visitors to identify with this new human rights memorialization agenda. In her book, A Victim’s Shoe, a Broken Watch and Marbles: Desire Objects and Human Rights, Lea David explains how shoes are now the most potent example of what she describes as desire objects. Transcending the confines of the museum, shoes have become powerful memory containers and rallying symbols for diverse movements that often have nothing to do with the human rights memorialization agenda.

The Power of Objects from Sites of Mass Atrocities

Tue, 19 Aug 2025 05:00:00 -0400

A broken wristwatch, battered glasses or a tattered wallet, how can ordinary objects discovered at sites of mass atrocities become powerfully moving? University College Dublin Professor Lea David calls them desire objects because they take on new and ever changing meanings from their discovery to their use in courtrooms and museums. The most emotionally charged of all of these objects are shoes. Now almost mandatory memory pieces for Holocaust museums, shoes have migrated to the wider public sphere helping to mobilize diverse groups around causes ranging from climate change to the war in Gaza. A conversation with Lea David from University College Dublin about her book, A Victim’s Shoe, a Broken Watch and Marbles: Desire Objects and Human Rights. Next on the September 2nd episode of Realms of Memory.

Argentina Betrayed: Memory, Mourning & Accountability

Tue, 05 Aug 2025 05:00:00 -0400

There are limits to our ability to cope with traumatic events. When we are unable to mourn, process, and come to terms with the past we run the risk of suffering from sociocultural trauma. This is what Tony Robben argues afflicts the people of Argentina. Utrecht University Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, Tony Robben explains how repeated forms of betrayal of trust are the root cause of sociocultural trauma in Argentina. As a result Argentina is splintered into competing memory communities and ever shifting frameworks for narrating the past. Explaining the memory rollercoaster in Argentina is the subject of Tony Robben’s book Argentina Betrayed: Memory, Mourning and Accountability.

Argentina Betrayed: Memory, Mourning & Accountability

Tue, 15 Jul 2025 05:00:00 -0400

The number of disappeared from the years of dictatorship in Argentina (1976-1983) is still unknown. What is clear is the lingering trauma. Anthropologist Tony Robben has spent his career studying the repercussions of this era. Robben argues that the inability to mourn the dead and the military’s continued refusal to take responsibility for the past has splintered Argentina into competing memory communities. A conversation with Tony Robben about his book, Argentina Betrayed: Memory, Mourning and Accountability, next on the August 5th episode of Realm of Memory.

The Perils of Memory

Tue, 01 Jul 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Beginning with calls for never again, we’re living in an age where the duty to remember has become sacrosanct. Memory has become a means of righting past wrongs, fostering trust and strengthening social cohesion. But is it also possible to see memory as a destabilizing force, undercutting the prospects for peace and stability? This is precisely what David Rieff argues in his book In Praise of Forgetting: Historical Memory and its Ironies. Informed by a decades-long career as a journalist and writer covering conflict zones around the globe, Rieff contends that forgetting is often the best way to reduce harm and suffering. Listen to my conversation with David Reiff and find out how forgetting can sometimes be the answer.

The Perils of Memory

Tue, 17 Jun 2025 05:00:00 -0400

When should we remember difficult and divisive histories? After a career of covering conflicts around the globe, writer and political analyst David Reiff offers his thoughts on the question. In Praise of Forgetting: Historical Memory and its Ironies, Rieff posits that in some cases there is a consensus around the need to remember past crimes. More often, however, there is no agreement. The only way out of messy conflicts is to agree to forgive and forget. Find out more about possibilities and perils of memory on the July 1st episode of Realms of Memory.

Remembering the Lost Counties of Ulster

Tue, 03 Jun 2025 05:00:00 -0400

The people on the borders have been forgotten and left out of the story of the partition of Ireland. Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan, the three lost counties of Ulster, are both a source of shame and embarrassment for the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. They are an unrecognized minority within the largely homogenized Catholic nation of Ireland. They are also the abandoned kin of the people of the six counties of Ulster that comprise Northern Ireland. Listen to University College Dublin Professor Edward Burke, author of Ulster’s Lost Counties: Paramilitarism and Loyalism since 1920, and find out why we can’t understand the story of the partition of Ireland without including the lost counties.

Remembering the Lost Counties of Ulster

Tue, 20 May 2025 05:00:00 -0400

Typically left out of the story of the partition of Ireland are the three lost counties of Ulster. These are the counties of Donegal, Cavan, and Monaghan that were excluded from what became Northern Ireland despite their historic ties and shared stand against the creation of an independent Irish state. If Dublin and Belfast failed to form closer ties, it is impossible to understand why without considering the lost counties. If the Republic of Ireland struggled to come to terms with its own diversity, the history of the lost countries was a significant impediment. Remembering the lost countries of Ulster with University College Dublin Professor Edward Burke, coming to the June 3rd episode of Realms of Memory.

The Great Patriotic War and Family Memory in Putin's Russia

Tue, 06 May 2025 05:00:00 -0400

The memory of the Soviet triumph in World War II, or what is known as the Great Patriotic War, has become the centerpiece of Russian nationalism today. Penn State Professor Katya Haskins argues that the propensity to remember the victory over Nazi Germany and to forget Stalin’s terror contributes to the Russian willingness to support the war in Ukraine. Steeped in the memory of the Great Patriotic War, Russians are inclined to believe Putin’s claims about foreign threats and the need for a “special military operation” in Ukraine. How the memory of the Great Patriotic War hinges appeals to family memory is the focus of Katya Haskins’ book and the subject of this episode–Remembering the War, Forgetting the Terror: Appeals to Family Memory in Putin’s Russia.

