Memory at the front
The period of Occupied France presents a striking example of the failure of memory studies thus far to penetrate certain essential questions in French historiography. Despite its paramount importance, the memory of the French Revolution during the Occupation years has received little serious examination. This article argues that the central revolutionary commemoration of le 14 juillet assumed a critical role during the Occupation. Le 14 juillet was the occasion when Vichy, the collaborationists and the Resistance each chose to glorify, qualify or condemn the Revolution. Their respective selected symbols, words, and ceremonies projected narratives of the proper French past and visions for the postwar future that competed for legitimacy. Each year, this anniversary also served to gauge the French public’s response to the conflicting manipulations of the Revolution’s memory, thereby becoming a vital testing ground for the political direction of the nation. Ultimately, the evolution of the holiday’s meaning during the Occupation period had consequences that reached well into the post-war era.
The Family Romance of the French Revolution
Preface 1. The Family Model of Politics 2. The Rise and Fall of the Good Father 3. The Band of Brothers 4. The Bad Mother 5. Sade's Family Politics 6. Rehabilitating the Family Epilogue
Portable Monuments: Literature, Cultural Memory, and the Case of Jeanie Deans
This article seeks to contribute to contemporary discussions on the workings of cultural memory and examines in particular the way in which literary texts can function as a social framework for memory. Through a detailed study of the genesis, composition, and long-term reception of Walter Scott's The Heart of Midlothian (1982 [1818]), I argue that literary texts play a variety of roles in the formation of cultural memory and that these roles are linked to their status as public discourse, to their fictional and poetical qualities, and to their longevity. This analysis of the multiple roles of literary texts in what I call "memorial dynamics" sheds light on the complex communicative processes by which images of the past are formed and transformed over time. It indicates the need to consider discontinuity as a feature of memorial dynamics and to recognize, for better or for worse, that fictionality and poeticity are an integral and not merely "inauthentic" feature of cultural memory.