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CIMS PG Masterclass with Professor Jenny Wüstenberg Slow memory: remembering gradual change in an accelerating world
The CIMS Postgraduate Masterclasses offer postgraduate students the opportunity to engage closely with leading scholars working in the fields of cultural identity and memory studies. Each masterclass is structured around a presentation by the invited scholar, who introduces key concepts, methodological approaches, or current research questions.
In advance of the session, participants are asked to prepare a short reading selected by the speaker. The masterclass itself combines discussion of this reading with guided questions and open exchange, creating space for critical engagement and dialogue. The format is designed to encourage active participation and to support postgraduate researchers in reflecting on how the approaches discussed might inform their own work.
Some of our most vexing contemporary challenges can be described in terms of slow memory: when we are not propelled into decisive action by memories of extreme violence, sudden catastrophe, or unexpected triumph, when what is changing happens in a creeping, diffuse, or even invisible manner, we find it extraordinarily difficult to remember, recognise and prioritise it for policy action.
We are hampered, in other words, both by the ‘slowness' of change and by the accelerated nature of the political, economic and cultural relationships that we need to activate in order to respond. In “Slow memory: remembering gradual change in an accelerating world”, Jenny will outline the concept of slow memory and its operation in contemporary memorial politics, using biodiversity loss and family separation policies as illustrative examples.
This masterclass is open to postgraduate students from all Schools with an interest in memory studies. Places are limited to 20 participants. Registered participants will be asked to prepare a short reading in advance of the masterclass. Refreshments, including pizza, will be provided.