Introduction

As has been widely documented,1 the rise of memory as a body of cultural and critical interest can be loosely traced to a series of events that coalesced around the fall of Soviet Communism. These include the infamous historians’ debate over the Holocaust in Germany and a related national commitment to Vergangenheitsbewältigung, or coming to terms with the past;2 increasing concerns about the ‘amnesiac’ dimensions of both globalising capitalism and cultural postmodernism;3 the heightened importance of identity politics in the late 1980s and 1990s; confrontations with the legacies of colonialism, fascism, and Apartheid; and an apparent decline in national affiliations and ideologies as a grounding for identity.4 However, whilst these antecedents may point to a distinct, if diffuse, set of historical coordinates upon which to ground the recent interest in memory, subsequent developments have resulted in a rather amorphous, and arguably, indefinable field of study.