Although there are exceptions, most researchers on collective memory have neglected the idea that collective mnemonics involve embodied aspects and practices. And though the corpus of Collective Memory Studies (CMS) has helped us better understand how social groups relate to time, especially to the past, it has taken little notice of how embodied social actors collectively relate to time. In contrast, expanding upon the French School and the French sociological tradition, I argue for an approach that, on the one hand, (...) connects mental schemata to bodily schemata to social frameworks. And on the other hand, I speak of how embodied social actors collectively relate to common pasts and presents; and of how embodiment can thus provide a structure of possibilities for individuals and groups, as well as shared compasses and orientations that help people move toward certain futures while foreclosing others. (shrink)

This article explores the cultural form of the obituary as a contribution to ‘collective memory’. In order to assess the value of viewing the obituary through this lens, it is necessary to look at how memory and collective memory have been conceptualized in various authors, especially in the classic works of Bergson, Halbwachs and Benjamin. Tension emerges between those who think that such social forms of memorizing, like tradition, are declining across the board and those who think that they are (...) still alive but contained in new media such as the newspaper. For the latter, including the present author, these mosaics of tiny testimonies can shape collective memory. The cultural form of the obituary is undergoing an internal transformation. Although there is still considerable evidence of the material and social privilege of these subjects, the contemporary obituary is not restricted to the memory of the ‘dominants’. Obituary editors in national newspapers aspire to include all those who have significantly shaped the modern world, including figures hallowed in popular memory and even counter-memory. Moreover, obituaries have now branched out, beyond the arena of heroes and villains, into depictions of a more nuanced or contradictory world of tragedy and paradox. A key element of such memory is the public realm of producers. However here ‘heroes of production’ (workers or industrialists) figure much less frequently than those who have left distinguished cultural and scientific works for the collective inheritance. The article finally asks how the democratization of the form might be further advanced while also recognizing its inescapable foundation in the scarcity of distinction. (shrink)