Cultural memory

Cultural memory is a form of collective memory shared by a group of people who share a culture. The theory posits that memory is not just an individual, private experience but also part of the collective domain, which both shapes the future and our understanding of the past. It has become a topic in both historiography, which emphasizes the process of forming cultural memory, and cultural studies, which emphasizes the implications and objects of cultural memory. Two schools of thought have emerged: one articulates that the present shapes our understanding of the past, while the other assumes that the past has an influence on our present behavior. It has, however, been pointed out that these two approaches are not necessarily mutually exclusive. The idea of cultural memory draws heavily on European social anthropology, especially German and French. It is not well established in the English-speaking world.