The Great Patriotic War and Family Memory in Putin’s Russia

Tue, 15 Apr 2025 06:05:17 -0400

The memory of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, known as the Great Patriotic War, has become the centerpiece of Russian nationalism. State driven politics of memory, however, cannot fully explain this development. Duty bound to remember the unimaginable sacrifices of the World War II generation, Russian families are a receptive audience to patriotic messaging. Products of a Soviet Culture with a long history of commemorating the war, Russian families are already imprinted with an understanding of the past that can be reinforced in the present. Raised in the Soviet Union and a graduate of Moscow State University, Pennsylvania State University Professor Katya Haskins reveals how Russian families are integral to the ways in which the Great Patriotic War is remembered in Putin’s Russia. A conversation with Katya Haskins about her book, Remembering the War, Forgetting the Terror: Appeals to Family Memory in Putin’s Russia, next on the May 6th episode of Realms of Memory.

Remembering Europe’s Dictators

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 05:00:00 -0400

From Spain to the Baltic States Europe is littered with sites connected to the personal lives of former dictators. Birthplaces, childhood homes, summer and winter residences, mausoleums and tombs these sites of dictators can be powerful poles of attraction for extremists, nostalgists, and dark tourists. They can also offer opportunities to bolster democratic systems by educating citizens about difficult pasts. How have Europeans taken up the challenge of managing these memory sites? What do these sites reveal about the politics of memory in Europe? These are the questions Spanish historian Xosé Manoel Núñez Seixas takes up in his book Sites of the Dictators: Memories of Authoritarian Europe, 1945-2020. A conservation with Xosé Manoel Núñez Seixas about sites of dictators in this episode of Realms of Memory.

Remembering Europe’s Dictators

Sun, 16 Mar 2025 16:58:09 -0400

Continental Europe is littered with the memory sites of past dictators. From birthplaces to summer residences, these remains from Europe’s darkest chapters present serious challenges to the democratic present. How do Europeans confront this past? Find out from historian Xosé Manoel Núñez Seixas, author of Sites of the Dictators: Memories of Authoritarian Europe, 1945-2020, on the April 1st episode of the Realms of Memory podcast.

Memory, Storytelling and the National Rifle Association

Tue, 04 Mar 2025 05:00:00 -0500

The National Rifle Association, known simply as the NRA, is often cast as a giant bogeyman for proponents of gun reform. Fears about the NRA are largely based on a misreading and misunderstanding of the organization as a political lobby whose influence peddling in Washington is the chief impediment to sensible gun reform. Entirely off the radar is the true source of power and influence of the NRA, its ability to shape a dynamic American gun culture through the power of memory and storytelling. By using its substantial communications, education, and outreach resources the NRA tells memory laden, historically inspired stories that have had a profound impact on how American gun owners understand firearms and their desire to defend them. A conversation with Noah Schwartz about his book On Target: Gun Culture, Storytelling and the NRA on this episode of Realms of Memory.

Memory, Storytelling and the National Rifle Association

Tue, 18 Feb 2025 05:00:00 -0500

The National Rifle Association is often understood as a powerful political lobby able to influence politicians and shape legislation. University of the Fraser Valley political scientist Noah Schwartz argues that the true power of the NRA is how it uses storytelling and memory. Through its extensive cultural, educational, and communications resources, the stories and memories circulated by the NRA have much to do with how Americans understand guns and gun culture today. A conversation with Noah Schwartz about his book On Target: Gun Culture, Storytelling, and the NRA, next on the March 4th episode of Realms of Memory.

American Memory in the Post-9/11 Era

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 05:00:00 -0500

The 9/11 2001 attacks on America unleashed a surge of memorial work unmatched since the Civil War. New York City became a magnet for billions of dollars of spending on the construction of a memorial, museum, and high profile projects such as One World Trade Centre and the Oculus. What do these projects reveal about the nature, constraints, and abuses of 9/11 memory? To what extent have they helped or hindered American efforts to understand and to come to terms with the past? For more, listen to my conversation with New York University Professor Marita Sturken about her book Terrorism in American Memory: Memorials, Museums and Architecture in the Post 9/11 Era.

American Memory in the Post-9/11 Era

Tue, 21 Jan 2025 05:00:00 -0500

The attacks of September 11th 2001 challenged core beliefs about how Americans understand themselves, their relationship to others and their place in the world. How Americans responded to the attacks through their memorial work and the rebuilding of ground zero in New York City is the focus of Marita Sturken’s book Terrorism in American Memory: Memorials, Museums and Architecture in the Post 9/11 Era. A conversation with New York University Professor Marita Sturken, next on the February 4th episode of the Realms of Memory podcast.

Transformative Memory and the Mississippi Burning Murders

Tue, 07 Jan 2025 05:00:00 -0500

In 1989 and 2004 something unusual happened in the town of Philadelphia in Neshoba County, Mississippi. After decades of silence whites finally joined their black neighbors in commemorating the 1964 murders of three young civil rights workers. What was different about 2004, however, was that the commemoration was just the beginning. The organizers forged an identity, as the Philadelphia Coalition, and went on to achieve several transformative goals. They helped bring justice to the Klan leader responsible for the murders, they helped make civil rights education mandatory across the state, and they helped establish a South African-style Truth and Reconciliation Commission to look at racially motivated crimes in the state’s past. How commemorations can become something larger, something transformative, is the focus of Furman University sociologist Claire Whitlinger’s book, Between Remembrance and Repair: Commemorating Racial Violence in Philadelphia, Mississippi.

Transformative Memory and the Mississippi Burning Murders

Tue, 17 Dec 2024 05:00:00 -0500

In 1964 three young civil rights workers were brutally murdered in Neshoba County Mississippi for their participation in the Freedom Summer voter registration campaign. How did the white community silence this past while local African Americans kept it alive? Why did both white and black Neboba Countians ultimately come together to organize two commemorations of these murders with very different outcomes? Find out from Furman University Professor Claire Whitlinger on the January 7th episode of Realms of Memory.

