The new h-net portal and discussion group h-memory launches today. Go to the site and check out the resources. There is an online discussion group to join, a list of important scholarly works in English, and links to important research centers dedicated to the subject of memory.

UPDATE:

Claire Lynch (University of Oxford) has kicked off the e-mail discussion group with the following idea:

I thought we might start discussion by considering Cathal Poirteir's 1995 book which accompanied a RTE Radio series of the same name: 'Famine Echoes'

The book is described as providing: 'a unique perspective on the greatest tragedy in Irish history as descendants of Famine survivors recall the community memories of the great hunger. In the 1940s, the Folklore Commission conducted interviews with thousands of elderly people around Ireland who remembered what they themselves had heard from ancestors who had survived the Famine. This remarkable book, dealing as it does with the oral transmission of folk memory, is a record of the last living link with the survivors of that terrible event'

I'm interested to hear responses to this method of representing events through the memories of the participants' ancestors.

Is it valid to collect and analyse the memories of memories? What are the potential benefits to such an approach?

We won't be blogging everything said at h-memory (that would be pointless, of course). If you're interested in discussing this kind of issue or have even simple, concrete questions or issues around the scholarly study of memory, sign up and join the discussion.