655394

research-article2016
MSS0010.1177/1750698016655394Memory StudiesDutceac Segesten and Wüstenberg

Article

Memory Studies

Memory studies: The state of

1­–16
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/1750698016655394
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Anamaria Dutceac Segesten

Lund University, Sweden

Jenny Wüstenberg
York University, Canada

Abstract
The article explores the degree to which memory studies has become established as an academic field.
Although we acknowledge that there are drawbacks to formal institutionalization, we contend that it is
useful to think strategically about the future of memory studies. We argue that three key developments
must take place in order for a field to become institutionalized. First, individual scholars must articulate the
field through scientific production and collaboration. Second, higher education institutions must formally
recognize the existence of the field through specialized programs and departments. And third, public and
private donors must sponsor research via dedicated scholarships and grants. We use these phases as
benchmarks in order to assess memory studies’ current state of development. After surveying important
writings of key authors in memory studies, we test our assumptions through an online survey with 255 self-
identified memory scholars. The results show memory studies to be in a mid-level state of development,
where individual agents are the most active drivers of defining the boundaries of the field and driving its
further establishment. The major obstacle in this process, identified in both the survey and in the literature
review, is the fragmented nature of the discipline, which could be addressed through the pursuit of a more
interdisciplinary (rather than multidisciplinary) research agenda.

Keywords
institutionalization, interdisciplinary, memory studies, multidisciplinarity, survey

I am often amazed to see how many people are working in the field and how little it is being recognized.
Memory scholars still often have trouble getting published and find it difficult to get a job in a highly
disciplinary environment. I think it would be good if Memory Studies would start to move out of the
shadow of other disciplines and assert itself as an independent field of study with its own conferences and
publication outlets.1

This statement of lament may encapsulate the sentiments of many readers of Memory Studies—a
journal founded in 2008 with the express intention of recognizing “the emerging field of memory

Corresponding author:
Jenny Wüstenberg, Department of Political Science, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada.
Email: [email protected]

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2 Memory Studies 

studies” and encouraging its transition from a multidisciplinary into an interdisciplinary arena of
scholarly inquiry (Roediger and Wertsch, 2008: 9). Despite the rapid recognition of the Journal of
Memory Studies and its listing by Thompson Reuters Journal Citation Reports® (JCR), there
remains a lingering feeling that becoming a memory scholar may not be a smart career move.
Scholars disagree on what the defining features of memory studies are and whether it is now a field
in its own right.
As political scientists who have worked on memory, we have had countless conversations at
conferences, workshops, and dinners about whether memory studies has a future. These discus-
sions were our impetus to think systematically about how a new academic field emerges and
thrives. We explored memory studies as a case of an up-and-coming field. In the autumn of 2013,
we therefore invited self-defined memory scholars to take our online survey. We designed it with
the purpose of understanding who makes up memory studies (in terms of disciplinary training,
employment, geographic location, and more), what exists in terms of forums for exchange about
memory research, and whether scholars’ practices can be called interdisciplinary. The survey also
provided space for participants to submit comments in their own words—and we draw signifi-
cantly on the many insights provided in this manner.2
We begin this article by considering what it means to build a novel academic field, reflecting on
both the merits and dangers of institutionalization. We then propose a model for assessing the stage
of development of an emerging research program. Our purpose here is not to review the literature
on the changing organization of scholarly life, but rather to set up some criteria by which we can
judge the state of memory studies. Our model focuses on the agents that drive the creation of a new
academic field and their possible motivations, as well as on their relationship with the existing
structures of higher education institutions (HEIs). We identify three major steps in the establish-
ment of a new discipline, each driven by specific agents.
We then proceed by looking at a choice of programmatic texts about the evolution and state
of affairs in the field. Most fundamentally, this section reveals that memory studies is indeed a
highly diverse field and that its members are invested in moving it to a heightened level of
interdisciplinarity.
Thereafter, we present the results of our survey, which show that memory studies has few
forums for exchange, such as key conferences and professional associations. However, the field
has developed Memory Studies as its flagship journal, as well as widely used online tools for net-
working. The survey also tried to gauge the issue of multidisciplinarity versus interdisciplinarity.
While there is no agreement on the status of the field among respondents, they concur that this is
an important concern. The data gathered suggest that memory studies must at present still be char-
acterized as a multidisciplinary field, showing, for example, a lack of cross-disciplinary coopera-
tion among co-authors and across departments.
We conclude that memory studies is currently in a mid-level state of development: the field
certainly has a critical mass of enthusiastic supporters and some key venues for scholarly exchange.
However, it has not yet taken the crucial shift to formal institutionalization that would be reflected
in the establishment of memory studies in a large number of programs and departments, as well as
sustainable financial backing for research. We close with some recommendations for those mem-
bers in the memory community who wish to work toward a more formalized discipline.
To be clear, our purpose here is not to evaluate the merits of memory studies as a more or less
established field, nor to delineate its content. We therefore do not engage with theory of memory
in any comprehensive way. We also do not seek to make an argument for why memory is an impor-
tant field of inquiry (in any case, writing for this journal, we would probably be preaching to the
choir). Instead, our objective is to establish criteria for assessing the development of a relatively
new scholarly discipline—and then to evaluate it based primarily on survey data. We hone in on

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Dutceac Segesten and Wüstenberg 3

the issue of interdisciplinarity because we have identified this—in the literature and in our
survey—as one that is of great relevance to self-identified students of memory. In sum, the central
purpose of this article is to examine memory studies’ status quo as an academic discipline, as well
as to think about how the field might evolve.