Death Strip to Green Belt: Memory and Conservation in Germany

Tue, 03 Dec 2024 05:00:00 -0500

For decades the Cold War border between East and West Germany was one of the most militarized places on the planet. Hundreds of East Germans died and thousands more were imprisoned in their attempts to cross it. How did this former death strip become Germany’s largest conservation zone, known as the Green Belt? How did memory become a core feature of the Green Belt and how can mnemonic, or memory strategies, found in the Green Belt help make conservation work more meaningful and lasting? This is the focus of Bates College Environmental Studies Professor Sonja Pieck’s book Mnemonic Ecologies: Memory and Nature Conservation Along the Former Iron Curtain. Episode logo courtesy of Thomas Stephan ©/Thomas Stephan/mail@thomas-stephan.com

Death Strip to Green Belt: Memory and Conservation in Germany

Tue, 19 Nov 2024 05:00:00 -0500

How did the death strip that once separated East and West Germany become the country’s largest protected ecological corridor? Drawing from her recent book, Mnemonic Ecologies: Memory and Nature Conservation Along the Former Iron Curtain, Bates College Environmental Studies Professor Sonja Pieck explains the origins and evolution of what is known as Germany’s Green Belt. In particular she details how conservation and memory work are interwoven in the transformation and revitalization of the former Cold War border that divided Germany. The full episode airs on December 3rd.

Splintered Memories of the Great Depression and the New Deal

Tue, 05 Nov 2024 05:00:00 -0500

The Great Depression was perhaps the closest the capitalist system in the United States has ever come to complete collapse. Equally unprecedented was Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal response which dramatically transformed the relationship between government, capitalism, and the American people. How was it possible that there was no national memorial to Franklin Roosevelt in Washington D.C. until 1997, over fifty years after FDR’s death? The conundrum of the absence of a shared American memory of FDR and the New Deal response to the Great Depression is the focus of University of Mississippi historian Darren E. Grem’s book project, Hard Times USA: The Great Depression and New Deal in American Memory.

Splintered Memories of the Great Depression and the New Deal

Tue, 15 Oct 2024 05:53:00 -0400

The Great Depression was one of the most seismic events in modern American history. Equally important was Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal response to the crisis which dramatically transformed the role played by the government in the United States and the lives of its citizens. Why then is there no shared, collective memory of the New Deal and the Great Depression? Why did it take decades before Franklin Roosevelt was memorialized on the national stage in Washington DC? In his book project, Hard Times USA: The Great Depression and New Deal in American Memory, University of Mississippi historian Darren E. Grem explores the remembering and forgetting of this traumatic chapter and why it matters in the present. Tune in on November 5th for my conversation with Darren E. Grem.

Memory Politics in Ukraine

Tue, 01 Oct 2024 05:00:00 -0400

Author, co-author, and co-editor of over twenty books on the history of Ukraine, Georgiy Kaisanov has devoted much of his attention to the study of memory politics. In Memory Crash: The Politics of History in and around Ukraine 1980s-2010s, he reveals how Ukrainian history is based on a revamped, century-old, ethnonationalist history that excludes and alienates a significant part of the population. Moreover, he highlights the unplanned, haphazard approach to the past driven by the actions and responses of particular interest groups seeking influence and advantage. Rather than galvanizing the will of the people and harnessing the collective spirit of the nation, the past has been a battlefield that has divided more than united Ukrainians.

Memory Politics in Ukraine

Tue, 17 Sep 2024 05:00:00 -0400

Memories of the past have been central to the process of nation-state building in Ukraine. Rather than starting anew after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukrainians dusted off a hundred year old ethnic-nationalist history and applied it wholesale to the present. In Memory Crash: The Politics of History in and around Ukraine 1980s-2010, historian Georgiy Kasianov argues that the consequences of the uses of the past have been disastrous. Rather than forging strong ties to the nation across a culturally diverse population, minority populations have been ignored and even alienated. For more on the politics of memory in Ukraine past listen to the October 1st episode of Realms of Memory.

MAGA and the National Memory Divide

Tue, 03 Sep 2024 05:00:00 -0400

Make America Great Again, Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign slogan has become synonymous with his entire political movement. MAGA, the acronym, is now a catch phrase used for Trump’s most ardent supporters. Emblazoned on millions of red hats, which Trump himself helped promote, the Make America Great Again slogan lived on, even after Trump’s defeat in the 2020 presidential elections. With its clear reference to better times in the past, what does Make America Great Again actually refer to? How do Trump’s supporters and opponents understand the slogan? What does it reveal about how Americans understand their national past? Find out from historian Matthew Rowley, author of Trump and the Protestant Reaction to Make America Great Again.

MAGA and the National Memory Divide

Tue, 20 Aug 2024 05:00:00 -0400

Across the political divide Americans view each other with ever deepening sentiments of distrust and suspicion. Historian Matthew Rowley argues that the absence of shared memories of a national past fuels this polarization and the rise of violence in American politics. In Trump and the Protestant Reaction to Make America Great Again, Rowley looks at what the published work of American Protestants from across the political spectrum reveals about the challenges and possibilities of forging a common narrative that could bridge the current divide.

The Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion: The Memory of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement

Tue, 06 Aug 2024 05:00:00 -0400

How can the past be turned against its memory keepers? How can the successes and accomplishments of a person or movement be undone by intentionally misremembering and distorting the past? University of Southern California sociologist Hajar Yazdiha argues that this is precisely what’s been happening with the memory of Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement. Since the Reagan era the memory of this past has been used by diverse actors on the right to roll back the gains of the civil rights movement. The memory of Dr. King has been exploited to further the goals of a wide array of conservative groups. For more, listen to a conversation with Hajar Yazdiha about her book, The Struggle for the People’s King: How Politics Transforms the Memory of the Civil Rights Movement.

The Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion: The Memory of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement

Tue, 16 Jul 2024 05:00:00 -0400

From Latinos and women to the disabled and the LGBTQ community, a wide range of disadvantaged groups have achieved significant legal gains in the United States since the 1960s. This minority rights revolution inevitably sparked a backlash among white conservatives who felt threatened by change. In this fierce struggle over the values and character of the nation, University of Southern California sociologist Hajar Yazdiha argues that all sides have sought advantage by laying claim to the memory of Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement. To learn more listen to Hajar Yazdiha discuss her recent book, The Struggle for the People’s King: How Politics Transforms the Memory of the Civil Rights Movement. Next on the August 6th episode of Realms of Memory.

