The Development of Cultural Memory Theory and Its Implications for Literary Studies
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.69760/gsrh.0260304025Keywords:
cultural memory, collective memory, literature, canon and archive, postmemory, transcultural memory, digital mediationAbstract
This article examines the development of cultural memory theory and its implications for literary studies. It brings Maurice Halbwachs's account of the social frameworks of remembering into dialogue with Jan Assmann's distinction between communicative and cultural memory and Aleida Assmann's analysis of the canon and archive. The article adopts a selective conceptual review, comparing foundational accounts with work on postmemory, transcultural transmission, material commemoration, and digital mediation. Its central argument is that literature participates in the selection, interpretation, and transmission of the past through narrative form, linguistic choices, publication, and reception. A literary work can preserve experiences, challenge dominant representations, and acquire new meanings as its readers and institutional settings change. However, textual representations alone cannot establish what a community remembers; claims about collective memory also require evidence of circulation and reception. The review therefore distinguishes the analysis of memory within texts from the investigation of their public uses. It identifies comparative reading, translation history, archival research, and reception analysis as complementary directions for studying literature's role in cultural remembering.
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