Article
English
ID: <
10.4000/temoigner.1346>
·
DOI: <
10.4000/temoigner.1346>
Abstract
In Ist die Zeit aus den Fugen? (2013), Aleida Assmann takes a step back from her work on collective memory after the Second World War by placing “memory culture”, which characterizes Western society today, within a wider perspective of our relation to time. Through a demonstration which draws on the experiences and thoughts of writers from Shakespeare to Virginia Woolf, from Baudelaire to Tolstoy, Aleida Assmann reveals the whole complexity of the relation between time and Modernity. This article proposes, in the form of a critical review, to explore the richness of Assmann’s book as well as the questions it raises: why decide to pause on the historicity regime of Modernity? Why tackle historians’ point of view on our current relation to the past, present and future, without considering a tradition of philosophical reflection? Finally, what issues emerge for memorial studies, the leading figure of which is the author?