Confederate Monuments and the Fight for Racial Justice

Tue, 02 Jul 2024 05:00:00 -0400

In the wake of the 2020 murder of George Floyd the toppling of scores of monuments to the Confederacy made national and international news. But four years on the vast majority of these monuments remain firmly in place. University of North Carolina at Charlotte historian and professor emerita Karen L. Cox spent much of her career studying the women responsible for building most of these monuments. She decided to write No Common Ground: Confederate Monuments and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice to help communities make informed decisions about what to do with this past. Her work sheds much needed light on the reasons why these monuments were built, why they have been defended and preserved, and the long struggle to denounce and remove them.

Confederate Monuments and the Fight for Racial Justice

Tue, 18 Jun 2024 05:00:00 -0400

For communities to determine the fate of the hundreds of remaining monuments to the Confederacy they need to understand the context and purpose for which they were built. University of North Carolina at Charlotte historian and professor emerita Karen L. Cox stresses that these monuments were erected to restore and perpetuate a system of white supremacy. Situated in prominent public spaces, particularly outside courthouses, monuments to the Confederacy worked in tandem with Jim Crow laws and racial terror to create a system of white domination that lasted another hundred years after emancipation. A conversation with Karen L. Cox about her book, No Common Ground: Confederate Monuments and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice, coming July 2nd on Realms of Memory.

Mexican Americans and the Memory of the US-Mexico War

Tue, 04 Jun 2024 00:05:00 -0400

As campaign season in the United States kicks into high gear the border has once again become a political football for both the right and left. University of Texas at San Antonio historian Omar Valerio-Jiménez reminds us that these uses and abuses of the border typically rely on collective amnesia about the past. In Remembering Conquest: Mexican Americans, Memory and Citizenship, Valerio-Jiménez shines a much needed light on how the US-Mexico War created the southern border and what this has meant for Mexicans, from Texas to California, who became American citizens. In particular, he shows how the memory of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the war inspired generations of Mexican Americans to fight to achieve the unfulfilled promise of full citizenship rights.

Mexican Americans and the Memory of the US-Mexico War

Tue, 14 May 2024 05:30:00 -0400

Fears of the border are reaching fever pitch in the lead up to the 2024 US presidential elections. Much of the alarm hinges on the forgetting of the US-Mexico War (1846-1848). University of Texas at San Antonio historian Omar Valerio-Jiménez reminds us that it was the United States that invaded and annexed half of Mexico. In Remembering Conquest: Mexican Americans, Memory and Citizenship, Valerio-Jiménez reveals how the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the war, and its unfulfilled promise of full citizenship rights, has never been forgotten by Mexican Americans. Since the mid-nineteenth century, memories of the US-Mexico War and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo have inspired successive generations of Mexican Americans to fight for their civil rights.

Memorials and Public Feeling in America

Tue, 07 May 2024 05:00:00 -0400

Americans are living in an age of frenzied memorial making, argues University of Texas at Dallas art and cultural historian Erika Doss. We saturate the public landscape with memorials to every conceivable cause, aggrieved group, or unsung hero. What do memorials tell us about Americans and America today? In Memorial Mania: Public Feeling in America, Erika Doss contends that memorials embody public emotions such as grief, fear, gratitude, shame and anger. They help process tragic events like school shootings or terrorist attacks. They allow us to express our gratitude for past sacrifices or shame for episodes that run counter to our shared values and ideals. At their best, memorials allow for our participation in the process of memory making. They can be powerfully therapeutic, encouraging conversations and engaged, critical thinking about the past. At their worst, they can entrench us in our emotions, lock us into self-gratulatory modes of thought, or magnify our fears without helping us to understand the hows and whys of what we are memorializing.

Memorials and Public Feeling in America

Tue, 16 Apr 2024 05:00:00 -0400

From the 9/11 to the Salem witch trials memorial, University of Texas at Dallas art historian Erika Doss argues that we are living in an age of memorial mania. In her book Memorial Mania: Public Feeling in America, Erika Doss explains how memorials embody and allow for the public expression of emotions such as grief, fear, gratitude, shame and anger. What are the benefits and drawbacks of today’s memorial culture and what does it reveal about America and Americans? Find out on the May 7th episode of Realms of Memory.

Remembering Emmett Till

Tue, 02 Apr 2024 05:00:00 -0400

It took nearly fifty years before a single dollar was spent on commemorating Emmett Till in the state of Mississippi where he was brutally murdered in August 1955. Dave Tell, University of Kansas Professor and author of Remembering Emmett Till, argues that we can’t understand the remembering and forgetting of Emmett Till in the Mississippi Delta where he died without considering the natural and built environment. From the Tallahatchie River where the fourteen-year-old boy’s body was sunk to Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market where the story was set in motion, the buildings and natural features of the Mississippi Delta have had a profound impact on memory of Emmett Till.

Remembering Emmett Till

Tue, 19 Mar 2024 05:00:00 -0400

In August 1955 Emmett Till was abducted from his uncle’s home, tortured, shot, bound by barbed wire to a cotton gin fan and sunk in the Tallahatchie River. The outrage triggered by the photo of the mangled remains of the fourteen-year-old boy’s body in the open cassette at the funeral in Till’s native Chicago rallied many to the cause of the nascent civil rights movement. University of Kansas Professor Dave Tell, author of Remembering Emmett Till, helps us understand the forces that broke the decades long silence in the Mississippi Delta where the murder took place. The built and natural environment of the Delta, Tell argues, has had a profound influence on the memory and legacy of the murder. For my full conversation with Dave Tell, tune into the April 2nd episode of Realms of Memory.

Lynching, Black Culture and Memory

Tue, 05 Mar 2024 05:00:00 -0500

Beginning in 1880s Africans Americans became the targets of a lynching craze that claimed thousands of lives. In Beyond the Rope: The Impact of Lyching on Black Culture and Memory, University of Oklahoma historian Karlos K. Hill argues that narratives are key to understanding not just what drove the lynching craze but how African Americans responded. It was the narrative of the black beast rapist that fueled and justified the lyching mania. African American activists and cultural actors responded with their own victimization and consoling narrative to galvanize public support and to offer examples of courage and heroism to inspire future generations. Victimization and consoling narratives were both examples of how African Americans found usable pasts to fight against racial violence and injustice.

