September 21, 2022, 6:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.

In-person, registration mandatory

Has digitalization changed the way we remember personally and collectively? Through their omnipresence, digital applications and infrastructures seem to be reshaping memory culture and practices on a global scale. Mobile devices and cloud services enable individuals to access images, texts, and video recordings from the past anywhere and anytime. Collections are being digitalized and made more accessible. During the Corona Pandemic, museums offered virtual tours. Governments are also using digital tools increasingly to shape authoritative cultural heritage and public discourses on identity and history.
Digitalization does not only facilitate a diversity of memories and voices. Digitalization is also challenging conventions. The consequences with which the intersection between technology and culture has been set in motion can be best discussed by comparing memory cultures in different societies in Asia, Africa, and Europe. How is the personal ability to remember changing and which materials are becoming new and differently accessible for remembering? What kind of influence do platforms and social media have on forms of memory in rural Africa or hyper-urban China? How does digital creativity differ in remembering in Europe and Africa? How do digital tools enable us to perceive everyday culture on the one hand and global interconnections such as colonialism, climate change, and geopolitics on the other hand? Does the relationship between cultures of memory and digital technologies differ significantly or are they similar in African, European, and Asian countries?

The event is funded by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, the Academy of International Affairs NRW and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.

Opening
Prof. Dr. Matthias Becher
University of Bonn, co-speaker of TRA5

Participants
Prof. Dr. Paul Basu
University of Bonn

Lydia Leipert
Bavarian Broadcasting

Prof. Dr. Guobin Yang
University of Pennsylvania
 
Moderation
Prof. Dr. Sophie Elpers
University of Antwerp