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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nCollective\nmemory tends to imply that there\u2019s one collective memory that everyone shares\nor that collective memory is this mystical group mind. And I don\u2019t think of it\nthat way. So in my own work, I refer to what I call \u201cmnemonic practices\u201d\npractices and also \u201cmnemonic products\u201d and \u201cmnemonic processes.\u201d And there are\nwide numbers of different mnemonic practices, and products, and processes. So\nfor instance, remembering your phone number is a particular kind of mnemonic\npractice. Remembering who the president is is another one. Remembering that\ntime we went on a hike is yet a different one. Remembering that America had a\ncivil war is yet a different one. So is giving a speech or painting a painting\nabout the past, or telling a story, or recalling a set of numbers and facts.\nThese are all different mnemonic practices. The question from memory studies is\nhow they relate to each other or don\u2019t. There\u2019s also a variety of mnemonic\nproducts. You know, a statue is a mnemonic product. A historical movie is a\nmnemonic product. An essay is a mnemonic product; so is a story I might tell at\na dinner table. These are different mnemonic products. The question is, how are\nthey, in the words of media scholars, how are they intermedial? How does the\ntelling of the story at the dinner table, affect people\u2019s experiences and the\nway in which a museum is constructed? So the question is how do all of these\ndifferent mnemonic products, practices, and processes relate to each other?\nWhich is, I think, a more differentiated way of speaking about the many things\nthat constitute what we label with the term collective memory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, I have a \u201cpersonal interest\u201d\nwhere do you see emotions in all this? Like where do you see and how do you\nthink we can theorize in emotions into this interaction between individual and\ncollective memory or mnemonic practices? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n So I would\nsay, first of all, that memories preserve emotions and can call up emotions in\ninteresting and complex ways. So that, for instance, remembering something that\nangered you in the past, can make you angry again. Emotion also feeds into the\nways in which we decide something is worth remembering. The notion of the trope\nin politics, particularly the politics of genocide, \u201cNever Forget.\u201d That\nimplores us, it demands us, it demands something of us, it riles us up, it\ncreates a strong sense of obligation. So emotions feed into both what we\nremember and memory feeds into and creates emotions when we do remember. One of\nthe interesting things though is the ways in which both memory and emotion can\nbe separate. So I can remember that I was really angry at my partner or my kid\nor something like that, but I\u2019m not angry anymore about it. I can remember that\nI was, but it\u2019s gone away. I remember what caused it, and isn\u2019t it strange that\nI was so angry at the time, but I don\u2019t feel that anger anymore. By the same\ntoken, I can remember the feeling of anger sometimes. I wake up (this is a\nterrible thing to say about myself), sometimes I wake up angry and I can\u2019t put\nmy finger on what it is I\u2019m angry about… So these work in complex ways, but I\nshould also point out that so much of the discussion in memory studies is about\ntrauma, and negative memories, and outrage, and things like that. There\u2019s also\nmemories of joy and happiness. It\u2019s very important in certain circumstances to\nhold onto positive memories; that something actually worked really well or was\nreally nice. Of course, the one lesson of a long life is that it\u2019s very hard,\nyou can\u2019t step in the same river twice, that even something you remember as\ngreat, may not have been all that great in fact. So this is one of the\ndistortions of nostalgia, which is an emotional distortion. You venerate a past\nand you load extra emotions onto a past that may or may not have been actually\na part of the process in the first place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In your book \u201cThe Sins of the Fathers\u201d you develop a new concept, legitimation profiles. Can you explain it for us, and talk about its applicability to different cases? <\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Sins of the Fathers is organized on two analytical principles: profile and genre. In recent talks, you have introduced the concept of \u201cregions of memory\u201d. How does it fit within the overall trend of There\u2019s been an argument about, with the mass media and the worldwide knowledge about certain historical events, there\u2019s been ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/files\/2019\/07\/9780226386492-682x1024.jpg\")
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