The emergence of a new academic field

The most basic requirement for a new academic field to come into existence is that significant new
ideas are circulating within the scientific community, ideas that build upon existing knowledge but
that are also so progressive, innovative, and, simply put, different that they seem to require a new
domain of specialization. Moreover, a critical number of scholars must believe that their home
disciplines are no longer sufficiently able to accommodate this new domain and that innovation is
needed either within existing fields, straddling several of them, or that the new ideas warrant a new
discipline altogether. Such engaged scholars must also find a relatively common language so that
they can debate their common concerns. What is not necessary, certainly not at an early stage of
development, is what Joseph Ben-David and Randall Collins (1966) called a “coherent system of
thought” with reference to the then-new field of psychology in the 1960s (p. 451). Moreover, not
all new ideas—even when they turn out to be popular—form the foundation of a new discipline
that is formally institutionalized.3
The amount of research that is conducted under the “memory” label has grown exponentially in
the past few decades. The number of publications that carry terms such as “collective memory” in
their title or subtitle is large. An Amazon.com search with this phrase results in 290 publications.
A similar search for French titles on Amazon.fr shows 119 results. In Spanish, “memoria colectiva”
on Amazon.es turns out 47 titles. A search for books with the phrase “kollektives Gedächtnis” on
Amazon.de brings 60 results.4 The Palgrave MacMillan Memory Studies series, probably the lead-
ing book series in the field, currently includes 42 titles. These numbers do suggest a plethora of
publications that justify the claim that memory as a concept has a poignant scholarly presence in
several languages and that “memory” is a common concern, differences between the European and
North American traditions notwithstanding.
At the same time, there is very little agreement on the nature and definitions of the central con-
cepts surrounding the study of memory, and on the boundaries of something that might be called
the field of “memory studies.” In the inaugural issue of January 2008, the editors of Memory
Studies asked its contributors to sketch a picture of the nascent field. A quick look at some of those
first articles reveals the authors’ desire to see the field become more established. Roedinger and
Wertsch (2008) identify “history, literature, philosophy, psychology and education” as the “core
disciplines for a new field of memory studies” (p. 14). The very fact that these subjects, together
with political science, architecture, law, sociology, media studies, or neuroscience, are listed sepa-
rately points to the perceived need to create a new domain of research that so far does not exist.
The question is, however, what form this domain should take. It is useful to draw a distinction
here between (1) a field of study that has become established in the sense that a critical mass of
scholarly agents display sustained interest in its subject matter and so exercises a certain amount of
influence within the home disciplines of these scholars and (2) a field of study that has become
institutionalized in a formal sense, with an infrastructure of student education and hiring, as well
as funding mechanisms, scholarships, and organizations to back it up.
We contend that memory studies have reached a stage of development where it is clearly estab-
lished in the sense that it is an important and widely noted scholarly concern. Whether the relevant
agents are also motivated to drive a discipline-creating agenda and to find institutional structures
is a matter for empirical investigation and the key concern of this article. It should be noted at the

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4 Memory Studies 

outset, however, that there are not only advantages to institutionalization. Several scholars have
voiced concerns about the rapid development of memory studies and about tendencies toward its
institutionalization. Barbie Zelizer (1995) writes that contemporary memory studies have “the feel
of a blended family grown too large too fast. We may have adopted tenets of study that are ill-fitted
to the dimensions of remembering that we find” (p. 215). Steven Brown (2008) similarly worries
that the creation of a formal discipline will translate into intellectual rigidity. Instead, the advance-
ment of scholarship would benefit from difference and “transversal links.” Susannah Radstone
(2008) argues that the ethical imperatives that motivate many students of memory may be stifled if
the subject matter is stowed away in a specialized discipline rather than remaining anchored in
fields that often stimulate political and social engagement. In sum, the danger of addressing mem-
ory from a highly institutionalized vantage point is that the concepts and norms of existing fields
may either be poorly understood or inadequately implemented. Less may well be more, then, when
it comes to framing the questions of a rapidly expanding field of inquiry. Moreover, academic
freedom could be restricted when institutional structures are built: professional organizations, con-
ference committees, or hiring communities might devise definitive rules about what “counts” as
legitimate or as a subject matter worthy of funding in memory studies.5
Despite these concerns, we believe it is important to think about and investigate how memory
studies are developing: the recent increase in scholarly activity on different fronts should not be
ignored—whether or not they are desirable. We therefore present a model of three stages in the
development of a scientific field. The separation between these three phases is purely analytical.
Moreover, there is no linear progression from one step to the next; on the contrary, feedback loops
and back-and-forth movements are more the norm than constant advancement.