Lynching, Black Culture and Memory

Tue, 20 Feb 2024 05:00:00 -0500

Dehumanizing narratives of black male bodies drove the lynching epidemic that claimed thousands of African American lives between the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. Dr. Karlos K. Hill, author of Beyond the Rope: The Impact of Lynching on Black Culture and Memory, explains how African American political and cultural actors fought back against this reign of terror with their own humanizing and heroic narratives of lynched black bodies. Remembering lynched black bodies in ways that encouraged empathy or instilled sentiments pride was a means of finding empowering usable pasts during one of the darkest chapters in American history.

Transitional Justice and Memory in Cambodia

Tue, 06 Feb 2024 05:00:00 -0500

Cambodia has often been cast as a broken, amnesiac nation, unable to confront the memory of the horrors it experienced during the Khmer Rouge era. How did these assumptions justify the establishment of transitional justice mechanisms such as the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC)? In what ways were the therapeutic claims of the ECCC overblown and destined to disappoint? How did the Cambodian government use the ECCC to support its own self-serving reading of the past? What important memory work did NGOs take on that is often forgotten because of the tendency to focus exclusively on prominent institutions such as the ECCC? To answer these questions and more listen to University of Bath sociologist Pete Manning, author of Transitional Justice and Memory in Cambodia: Beyond the Extraordinary Chambers.

Transitional Justice and Memory in Cambodia

Tue, 16 Jan 2024 05:00:00 -0500

Cambodia has often been cast as a broken, amnesiac nation, unable to confront the memory of the horrors it experienced during the Khmer Rouge era. How did these assumptions justify the establishment of transitional justice mechanisms such as the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC)? In what ways were the therapeutic claims of the ECCC overblown and destined to disappoint? How did the Cambodian government use the ECCC to support its own self-serving reading of the past? What important memory work did NGOs take on that is often forgotten because of the tendency to focus exclusively on prominent institutions such as the ECCC? To answer these questions and more listen to the February 6th episode of the Realms of Memory podcast featuring Dr. Pete Manning, author of Transitional Justice and Memory in Cambodia: Beyond the Extraordinary Chambers.

Remembering the System: Enforced Prostitution by the Japanese Military in Indonesia

Tue, 02 Jan 2024 05:00:00 -0500

The system of enforced prostitution by the Japanese military went unpunished and unexamined for decades after the Asia-Pacific War. International recognition only began in 1991 when Korean survivor Kim Hak-sun spoke out in graphic detail about her dark past. In Systemic Silencing: Activism, Memory, and Sexual Violence in Indonesia, University of Melbourne historian Kate McGregor tells the story of the transnational struggle for recognition and redress for and by the women of East and Southeast Asia. Focusing on the less studied case of Indonesia, she points out how the sexual abuse and exploitation of Indonesian woman began during the Dutch colonial era. She reveals how collaboration with the Japanese, sentiments of shame, and Cold War political and economic pressures favored the silencing of this past.

Remembering the System: Enforced Prostitution by the Japanese Military in Indonesia

Tue, 19 Dec 2023 05:00:00 -0500

During the Asia-Pacific War the Japanese military forced thousands of women across East and Southeast Asia into a brutal system of organized prostitution. The label of “comfort women” only masks the true reality of this massive human rights crime that went largely unpunished for decades after the war. Most attention to this history has focused on Korea and Japan where the movement for redress began earliest. Find out how the struggle for recognition and redress unfolded in Indonesia on the January 2nd episode of the Realms of Memory podcast. Listen to University of Melbourne historian Kate McGregor, author of Systemic Silencing: Activism, Memory, and Sexual Violence in Indonesia.

Culture, Urban Development and the Memory of the Gwangju Uprising in South Korea

Tue, 05 Dec 2023 05:00:00 -0500

The May 1980 clash between government forces and the people of Gwangju marks a key turning point toward democracy in South Korea. The nation’s sixth largest city, the citizens of Gwangju suffered immeasurably for the uprising. The city lost development support and its citizens were cast as traitors and North Korean sympathizers. The decision to select Gwangju to host a major international art exhibition, or what became known as the Gwangju Biennale, was an effort to address the injustices of the past. Author of The Cultural Politics of Urban Development in South Korea: Art, Memory and Urban Boosterism in Gwangju, HaeRan Shin discusses the challenge of reconciling urban development with the memory of the Gwangju Uprising.

Remembering the Sewol Ferry Disaster in South Korea

Tue, 21 Nov 2023 05:00:00 -0500

The April 2014 Sewol ferry disaster is an all too familiar South Korean tragedy. Corruption, deceit, greed, and failed regulations and oversight cost nearly three hundred lives—most of whom were high school students on a trip to Jeju Island, a popular resort destination. Seoul National University Professor HaeRan Shin explains how the Sewol ferry disaster has become a site of remembering and forgetting. She reveals how economic interests worked against efforts to memorialize the tragedy. Lastly, she notes how opponents tried to discredit the memorialization project by associating it with memory activists from Gwangju and the May 18th Gwangju massacre.

Bolsonaro and the Memory of Dictatorship in Brazil

Tue, 07 Nov 2023 05:00:00 -0500

The military regime, which ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985, murdered hundreds and tortured thousands more perceived enemies of the state. How is it possible that this period of political repression, censorship, and state sponsored terror is now remembered nostalgically by many Brazilians? How did Jair Bolsonaro harness this nostalgia to win the 2018 presidential elections? Once in power, how did Bolsonaro frame the Covid-19 pandemic through the lens of the memory of dictatorship with catastrophic consequences for Brazil? Leda Balbino, researcher, journalist, and deputy editor at the foreign desk of O Globo, one of Brazil’s leading newspapers, examines these and other questions in her recent book, Digital Memory in Brazil: A Fragmented and Elastic Negationist Remembrance of the Dictatorship.

