Introduction: Memories of joy

Abstract

This introduction argues that the field of memory studies needs to pay more attention to the role of joyful and positive types of memory. Quoting recent discussions, we propose that the dominant focus on traumatic and dark pasts within memory studies carries the risks that the research field ignores important aspects of collective memory and eclipses group memories that differ from societies' hegemonic discourse about the past. Contemporary societies also need positive or hopeful memories in order to create alternative imaginaries for the future. This special issue sets out to explore what memories of joy may look like and how they can be studied.

Repeating beats: The return of rave, memories of joy and nostalgia between the afterglow and the hangover

“…This does not mean that joyful events are entirely outside of memory studies; trauma and memory cannot be elided. Recent interventions have sought to account for the lingering presence of positive moments, drawing out the distinctive way in which memories of hope, contentedness and exhilaration are produced and circulated (Anderson and Ortner, 2019; Rigney, 2018). Nevertheless, as Ann Rigney (2018) notes, ‘we still have a very limited repertoire of tools to capture the transmission of positivity’, the field lacking the ‘critical concepts’ needed to ‘make visible the mechanisms by which positive attachments are transmitted across space and time’ (p. 370).…”

“…However, the shift away from questions of trauma, catastrophe and violence poses some immediate challenges. Namely, there is a fear that, as compared to negative memories, ‘memories of joy may seem less important, more banal or ephemeral’, a frivolous topic that lacks the depth and pathos that has traditionally defined memory studies (Anderson and Ortner, 2019: 7; see also Rigney, 2018). More specifically, two criticisms of memories of joy can be anticipated.…”

Non-subsumptive memory and narrative empathy

“…Memory studies has been dominated by ‘a traumatic paradigm’, privileging experiences of suffering as worth remembering, but a new movement is now emerging that focuses on the memory of joy, hope, and agency (see e.g. Reading and Katriel, 2015; Rigney, 2018; Sindbæk Andersen and Ortner, 2019). I see the notion of non-subsumptive memory as a way of drawing attention to the positive potential linked to agentic power and to the transformative potential of agency as each act of interpreting cultural memorial forms in a specific situation involves the possibility of interpreting otherwise.…”

Memory, Heritage, and Tradition in the Museum Exhibition <i>Ingrians – The Forgotten Finns</i>

“…Such discourses are also associated with the establishment of the interdisciplinary research field of (cultural) memory studies, which understands memory as a dynamic process through which the past is made present, but also as a collection of representations of the past in the present (e.g., Erll 2011). The remembrance of difficult pasts characterizes the domain of memory to the extent that links between trauma and memory, as well as grievance and identity, have become naturalized (Rigney 2018: 269;Sindbaek Andersen & Ortner 2019). This ideology has also become powerful institutionally.…”