Individual agents
At the micro-level, some scholars must decide that it is beneficial to be associated with a new area
of study as opposed to making a career in an already established subject (although of course some
manage to do both). For example, in our case, one of the closest relatives of memory studies is
history. For memory studies to exist as a separate discipline, some historians, interested in the new
current of thought grouped under the memory studies label, must weigh the costs of their desired
career paths: is it possible to climb the career ladder within the history discipline while maintain-
ing one’s interest in memory studies? In particular, the choice of career path is relevant for junior
scholars who must decide whether they have better chances of achieving success (income, pres-
tige, reputation, etc.) within or outside the confines of history. If there is little chance of upward
mobility within the old discipline and/or if that discipline is seen as losing prestige or becoming
old-fashioned, the temptation to seek a way out and help establish a new discipline may be greater.
Another factor that plays a role in this early stage of new discipline formation is communication
and networking. The more scholars are interested in the same topic and the more opportunities
there are for them to meet (either physically at conferences or virtually in online groups and
forums), the higher the density of their networks. In highly dense networks, there is more knowl-
edge about job opportunities, more awareness of shared grievances about the gatekeepers and
obstacles in the old disciplines, and more opportunities to identify with like-minded people.
Sometimes the interactions are formalized, whereas at other times scholars connect via informal
networks, occasional symposia, or local forums. Regardless of the channels of communication, this
interest in new ideas generates more interaction, which indicates a “growing consciousness” and
entices agents to “identify themselves as practitioners of a new science” (Ben-David and Collins,
1966: 453).

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For example, when political scientists and sociologists with an interest in memory are able
to organize panels at the large social science conferences around the world, they sow the seeds
of further collaboration. Likewise, from panels and informal meetings along the corridors of
literary conferences, scholars are able to plan the creation of more specialized sub-disciplinary
meetings. Some researchers may advocate remaining within their discipline as a separate sub-
category, whereas others secede completely from the mother science and form nuclei of mem-
ory specialists.
Those who cast their lot with a new discipline are probably aware of the requirements of aca-
demic recognition: the existence of specialized publication outlets, preferably under the aegis of a
reputable publisher; the development of a system of conferences where important themes for the
subject are to be refined; the continuous dialogue with related disciplines as well as with practition-
ers from applied domains that increase the visibility and relevance of the subject.

Institutional support at the university level

These incipient groups of memory scholars need to find institutional homes in order to function.
Universities, colleges, and institutes have to become interested in accommodating the burgeoning
subject as a separate entity. Variations in national education systems notwithstanding, universities
must also think strategically about their investment in an academic area as yet unconsecrated but
perceived by decision-makers as “up-and-coming.” These strategies primarily concern competi-
tion and strategic branding: early adopters of the new field want to position themselves at the edge
of new knowledge and be seen as innovative, creative, and dynamic. This “branding” stage seems
to be still ongoing in memory studies. As one survey respondent pointed out, much scholarship that
would fit nicely under the “memory umbrella” appears at conferences or is published under a dif-
ferent label, such as heritage or transitional justice studies. It is to be expected that newer, less
traditional HEIs will be at the forefront of the efforts to establish an academic brand. Students who
are looking for the latest within the humanities, for example, might be aware of the existence of a
novel way of studying, say, culture, and they will be looking for places where this subject is on
offer. Here lies the competitive advantage of early adoption. The more universities accept the new
subject as a part of a lineup that makes them attractive, the more established it becomes.
At the level of the university administration, there must be agents willing to drive or at least
support the new subject. These are ambassadors of an emergent field for both intellectual and stra-
tegic reasons. Once there are departments giving Masters and PhD degrees in the new discipline,
and once there are academic positions (lectureships, professorships), it has become officially insti-
tutionalized. As Allen F Repko (2012) puts it, “disciplinary fields and interdisciplines are not truly
disciplines until they have their own PhDs and hiring communities” (p. 94). Its continuous exist-
ence may still be threatened by the vagaries of economic circumstances.

Institutional support at the level of research financers

The final stage in the establishment of a field is when donors (either state authorities in charge of
grants or private funders) recognize the importance of supporting research in the field. Funding is
an important mechanism in establishing or transforming the norms of an academic field—it acts as
a reward system for new research. Scholarships and grants can confirm the importance of the dis-
coveries in the field, connecting them with the worlds of business and policy and giving them real-
life relevance. Moreover, they offer financial stability and a future (at least for a few years at a
time) for research projects in the field. In order to reach the last stage in our model, both individual

