Collective Memories and Cultural Identities in Transitional China

• In Event: 545 - Section on Sociology of Culture Roundtable Session.
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 05. Collective Memory

Abstract

In this paper, I applied and extended theories of collective memory to the context of transitional China. The small number of events and figures that capture the vast majority of the spontaneous recollections of the past by people from various social groups speaks to the foundational notion that “remembering” is not a random process but a systematic enterprise. However, people from different social groups do demonstrate varying mnemonic patterns, as suggested by social memory theories. Meanwhile, I revise the theory on generation and collective memory by suggesting that in addition to the age at which a person experience a dramatic event/change, the way in which (s)he experiences the event also matters to how much significance is assigned to the event.

Author

• Wenjie Liao, University of Minnesota