Responses to a call to action: new directions and directives in memory studies in the French-speaking world

Citation

Grayson H & Parish N (2024) Responses to a call to action: new directions and directives in memory studies in the French-speaking world. Modern & Contemporary France, 32 (1), pp. 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1080/09639489.2023.2285370

Abstract
First paragraph: In January 2020, the publication of Postcolonial Realms of Memory: Sites and Symbols in Modern France (Achille, Forsdick, and Moudileno, Liverpool University Press, Citation2020) launched an important call to action to scholars working in languages, memory studies, history and beyond to systematically postcolonialise and unsettle Pierre Nora’s well-established lieux de mémoire. The volume’s editors urge us to make visible the traces of the colonial in France’s heritage and to encourage new readings of the past by anchoring the legacies of colonialism in collective memory. This special issue of Modern & Contemporary France has been produced as a response to those calls. We have brought together scholars working at the intersection of French history, literary and cultural studies and anthropology who explore a range of memory practices. The articles span contemporary theatre, political discourse, visual arts, literature, memorials and museums. Across this range of genres, we aim to highlight the ways these practices interact with France’s official narratives of its national and global past. The question that underpins the majority of the work carried out here is: how do public spaces, museums, and artistic and textual practices align with or counter the attempts in the political sphere to acknowledge the legacies of colonialism in modern and contemporary France?

Keywords
Sociology and Political Science; History; Cultural Studies

Journal
Modern & Contemporary France: Volume 32, Issue 1