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6 Memory Studies 

agents and HEIs must be numerous enough, connected, and have sufficient persuasive power to
convince donors to part with their resources.
The demands of a knowledge-based economy have led to the development of a triple helix
model of research funding, with industry, the state, and the university as its three wings.6 Besides
the traditional criterion of scientific excellence, the new funding model includes two additional
dimensions: commercial potential (probably of lesser importance for memory studies) and societal
relevance. Different governmental and market configurations can lead to different relationships
between the three wings. In cases where the state is strong, its funding agencies support projects
investigating those aspects deemed most imperative for the socio-economic development of that
state or for solving social problems within that community. Where industry is strong, the funded
projects are those whose commercial or innovative potential is highest. Where the university has a
strong standing (as when it manages large funds), academic innovation and scientific value are the
main funding criteria (Benner and Sandström, 2000: 300).
In the case of memory studies, the academy and the state are the most likely principal funders
of projects, with scientific excellence and societal relevance as the main grant criteria. Since
the subject of collective identity (and memory) is tightly bound with sensitive issues from the
point of the view of the state (inter alia, national and ethnic identity, foreign policy, post-
conflict reconstruction, human rights, etc.), receiving state funding may be seen as potentially
involving a risk of bias. Memory scholars should be aware of this risk and thus give state-
funded opportunities, as few and far between as they may be, a solid critical evaluation before
accepting the funding terms.

Memory studies as a new academic field

The goal of this section is not to provide even a brief history of memory studies as a field.7
Instead, we review programmatic statements of some of the leading agents of memory studies
in the present journal in order to gain further insight into the state of the field and to tease out
its self-definition. We selected these texts on the basis of the number of citations, the reputation
of their authors, and, in the case of newer publications, their genre—those publications of the
sort that tend to become the canon of any academic field: texts on the methodology, handbooks,
and readers.
Most of the texts consulted here acknowledge the impetus of memory studies since at least the
1970s and argue for the justified existence of a new field. In the introduction to The Collective
Memory Reader, the editors argue that

… far from declining in relevance, many of the analytical frameworks with which scholars have approached
the issues highlighted under the rubric of memory studies represent the outlines of an increasingly
important paradigm that unifies diverse interests across numerous disciplines, and consolidates long-
standing perspectives within them, in perspicuous ways. (Olick et al., 2011: 5)

In an earlier article, Jeffrey Olick (2008) takes in the vast production of research in this arena
while expressing skepticism with regard to its definition as a field per se. One of the causes of the
fluid definition of memory studies is the fragmentation that dominates its research projects. This is
due to the fact that “the numerous different disciplines employing the concept [of collective mem-
ory, n.a.] and contributing to its refinement often have their esoteric qualities, distinct discourses,
and often jealously patrol their boundaries” (Olick, 2008: 26). The institutional obstacles to the
consolidation of memory studies as a field are the related disciplines themselves and the perceived
rivalry or threat posed by the newcomer to the established academic institutions.

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Dutceac Segesten and Wüstenberg 7

This leads us to one of the most interesting discussions within memory studies, the question of
multidisciplinarity versus interdisciplinarity. Dawn Youngblood (2007) provides a useful defini-
tion of the distinction:

(a) Multidisciplinary is what happens when members of two or more disciplines cooperate, using the tools
and knowledge of their disciplines in new ways to consider multifaceted problems that have at least one
tentacle in another area of study.

(b) Interdisciplinary or integrative studies is what happens when researchers go beyond establishing a
common meeting place to developing new methods and theory crafted to transcend the disciplines in order
to solve problems.

Almost without fail, scholars have lauded the advantages and attractiveness of interdisciplinary
research. However, observers have criticized that the component disciplines in the study of mem-
ory have not found a systematic modus of integration. Already in 1998, Jeffrey Olick and Joyce
Robbins (1998) criticized memory studies for being a “nonparadigmatic, transdisciplinary, center-
less enterprise” (p. 105). Since then, several scholars have explicitly worked toward the goal of
consolidating the field. In the first book on memory studies research methods, Keightley and
Pickering (2013) describe the field as strongly multidisciplinary, “where different disciplines
investigate memory in parallel but disintegrated ways” although they would prefer to see a devel-
opment toward a more cohesive interdisciplinary approach, characterized not only by theoretical
and conceptual dialogue but also by greater “methodological reflexivity” that would allow for
cross-disciplinary synthesis (p. 3). The same desire to move from separate to more integrated
approaches can be found in many of the texts that became definitive for the field, such as Astrid
Erll et al.’s (2008) Cultural Memory Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook.
The contributors to that volume also strive for a more consolidated and coherent field. According
to the book’s introduction, the diverse but disjointed field should move in the direction of interdis-
ciplinarity because that is where the best instances of memory studies research are produced.
Our brief overview of the discussions about memory studies as a field of research supports the
idea that this is indeed a thriving field. The main concern we identify among its practitioners is the
fragmentation along disciplinary lines. The solutions many authors propose are as follows: further
and tighter collaboration between scholars of different backgrounds and more daring in terms of
the mixing of methods, theories, and concepts from all contributing academic disciplines. In
response to this widely held diagnosis, one of the core goals of our study was to investigate empiri-
cally to what extent such collaboration and mixing is currently occurring and whether memory
studies might be moving in the direction of interdisciplinarity. Evidence on these questions is not
easily acquired. Our first step was to get an overview of institutionalized venues dedicated to
memory studies: academic departments, institutes, and graduate programs. We found a considera-
ble number: from research clusters at the University of Nottingham or at the Goethe University in
Frankfurt am Main, to the Memory at War project at the University of Cambridge, the School for
Heritage and Memory Studies in Amsterdam, the Centre for Research in Memory, Narrative and
Histories at the University of Brighton, the Centre for the Study of Cultural Memory at the
University of London, and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural
Heritage at Brown University. Moreover, there are relevant Masters or PhD programs in Amsterdam,
Ghent, Utrecht, Giessen, Brighton, and Berlin—to name just a few.8 Identifying these programs is
not a straightforward affair, as they run under different labels. We suspect that we are unaware of
other important institutions for this reason, particularly outside of Europe. Furthermore, the exist-
ence of these institutions does not provide us with easy insight into the status of memory studies as

