Rezension: Christa Wirth - Memories of Belonging

Soeben ist Barbara Lüthis (Universität zu Köln) Rezension zu Christa Wirths Buch Memories of Belonging. Descendants of Italian Migrants to the United States, 1884–Present erschienen:

In Saul Bellow’s novella "The Bellarosa Connection" the main narrator states “I used to say to my clients, ‘Memory is life’”. Indeed, memory is an essential part of life, yet just as well it is elusive, dynamic, malleable. How then can we use it for historical research, what are the limits and gains? In the light of a downright “memory boom” in the historical sciences since the end of the 1990s (due to historical transformation processes such as a generational change, a rapid transformation of media technologies and changes in the history of sciences), a continuing surge of conferences and publications are discernible in academia and the wider public. Christa Wirth – historian at the University of Zurich – adds a valuable contribution to this field in her revised PhD by showing how “collective memories of belonging” were created amongst one Italian family over several generations. Weiterlesen


Wirth, Christa: Memories of Belonging. Descendants of Italian Migrants to the United States, 1884–Present, Leiden 2015.