Bolsonaro and the Memory of Dictatorship in Brazil

Tue, 24 Oct 2023 05:00:00 -0400

In 1964 the military seized power in Brazil and ruled the country for the next 21 years. During this period the military used censorship, torture, and murder to silence its critics and maintain its grip on power. How did Jair Bolsonaro use the memory of this past to catapult himself to the presidency? How did Bolsonaro’s manipulation of the memory of dictatorship have catastrophic consequences for Brazil during the Covid-19 pandemic? For answers to these questions and more, listen to the November 7th episode of the Realms of Memory featuring deputy editor Leda Balbino, from Brazil’s O Globo newspaper. We’ll be discussing her recent book Digital Memory in Brazil: A Fragmented and Elastic Negationist Remembrance of the Dictatorship.

Memory Activism in Serbia: Remembering the Wars of the 1990s in Yugoslavia

Tue, 03 Oct 2023 05:00:00 -0400

In the face of rising nationalism and denialism about crimes committed during the wars of the 1990s in Yugoslavia, memory activists in Serbia have been struggling to confront the past. For the last two decades Dr. Orli Fridman, from the Faculty of Media and Communications (FMK) in Belgrade, has made memory activism in Serbia and the wider region of the former Yugusolavia the focus of her research. Find out how several generations of memory activists have taken to the streets and on-line digital platforms to fight against denial, to preserve and communicate memories of the wars of the 1990s, and to build solidarity, compassion, and empathy in the region. Listen to my conversation with Dr. Orli Fridman about her recent book Memory Activism and Digital Memory Practices after Conflict: Unwanted Memories.

Memory Activism in Serbia: Remembering the Wars of the 1990s in Yugoslavia

Tue, 19 Sep 2023 05:00:00 -0400

How do memory politics in Serbia shape the memories of the wars in Yugoslavia? What role do memory activists play in this process and what practices and claims do they put forward? Dr. Orli Fridman, a professor at the Faculty of Media and Communications (FMK) in Belgrade, has spent the past two decades looking at these questions. Author of Memory Activism and Digital Memory Practices after Conflict: Unwanted Memories, Orli Fridman will be the featured guest of the October 3rd episode of the Realms of Memory podcast.

Entangled Memories of Partition in Modern South Asia

Tue, 05 Sep 2023 05:00:00 -0400

Much of the focus on the memory of the partition of British India has been on the region of the Punjab. King’s College London Professor Ananya Kabir is interested in the repercussions of partition for the region of Bengal where she has ancestral ties. How did cultural actors, from archeologists and artists to singers and novelists, use their craft to shape and assess the memories of the new nations of South Asia? How did they contend with the two stages of partition—the division of British India into India and Pakistan in 1947 then the civil war within Pakistan in 1971 and the creation of Bangladesh? My conversation with Ananya Kabir draws from a discussion of her book, Partition’s Post-Amnesias: 1947, 1971 and Modern South Asia.

Remembering Partition in the Punjab Part 2

Tue, 15 Aug 2023 05:00:00 -0400

In part 2 of my conversation with De Montfort University historian Pippa Virdee we’ll look closer at whether the violence of partition could have been avoided. We’ll consider how the difficulty of labeling the violence complicates efforts to remember what happened. We’ll learn how much of this violence targeted women who were doubly victimized both during and after partition. We’ll discuss whether the rise of populist nationalist leaders like Narendra Modi represents a failure to learn from partition. Lastly we’ll think about whether the recent creation of massive digital archives devoted to the memory of survivors gives us a better understanding of partition.

Remembering Partition in the Punjab Part 1

Tue, 01 Aug 2023 05:00:00 -0400

The partition of British India in 1947 displaced over 14 million people and claimed the lives of another 1 million. Some of the worst violence occurred in the Punjab. Pippa Virdee, historian at De Montfort University in the UK and author of From the Ashes of 1947: Reimagining Punjab, explains how it took decades to include the experiences of those who suffered most from the story of partition—women, Dalits (untouchables), refugees. She points out how the once pluralistic region of the Punjab has become an increasing communalized and divided space. Lastly, she notes how despite tensions and unrest in the years and months leading up to partition, British authorities and their Indian and Pakistani counterparts, failed to anticipate the chaos and bloodshed that would follow the end of British India.

Remembering Partition in the Punjab

Tue, 18 Jul 2023 05:00:00 -0400

The partition of British India is a story of extreme communal violence, mass rape, honor killings, abduction, and forced migration. It is a story where the same individuals, depending on which side of the border they found themselves, could be both victims or perpetrators. Dr. Pippa Virdee, author of From the Ashes of 1947: Reimagining the Punjab, discusses the challenge of memorializing partition on the August 1st episode of Realms of Memory.

Memory Activism in Germany

Tue, 04 Jul 2023 05:00:00 -0400

Nottingham Trent University historian Jenny Wüstenberg, author of Civil Society and Memory in Postwar Germany, argues that Germany experienced a dramatic transformation of its memorial culture during the 1980s. It was in the course of this decade that Germany pivoted from commemorating the German victims of World War II to the victims of Nazi crimes and terror during the years from 1933 to 1945. By focusing on the role of Germans as perpetrators and the suffering experienced by the victims of the Nazi regime, this negative memory culture deepens democracy by connecting the past to the present and reinforcing the importance of tolerance, respect for difference and equal rights.

Memory Activism in Germany

Tue, 20 Jun 2023 05:00:00 -0400

German memory culture underwent a dramatic transformation in decades after World War II. In the immediate aftermath of the war the memories of veterans, Germans expelled from their ancestral homes in Central and Eastern Europe, and the victims of allied bombings dominated the remembrance of the Nazi era. By the 1980s the focus had almost completely shifted to the perpetrators of the Holocaust and the diverse groups victimized by the Nazi regime. To understand this change tune in to the July 4th episode of Realms of Memory. Listen to a conversation with Nottingham Trent University Professor Jenny Wüstenberg and a discussion of her book, Civil Society and Memory in Postwar Germany.