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a field: we do not know to what extent they reflect a high level of collaboration and interdiscipli-
narity. We therefore decided that our empirical investigation had to begin with a survey of the
individual scholars that count themselves as part of memory studies.

Methodology
In designing our survey instrument, we sought to integrate the statements put forward by key driv-
ing agents in memory studies, as well as our three-step model of field-creation.
Our objective in conducting this survey was threefold: first, we wanted to acquire a more accu-
rate picture of memory studies than the usual anecdotal evidence allows. We wanted to know the
following: Who are the scholarly agents of memory studies? Who sees himself or herself as a
memory scholar? Where are these people located both geographically and in terms of academic
host discipline? Since the memory studies field has been often characterized as international (Erll
et al., 2008; Keightley and Pickering, 2013; Olick, 2008), we tested for cross-border mobility,
comparing the country of obtaining the degree and the current country of employment. We inquired
about the publication venues, the conference circuits, and the most read journals that would create
a coherent milieu where the new field could thrive. What do memory scholars read, where do they
publish, how do they stay in touch with their colleagues?
Second, we sought to examine empirically to what extent memory studies can be called a field
in its own right. Here, we wanted to know whether and how the study of remembrance has become
institutionalized in various ways and has distinctive forums for exchange. We presupposed that the
existence of academic productions and of close-knit scholarly networks is a condition for the mobi-
lization of scholarly agents. We thought that these networks and listservs were the most common
and the densest meeting places for a subject known to cut across many subjects and many
countries.
Third, we were interested in whether memory scholarship is characterized by multidisciplinar-
ity versus interdisciplinarity. In the literature on the state of the field, a dominant trend was the
complaint about too little interdisciplinary work and too much isolation in the home disciplines.
The assumption made by many memory scholars is that tighter connections across disciplines will
lead to a more coherent and therefore more established field. We tried to measure this by looking
at collaborations between authors and their respective home discipline. We also asked our respond-
ents to evaluate the field as more multidisciplinary or more interdisciplinary.
The survey was designed using Google Forms and was sent out to about two dozen listservs and
social media platforms, in addition to specific individuals. Between 6 September 2013 and 1 April
2014, the survey was taken by a large number of individuals who self-identify as “memory schol-
ars” (255 in total).9 Most responses were recorded in the first 2 weeks. Overall, we believe that the
survey takers’ willingness to participate was impressive in both swiftness and in numbers, indicat-
ing that development of memory studies as a field is a matter close to many peoples’ hearts.
Although we had taken care to target a wide range of regional and disciplinary academic
communities,10 we do not claim that our findings are perfectly representative because we had little
control over who took the survey. Nevertheless, based on our own experience, we believe that our
sample of the memory studies community is quite realistic. Of our respondents who chose to indi-
cate their gender, 57% were female and 43% male.11 Those surveyed came from different age
cohorts (see Figure 1) and different stages of their academic career (Figure 2). PhD students and
junior academics made up the largest categories, but significant numbers of senior scholars also
took part. This may indicate a selection bias, but could also point in the direction of memory stud-
ies as a subject of interest for younger academics, with fewer established professors tempted to
switch affiliation to a new discipline.

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Dutceac Segesten and Wüstenberg 9

Figure 1. Respondents’ age.

Figure 2. Respondents’ career stage.

Findings
State of the field
The most basic finding is that memory scholars do come from many different disciplines. Most
of our respondents received (or are undertaking) their PhDs in history (24%), political science/
international relations (13%), and sociology (10%) (Figure 3). Other prominent fields were
literary studies, media, film, and cultural studies, as well as psychology and area studies. Very
few respondents (only 4 out of the 252 who answered this question) had or were undertaking a
doctorate in memory studies specifically. Interestingly, many participants did not feel repre-
sented by the choices we offered on the survey. The “other” category was the largest, populated
by suggestions such as anthropology, aboriginal studies, education, methodology, theology,
museum studies, library and archival sciences, geography, and many other fields—alone or in
combination. Law and medicine, disciplines we thought connected to the memory studies field,
were basically unrepresented. Perhaps this is a sign that our survey distribution channels did
not reach out to members of these disciplines. We had also not anticipated that respondents
would come from practical backgrounds, such as museums and memorial institutions, school
education, and cultural management.

