Afterlife of Events: Perspectives on Mnemohistory

Description

In the last few decades, we have witnessed a rearticulation of the traditional relationship between the categories of past, present and future in Western societies. It has enabled the historian's gaze to shift more freely than ever before so that the past no longer appears as something final and irreversible but persists in many ways in the present. The recognition of this new situation has given rise to a novel approach in historical research, called 'mnemohistory' by Jan Assmann. Mnemohistory is interested not so much in the factuality as in the actuality of the past – not in the past for its own sake, but in its later impact and reception. This volume looks at the perspectives of mnemohistory, argues for a redefinition of the notion of 'event', and proposes to conceptualize the link between 'event' and 'mnemohistory' by re-introducing the concept of 'afterlife' (Nachleben), first employed by Aby Warburg in the 1910s.