Turkish and Kurdish Memories of the Armenian Genocide

Tue, 06 Jun 2023 05:00:00 -0400

The beginnings of many nations are marred by traumatic memories. This is certainly true for Turkey. The modern Republic of Turkey began with the dispossession and even eradication of many of the ethnic and religious minorities who had lived for centuries within the borders of the Ottoman Empire. The Armenian genocide is one of the most prominent examples. In Violence and Genocide in Kurdish Memory: Exploring the Remembrance of the Armenian Genocide through Life Stories, author Eren Yetkin argues that from the time of the genocide, which took place between 1915 and 1918, the government of Turkey has chosen to deny rather than confront the past. While Kurds acknowledge their participation in the genocide they explain it in terms of an instrumentalization thesis in which they were manipulated by Turkish authorities and Kurdish elites. For Kurds, remembering the Armenian Genocide helps them to talk about their own long history of victimization.

Turkish and Kurdish Memories of the Armenian Genocide

Tue, 23 May 2023 05:00:00 -0400

The Armenian genocide would not have been possible without the active participation of local populations. Kurds, who often coexisted in the same towns and cities with Armenians, undoubtedly played a part in the genocide. Eren Yetkin, a sociologist at Koblenz University in Germany, explores the memories of the Armenian genocide in Turkey. Author of Violence and Genocide in Kurdish Memory: Exploring the Remembrance of the Armenian Genocide through Life Stories, Yetkin is particularly interested in how Turkey’s Kurdish community remembers this past. For more, listen to the June 6th episode of the Realms of Memory podcast.

War Memorialization in the Philippines

Tue, 09 May 2023 05:00:00 -0400

After fleecing billions of dollars from the Philippines, torturing and murdering thousands during the period of martial law, Ferdinand Marcos Sr. was removed from power through a popular uprising in 1986. How was it possible that his son, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., was elected as president in 2022? Dr. John Lee Candelaria, from Hiroshima University, argues that a long history of memorializing heros and forgetting the victims of the nation’s past, has much to do with the reality of the Philippines present. From the influence exerted by American authorities during their half century of rule in the Philippines to the dependence on Japanese aid in the present, larger political forces have played a major role in shaping the parameters of official memory in the Philippines.

War Memorialization in the Philippines

Tue, 02 May 2023 05:00:00 -0400

How can we understand the nostalgia for the Marcos past that inspired many Filipinos to vote for Ferdinand Marcos Jr.? How was a possible to forget the billions of dollars stolen from the state or the thousands of Filipinos who were tortured or murdered during the period of martial law? Dr. John Lee Candelaria, from Hiroshima University, argues that memories of past wars in the Philippines offer important insights into the psyche of todays voters. For more, listen to the May 9th episode of the Realms of Memory podcast.

Memory Activism in Israel-Palestine

Tue, 11 Apr 2023 05:00:00 -0400

Just as Israeli-Palestinian relations reached a new low in the early 2000s, memory activists in Israel embraced a strategy of confronting the past to resolve the crisis in the present. Dr. Yifat Gutman, author of Memory Activism: Reimagining the Past for the Future in Israel-Palestine, discusses how memory activists tackled the taboo subject of 1948. Through tours of ruined and abandoned Palestinian villages and testimonies of their former residents, memory activists tried to promote awareness of the Nakba, or the destruction in Arabic as Palestinians refer to 1948. The hope was that awareness would lead to public recognition and ultimately responsibility for the past.

Victims of Commemoration in Turkey

Tue, 14 Mar 2023 05:00:00 -0400

A few months after his Justice and Development Party or AKP won Turkey’s general elections in 2011, then Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on his fellow citizens to confront the past. In the years that followed several prominent sites of state sponsored violence targeting ethnic and religious minorities and former political opponents of the regime were slated to become memorials and museums. What inspired this desire to confront the past? What were these sites of memory? How did the violent histories of these sites complicate these initiatives? These are the questions Professor Eray Çaylı examines in his recent book Victims of Commemoration: The Architecture and Violence of Confronting the Past in Turkey.

Memory and Violence in Syria

Tue, 07 Feb 2023 05:00:00 -0500

Through her research on Syria, SOAS, University of London Professor Salwa Ismail argues that violence needs to be understood as a deliberate method of rule. Author of The Rule of Violence: Subjectivity, Memory and Government in Syria, Ismail cautions us not to reduce regimes that perpetrate heinous human rights violations to despotic, backward, cultures of aggression. Extreme forms of violence, such as torture or massacres, or ordinary forms of policing and surveillance, need to be understood as methods of rule aimed at dehumanizing, debilitating, and crushing the will to resist and dissent. The rule of violence has an enduring effect by using fear and terror to sear itself into the memory of its victims.

Remembering the Asaba Massacre in Nigeria

Tue, 10 Jan 2023 05:00:00 -0500

In October 1967 Nigerian federal troops slaughtered hundreds of innocent civilians in the town of Asaba. Elizabeth Bird, anthropologist and professor emerita at the University of South Florida, argues that the Asaba Massacre wasn’t just one of the many atrocities committed during the Nigerian Civil War. It was a pivotal event that prolonged a conflict that claimed over a million lives. What were the causes of the Asaba Massacre? How did it prolong the war? How did it affect the lives of the people of Asaba and how it has been remembered? Liz Bird, co-author with Fraser Ottanelli of The Asaba Massacre: Trauma, Memory, and the Nigerian Civil War, provides answers to these questions.

Remembering the Genocide in Rwanda

Tue, 06 Dec 2022 05:00:00 -0500

In Memory and Justice in Post-Genocide Rwanda,Tim Longman argues that the memory of the genocide has been instrumentalized by the long-ruling Rwandan Patriot Front or RPF. By casting itself as the selfless liberator of the Tusti minority, the RPF has used the genocide to mask its own crimes, abuses of power, and political ambitions. Showcasing the horrors of the genocide at commemorative sites helps the RPF to justify its own brand of authoritarian rule. Suspicious and distrustful of both the Hutu majority and Tutsi minority, the RPF’s top down approach to governance has failed to move the country beyond its deeply rooted ethnic divisions.

