Beyond History and Memory: New Perspectives in Memory Studies

This article outlines some recent achievements and new perspectives in contemporary memory studies. It first gives an overview of the recent handbooks and anthologies of memory studies, which testify to the institutionalisation of the young discipline. Then, it discusses the emergence of cultural memory studies, one of the most fruitful and promising trends in the memory studies of the last decade. And finally, it addresses the old debate over the relationship of history and memory, in order to propose an alternative conceptual framework for it and demonstrate the perspectives opened by a new avenue of research, mnemohistory. To conclude with, it argues that the rise of memory studies can be regarded as part of a broader change in how we nowadays see time and the interrelations of the past, the present and the future. It is plausible that these developments have irreversibly changed both the nature and outlooks of history writing.