Through paper and stone: History, collective memory, and its iconographic and symbolic analysis. A theorical approach

Abstract

The existence of collective memory in nowadays societies is a part of a long process of icon-symbolic representation since, at least, the beginning of modernity in the Western world. From its beginning after the great collective traumas of the twentieth century, memory and public uses of the past have attracted the increasing attention of political institutions from different national States, but also within societies which share a past. The aim of this paper is based on a theoretical proposal focused on the analysis of different memories in the public space (considering their variety and conceptual complexity). It also proposes an approach to the collective memory based on the study of icon-symbolic meanings of the so-called lieux de mémoire and, among them, of certain characters from the past, due to their relevance and validity in contemporary societies.