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10 Memory Studies 

Figure 3. Department of PhD degree.

Figure 4. Department of current employment.

When it came to assessing the fields in which memory scholars are employed, we found nearly
as much diversity. Most popular scholarly “homes” were departments of history, political science,
sociology, area studies, film, media, and communication (Figure 4). These disciplines overlap with
those in which respondents have obtained PhD degrees. It is interesting to note that no respondents
reported that they are currently working in a specialized memory studies institution. Like in previ-
ous questions, the category “Other” showed the largest percentage of answers. In terms of mobility,
it seems that individuals complete specialized PhD programs and then often move into more main-
stream departments.
Our respondents were educated and employed in many different parts of the world, suggesting
that we were successful in spreading the survey beyond our own (mainly North American and
European) networks. Nevertheless, one commentator argued that our survey in English would not
be able to adequately encapsulate the “lively memory (studies) communities working in French,
German, Spanish, Hebrew, etc.” We must thus acknowledge the existence of variations across
national educational systems and scientific traditions that remain outside our scope here. At the
same time, memory scholars display transnational mobility in line with academia more generally:
15.6% of our overall sample had moved across borders, having received their PhDs in a country
other than where they are currently employed.

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Figure 5. Methodologies employed by memory scholars.

Figure 6. Top 3 disciplines in which academic work is read.

Memory scholars employ a wide range of methodologies that are reflective of the various disci-
plinary traditions in the field. However, it is noteworthy that quantitative methods are not well
represented: 31% of participants use content analysis and 7% network analysis—two approaches
that are often classified as quantitative in nature. Only 13% say they are using quantitative meth-
ods. The most common methodologies were discourse or narrative analysis (72%), archival
research (64%), interviews (57%), and media analysis (46%) (Figure 5). This discrepancy may be
surprising given the high percentage of social scientists in our sample. One might speculate that
those social scientists drawn to the study of memory are also attracted to “small-n” approaches.
Relatedly, surveyed scholars report reading work in cross-cutting fields such as cultural studies
and area studies, in addition to history. The social sciences do not rank very highly: sociology at
23% and political science/international relations at 25%, nor do the natural sciences (Figure 6).
This affinity to the humanities is interesting, given that scientific methods were regarded as crucial
in the inaugural issue of Memory Studies: “if the field is to develop into a sound, cumulative (even
scientifically oriented) field, rigorous methods that can yield replicable results will be needed”
(Roediger and Wertsch, 2008: 17). The fact that the most read subject is memory studies (69%)

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12 Memory Studies 

does not come as a surprise, but is a confirmation that the self-identification with the field is based
on the scientific production on the topic.
In sum, our assessment of the status quo of memory studies as an area of inquiry suggests that
its adherents are diverse in terms of age, career stage, geographic location, and home discipline.
Methodologically and in terms of the literature consulted, they seem to have more affinity with the
humanities and cultural studies than with the (social) sciences, although the latter obviously has a
contribution to make. One commentator in our survey suggested that

despite the growing interest in memory studies and the successful “memory studies industry” (encouraged
by publishers given that it is a trendy topic that sells?), conference panels about memory studies in politics
and international relations are still marginalized, or often presented as “identity,” “human rights/transitional
justice” or “area studies” panels. In addition, in the social sciences, hardly any job vacancy refers to
memory (studies).

A different survey respondent agreed that self-identification as a memory scholar can be detri-
mental to an academic career: “Interdisciplinarity tends to be touted as something which universi-
ties want to foster in theory, but rarely seem to prioritize when employing new staff!”

Memory studies: a whole new field?

Our next concern was to determine to what extent this diverse collection of memory scholars may be
regarded as a coherent or emergent “field,” measured by the existence of forums for academic
exchange. Here, we asked about membership in professional organizations, conference attendance,
journal readership, and online forum participation. Judging by these indicators, there seem to be few
arenas where memory scholars of different backgrounds “meet.” There is neither a professional organ-
ization nor a pivotal conference that is widely attended, although of course there may be meeting
grounds that are local and informal. Scholars seem to orient themselves mostly according to their tra-
ditional home discipline or very specialized interests. Thus, respondents took part in memory panels in
a wide range of large generalist conferences (i.e. International Studies Association Meeting, Conference
of Europeanists) and many smaller and specific meetings—too many to find significant patterns for
our purposes. Memory scholars are also members of a whole range of professional associations—with
regional and disciplinary concentrations. No single one stands out as a place of congregation for them.
Top journals for scholars of memory are equally diverse, corresponding to our previous find-
ings about which disciplines are deemed most relevant. Only the following journals were named
seven times or more: the International Journal of Transitional Justice (7), the Journal of
American History (7), The Public Historian (7), American Historical Review (8), Slavic Review
(9), and History and Theory (11). The overwhelming majority of the 502 journals mentioned
were cited only once or twice. Two journals stand out, however: History and Memory was named
by 26 and Memory Studies even by 65 respondents—without any prompting from our end. With
over 25% of our participants reading Memory Studies on a regular basis, it is not an exaggeration
to call it a genuine forum for the field. The only other significant forums for exchange we were
able to identify were online. H-Memory is followed by 59.1% of respondents (151 in total)12 and
Dialogues on Historical Justice and Memory by 38 individuals or 14.9% (although it should be
noted that we provided these two options on the survey, while we did not give any suggestions
with regard to journals). Of the over 80 other listservs, blogs, and Facebook pages mentioned,
only H-Soz-u-Kult (a German list for historians, social scientists, and cultural scholars),
H-German, H-Public, and H-Museum got six or more mentions. The Memory At War Facebook
group had five followers.

