Memory Activism

"Recent instances of memory activism in Israel-Palestine allow Yifat Gutman to reconceptualize both memory politics and peace activism, and thus to offer memory studies important new paradigms. Her ethnography of activist groups highlights hopeful alternatives to official memorials and commemorations of troubled histories. As this groundbreaking study shows, memory activists can take responsibility for the past even as they imagine and work for a more just future. Memory Activism represents engaged scholarship at its best."
—Marianne Hirsch, author of The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture after the Holocaust

"Yifat Gutman's study of a contemporary Israeli counter-memory and the cultural practices of its activists is as clear as it is courageous. It is an important intellectual achievement because it shows that even a hot topic like contested memory can be subjected to a lucid, differentiated, and insightful analysis."
—Aleida Assmann, author of Shadows of Trauma: Memory and the Politics of Postwar Identity

"This is a fascinating story about the politics (and the anti-politics) of historical memory, set in the country where it matters most, Israel. Or is it Palestine? There are moral and analytical lessons here for all of us, no matter where we live."
—James M. Jasper, author of The Art of Moral Protest: Culture, Biography, and Creativity in Social Movements