ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the concept of collective memory by characterizing its historical genealogy and the social function that set the backdrop for its new theoretical visibility. This leads to a critical discussion of recent attempts to redefine it in social, psychological, and historical analysis, a theoretical investigation of its scope and temporal articulations in the public sphere and, finally, an interpretation of its public configuration in the era of the mass media. It is in this context that "memory", conceived not only as a faculty of human understanding, but as the organ of continuity and cohesion in the collective sphere, began to play a paradigmatic role in social theory. In recent decades, the concept of collective memory that Halbwachs elaborated has elicited important criticism. In view of elucidating the concept of collective memory, the chapter briefly considers two contemporary criticisms that have been raised against his theory.
