Abstract
Climate change seems as the biggest challenge for the global society in the 21th century. Some historians already articulated concrete epistemological positions connecting humanities and research in global warming (Dipesh Chakrabarty, Harald Welzer).
In my view, research of memory constitutes set of epistemological and theoretical approaches that could bridge the gap between the discussion about the past in humanities and decision making in the present facing the ecological crisis. During my research of changes in commemoration of the past in the Czech society, I came across the importance of the debate about the ecology and environment after the fall of communist regime.
Ecology seems as a significant part of coming to terms with past, especially in boarder regions of Czech lands. The discussion is not limited just to industrialization during the communist era, but also the relation to the cultural landscape and heritage after the expulsion of Czech Germans played an important role.
I followed a story of a village that was destroyed because of coal mining in the 1990s and the discourses that were spread around this case (heritage preservation, relation to the local memory, etc.). In my proposed paper, I will present some methodological and epistemological points that are growing from this case and that are connecting memory studies and ecology.
I am inquiring, what was the relation between the environmental agenda and growing interest in (historical, collective) memory. One of the points is the interplay of narratives that are used in memory discourses as well as in ecological movement.
I will underline also the role of visuality that was constitutive for Czech ecological discussion and that had its roots in deeper mnemonic layers. In my paper, I would like contribute to the broader discussion about the role of memory research in the reconstruction of horizon of expectation.
Climate change seems as the biggest challenge for the global society in the 21th century. Some historians already articulated concrete epistemological positions connecting humanities and research in global warming (Dipesh Chakrabarty, Harald Welzer).
In my view, research of memory constitutes set of epistemological and theoretical approaches that could bridge the gap between the discussion about the past in humanities and decision making in the present facing the ecological crisis. During my research of changes in commemoration of the past in the Czech society, I came across the importance of the debate about the ecology and environment after the fall of communist regime.
Ecology seems as a significant part of coming to terms with past, especially in boarder regions of Czech lands. The discussion is not limited just to industrialization during the communist era, but also the relation to the cultural landscape and heritage after the expulsion of Czech Germans played an important role.
I followed a story of a village that was destroyed because of coal mining in the 1990s and the discourses that were spread around this case (heritage preservation, relation to the local memory, etc.). In my proposed paper, I will present some methodological and epistemological points that are growing from this case and that are connecting memory studies and ecology.
I am inquiring, what was the relation between the environmental agenda and growing interest in (historical, collective) memory. One of the points is the interplay of narratives that are used in memory discourses as well as in ecological movement.
I will underline also the role of visuality that was constitutive for Czech ecological discussion and that had its roots in deeper mnemonic layers. In my paper, I would like contribute to the broader discussion about the role of memory research in the reconstruction of horizon of expectation.