RESEARCH_FILE
Marianne Hirsch
Columbia University
Known for:Coining and developing the concept of 'postmemory' — how descendants of trauma survivors inherit catastrophic histories through stories, images, and family silences, shaping their orientation to danger
Key findings
- 2008
Postmemory describes the relationship the generation after survivors bears to their traumatic histories — experiences so powerful and affective that they constitute memory-like formations even in people who did not live them, transmitted through family stories, photographs, objects, and behavioral cues. The Generation of Postmemory ↗
- 2012
Postmemory operates through two routes — familial transmission within survivor families, and affiliative transmission across the wider community through collective narrative and ritual — explaining why the hypervigilant orientation of Holocaust inheritance spreads to Jews who are not descendants of survivors. The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust ↗