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Dutceac Segesten and Wüstenberg 13

Overall, memory studies have few forums for exchange across regional and disciplinary bor-
ders. However, it does appear that the H-Memory listserv and the journal Memory Studies in par-
ticular are taking on an important role for the community.

Multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary?
As part of our survey, we supplied participants with Youngblood’s definition of multi- and interdis-
ciplinarity. We then asked them to characterize the state of the field on this basis. Our respondents
were split in their assessment: 42% thought the field was more interdisciplinary and 41% more
multidisciplinary (14% did not feel able to assess). One thing, however, most memory scholars
seemed to agree on was that the discussion over multidisciplinarity versus interdisciplinarity is
very important. In all, 58% rated the issue at 5 on a scale of 1–5 and 24% at 4 out of 5. One com-
mentator on our survey diagnosed the problem as follows:

The question of inter-/multidisciplinarity remains one of the central questions facing the (fledgling) field
of Memory Studies. It seems to me that, whilst we as scholars and practitioners are increasingly borrowing
from a wide range of disciplinary tools and methods, the extent to which we are truly working across
disciplines (or outside of our own discipline) still lags behind pronouncements of the need for
cross-fertilisation.

We operationalized a practice of interdisciplinarity in two ways. First, we regarded scholars

who have switched academic fields from where they received their PhD to where they are currently
working. We hypothesize that when a scholar is trained in a particular discipline and then works in
another, there is a high likelihood that they will fertilize their “new home” with theories, methods,
and professional cultures of their “old home.” We found that switching disciplines is not uncom-
mon: 30.5% (or 78 people) of our sample switched departments. However, the majority of these
moved to one that was closely related to their department of origin. Only 4.3% (11) switched
between very different disciplines, such as from cognitive linguistics to political science, from his-
tory to philosophy, or from educational leadership to cultural studies.
Our second way of measuring interdisciplinarity was through an analysis of co-authorship. We
argue that when two individuals from two different disciplines work together on an academic article,
true interdisciplinary sharing and learning are likely to result. In all, 57% of the participants in our
survey are published authors. Of these, 64 people (25% of total respondents) had co-authored one or
more pieces together with colleagues. In total, 27 of these co-authored articles were with scholars
from the same discipline, while 29 had collaborated across disciplines (the remainder did not provide
information about their co-author’s field). However, co-authorship across large disciplinary divides
seems to be quite rare. Of the 29, 16 worked with people from closely related disciplines (such as
cultural and media studies or sociology and political science). Relatively few (13) genuinely tested
new waters. For example, we recorded collaborations between a historian and a neuroscientist,
between a political scientist and a museum scholar, and between a psychologist and scholar of dance.
The finding that true interdisciplinary collaboration is rare is also reflected in a review of the Memory
Studies journal. Since its inauguration in 2008, 175 articles have been published in Memory Studies
(not counting editorials, conference reports, or book reviews). Of these, 30 (or 17.1%) were co-
authored and about half of these resulted from collaborations between authors from different disci-
plines. Most of the co-authors were based in the same country (or even the same institution)—only
six articles were written by academics from HEIs located in different nation-states.
It must be pointed out, of course, that ours are imperfect measures of interdisciplinarity. A good
complement to our study would be a qualitative examination of academic biographies and strategic

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14 Memory Studies 

career choices of both leading and junior scholars in the field. Moreover, a more systematic
accounting of existing memory studies programs and departments—under different labels and
using diverse languages—in addition to their funding mechanisms, is in order. Nevertheless, given
the current unavailability of such data, we believe that these findings provide a useful impression
of scholarly practices within memory studies.