Forensic Science and the Memory of the Civil War and Franco Era in Spain

Tue, 01 Nov 2022 05:00:00 -0400

The bones of the tens of thousands of victims of the Franco regime buried in mass graves throughout Spain are now telling their stories. Nicole Iturriaga, author of Exhuming Violent Histories: Forensics, Memory, and Rewriting Spain’s Past, chronicles the rise of the international forensics human rights movement and how it is helping to shatter the silence about the crimes of the Spanish Civil War and Franco era. Building on a movement originating in Argentina, organizations like the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (ARMH), are using the power of forensic science to reveal the crimes of the past and to foster openness and reconciliation in the present.

Memories of Civil War in El Salvador

Tue, 04 Oct 2022 05:00:00 -0400

Over a decade of civil war tore apart the tiny Central American nation of El Salvador. Throughout the 1980s the United States poured billions of dollars into the conflict to stop the spread of communism in Central America. Beyond the massive loss of life and even greater human displacement, deathsquads and special military units massacred, tortured, and disappeared civilian populations caught in the crossfire. When a peace agreement was finally reached in 1992, all sides agreed to a general amnesty. There would be no trials, no effort to identify the perpetrators of human rights abuses or war crimes. Yet beginning in the 1990s, El Salvador experienced an unprecedented outpouring of personal accounts of the war from the former participants. Furman University historian Erik Ching, author of Stories of Civil War in El Salvador: A Battle Over Memory, tells us what we can learn from these accounts about the civil war and those who fought it.

Remembering Stalin’s Victims: Part 2

Tue, 06 Sep 2022 05:00:00 -0400

In Part 2 of Remembering Stalin’s Victims, Georgetown University Professor Kathleen Smith explains how a conservative backlash swept Khrushchev from power and ended the first attempt to confront the Stalinist past. While destalinization persisted in the form of the dissident movement, the nearly twenty year Brezhnev era that followed was one of official silence about the crimes of the past. It was Gorbachev’s attempt to rescue the Soviet economy that unleashed a much broader wave of popular participation in remembering the past. Conservative efforts to once again reverse course ultimately failed and contributed to the acceleration of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Boris Yeltsin, as head of the Russian Federation successor state, had another opportunity to confront the Soviet past. His failure to do so, and the general turbulence and instability of the period over which he presided, have been skillfully exploited by Vladimir Putin to return Russia to the authoritarianism we see today.

Remembering Stalin’s Victims: Part 1

Tue, 09 Aug 2022 05:00:00 -0400

The early decades of the Soviet Union were marred by massive human dislocation, terror, and loss of life known collectively as the repressions. With antecedents in the Lenin years but more closely associated with Stalin, Soviet leaders struggled on two occasions to confront the memory of the repressions. Kathleen Smith, author of Remembering Stalin’s Victims: Popular Memory and the End of the USSR, compares the memory politics of the Khrushchev and Gorbachev years. In many respects, Smith argues, it was the failure to come to terms with the past that opened the door to the kind of authoritarian rule we see in Russia today.

Rehabilitating the Memory of Stalin in Putin’s Russia

Tue, 12 Jul 2022 05:00:00 -0400

The militarism we see in Russia today has much to do with the rehabilitation of the memory of Stalin. The Stalin of the Great Terror, mass famine, and deportations has been recast as an unfortunate but necessary prelude to the victory over Nazi Germany in the Great Patriot War. In Bringing Stalin Back In: Memory Politics and the Creation of a Useable Past in Putin’s Russia, Todd Nelson argues that this reimagining of Stalin is the deliberate work of Putin after his rise to power over twenty years ago. Putin used everything from schools and the media to memorials and museums to craft a new Stalin narrative to instill Russians with a sense of national pride and to bolster the legitimacy of his authoritarian regime.

The Great Exodus from China: Memory and Identity in Taiwan

Tue, 07 Jun 2022 05:00:00 -0400

With the Communist victory in China in 1949 nearly one million civil war refugees flooded into Taiwan—the largest out migration from China in the modern era. Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang, author of The Great Exodus from China: Trauma, Memory, and Identity in Modern Taiwan, helps us understand the relationship between trauma and memory in new ways. He reveals how the memories of mainlander refugees changed over time and the therapeutic role they served. He sheds light on how mainlander refugees and their descendants used their memory work to lay claim to a new home in Taiwan. Perhaps most importantly, Dominic reveals how his own personal journey might offer the promise of reconciliation for Taiwan’s long divided communities.

Remembering the Slave Trade in Liverpool

Tue, 10 May 2022 05:00:00 -0400

How has the slave trade been remembered in Liverpool—the world’s leading slave-trading port city in the eighteenth century? Jessica Moody, author of The Persistence of Memory: Remembering Slavery in Liverpool, ‘slaving capital of the world,’ explains how the slave trade has never been forgotten in Liverpool. It has lived on through public debates about the city’s identity, through the city’s anniversaries, through the city’s black population, through the celebrations of civic heroes, through museums and through the streets and neighborhoods long connected to Liverpool’s dark past.

Yasukuni Shrine and Japan’s Memory of the Asia-Pacific War

Tue, 12 Apr 2022 05:10:00 -0400

Why has Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine become such a lightning rod for the memory wars in Japan about the Asia-Pacific War? Akiko Takenaka, author of Yasukuni Shrine: History, Memory, and Japan’s Unending Postwar, helps us understand how the meaning of Yasukuni has changed over time and why it has become the nation’s most controversial memory site.

Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil

Tue, 12 Apr 2022 05:00:00 -0400

How did Germany go from being an international pariah at the end of World War II to a leader of the European Union and one of the most trusted nations on the planet? In Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil, Susan Neiman argues that having the courage to confront the past did much to transform Germany’s image at home and abroad.

Realms of Memory

Sun, 03 Apr 2022 07:18:42 -0400

Realms of Memory is a podcast that looks at how countries confront their darkest chapters, what they gain by doing so, and what happens when they fail to take up this challenge. We feature the insights of leading experts on a wide range of difficult national memories.