Conclusion
On the basis of the survey and with the aid of our model, we draw the following conclusions. First,
we can establish that indeed there are numerous scholarly agents engaged in the work of creating
a new academic field. They are active in networking with one another both virtually and through
their participation of conferences. However, no single conference, network, or publication venue—
with the possible exception of this journal and H-Memory—appears to be the center of gravity
around which all these individual agents congregate. The field appears thus broad but with very
loosely defined borders—despite an awareness of the need to integrate and collaborate more.
Second, looking at the degree of recognition of memory studies as an entity by HEIs, there is as
yet a low level of official institutionalization. This is reflected in the small number of PhD pro-
grams specialized explicitly in memory studies and in the absence of memory studies departments.
According to our survey results, memory scholars, including junior ones, overwhelmingly receive
their PhDs and work at departments and institutions other than memory studies.
Third, interdisciplinarity has not yet been achieved despite a general desire and interest for a
development in this direction. The co-authorship trends as well as evidence about the prevalence
of scholars’ move across disciplines detected in our survey suggest a clustering along highly simi-
lar backgrounds. Moreover, there is a general dissatisfaction with progress toward integration. As
one respondent diagnosed, “The field suffers from … [an] absence of syntheses, [from a lack of a]
systematic accumulation of knowledge carried out within carefully specified analytical frame-
works.” The issue of interdisciplinarity is considered very important as a building block for the
establishment of memory studies as a new academic field. Thus, we argue that the slow progress
made in that direction is a mark of the current state of affairs in a field described by another
respondent as growing toward a “chaotic multi-paradigmatic” mixture: “In so many fields today,
the methodological tools may be discipline specific while we cross disciplinary boundaries by
sharing theoretical frameworks and concepts.”
Putting matters in terms of our model, the memory studies field has many scholarly agents
engaged in making it a stand-alone field, as per step number one. However, there is weak institu-
tionalization at the university level, coupled with deep methodological and even theoretical frag-
mentation, making step two in the model the next milestone to reach. The third step of the model,
recognition by public and private funding entities, has not been explicitly addressed in the survey,
as it was deemed farthest away from completion on the basis of existing literature.
Our survey revealed the wish of many scholars and practitioners to further formalize the field of
memory studies. Notwithstanding lingering concerns about institutionalization that should not be
forgotten, there are a few recommendations in response to this wish that we can formulate on the
basis of our findings. For example, individual scholars should be explicit about their affiliation with
memory studies and organize conference panels and sections with this title. The leading names in
the field should persuade their home universities and departments to make memory studies publica-
tions count toward academic tenure and promotion. Scholarly agents should continue to make the
case for establishing autonomous and specialized departments of memory studies at their universi-
ties, paired with the corresponding MA and PhD positions. Academic institutions should pair with
non-academic partners (such as museums, research institutes, and even tourism authorities) to give

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Dutceac Segesten and Wüstenberg 15

more social relevance and communicative power to research pursued within this expanding field.
Only then, we argue, will public agencies, university-administered research funds, and private
donors decide to invest in this exciting, and expanding, scholarly area of investigation.

Notes
1. Comment provided by an anonymous respondent on our survey.
2. We would like to thank everyone who took time to participate in our survey, especially those colleagues
who helped improve the Beta-version.
3. An academic discipline exhibits preferences for specific combinations of phenomena, epistemology,
assumptions, concepts, theory, and methods (Repko, 2012: 93).
4. Certainly, many of these titles will be duplicates, as the Amazon search engine is far from fine-tuned.
5. We thank Andrew Hoskins for directing our attention to this point.
6. Leydesdorff and Etzkowitz (1996) discussed in Benner and Sandström (2000: 292). For more on this,
see, for example, the home page of the Triple Helix Research Group (n.d.) at Stanford University.
7. Some others have attempted to do so, for example, Steiner and Zelizer (1995), Olick and Robbins (1998),
and Tamm (2013). For a region-specific overview of the evolution of collective memory research, see
Pakier and Wawrzyniak (2013) examining the case of Eastern Europe.
8. We thank Danielle Drozdzewski, University of New South Wales, for bringing our attention to several of
these.
9. The survey form did not assign identities to each respondent, so the possibility of one person responding
several times cannot be discounted.
10. We utilized many different listservs on the H-Net Platform, including, for instance, H-Asia, H-Ethnic,
H-Labor, H-Holocaust, H-Afro-Am, and H-Public. We also targeted mailing lists of various academic
organizations, such as the Council for European Studies and the Academic Association for Contemporary
European Studies (Euroresearch). Finally, we publicized the survey link to Memory Studies forums, such
as H-Memory, the COST Network “In search of transcultural memory in Europe,” the Memory at War
Facebook group, the European Remembrance and Solidarity Facebook group, and the Historical Justice
and Memory Network. In addition, we sent out the survey to our personal academic networks.
11. Please note that the N varies slightly between the different items because respondents were not forced to
answer any particular question.
12. We should point out that H-Memory was one of the listservs we used to distribute the survey. This may
have led to an overrepresentation of H-Memory users in our participants.

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Author biographies
Anamaria Dutceac Segesten is Assistant Professor in European Studies at Lund University, Sweden. Her
research has focused on political myth, collective identity, and nationalism. Her current interests are in
Europeanization processes and the political uses of social media.
Jenny Wüstenberg is DAAD Visiting Assistant Professor in Political Science and German & European
Studies at York University in Toronto, Canada. Her research focuses on civic activism and transnational net-
works in memory politics. She is co-chair of the Research Network on Transnational Memory and Identity in
Europe of the Council for European Studies.

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