Research project Beyond Trauma: Memories of the Future and the Futures of Memory

This long-term, multidisciplinary research project explors the relationship between memory and futurity by uniting scholars from memory studies, literary studies, intellectual history, postcolonial, and ecocritical fields.

The project has a dual focus: to examine how literature and cultural narratives imagine the future through engagements with the past, and to shift memory studies beyond its trauma-centered, retrospective orientation toward a framework that foregrounds possible futures. While acknowledging the importance of addressing histories of conflict and violence, it draws on literature’s capacity to envision “memories of the future” and “futures of memory.”
Despite the growth of cultural memory studies over the past four decades, the role of literature in imagining future-oriented memory formations—inflected by hope, fear, desire, or resistance—remains underexplored. This project investigates literary and cultural narratives from diverse cultural and historical contexts—Taiwanese, Ukrainian, African, Caribbean, Slavic, Irish, and Nordic—to explore how they articulate alternative, speculative, or lost futures that reconfigure cultural identities, collective agency, and historical consciousness. It ultimately aims to advance a paradigm shift in memory studies that embraces futurity, narrative experimentation, and challenges unilinear temporalities.

Project members

Project managers

Irmgard Schweiger

Members

Victoria Fareld Olena Jansson Anna Jörngården Galili Alice Sundman Joakim Wrethed Maria Ioana Zirra Richard Crownshaw Elisabeth Herrmann Justyna Tabaszewska Andrea Riemenschnitter Pieter Vermeulen Jenny Wüstenberg

News

2025-11-04

Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies

Research project explores the relationship between memory and the future

A new interdisciplinary research project at Stockholm University, "Beyond Trauma: Futures of Memory and the Memory of Futures," investigates the relationship between memory and the future by integrating perspectives from multiple academic disciplines. The project focuses on analyzing how literary texts and cultural narratives envision the future by engaging with the past. By broadening memory studies beyond its traditionally trauma-oriented and retrospective focus, the project introduces a theoretical framework that emphasizes the possibilities of future memories and memories of the future. The researchers will examine literary works and narratives from various cultural contexts, such as Taiwanese, Ukrainian, African, Caribbean, Slavic, Irish, and Nordic, to analyze how these texts articulate alternative and speculative futures that can impact cultural identities, collective agency, and historical consciousness. The aim is to contribute to a paradigm shift in memory studies that emphasizes futurity and narrative experimentation, while also challenging linear conceptions of time. The research project is led by Professor Irmy Schweiger at the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. Other project members from Stockholm University include: Professor Victoria Fareld , Department of Culture and Aesthetics, Associate Professor Olena Jansson , Department of Slavic and Baltic Languages, Associate Professor Anna Jörngården Galili , Department of Culture and Aesthetics, Postdoctoral Researcher Alice Sundman , Department of English, Professor Joakim Wrethed , Department of English, and Postdoctoral Researcher Maria Ioana Zirra , Department of English. The project also involves several international researchers, such as: Dr. Richard Crownshaw , Goldsmiths, University of London, Professor Elisabeth Herrmann , University of Warwick, Professor Justyna Tabaszewska , Polish Academy of Sciences, Professor Emerita Andrea Riemenschnitter , University of Zurich, Professor Pieter Vermeulen , KU Leuven, and Professor Jenny Wüstenberg , Nottingham Trent University.

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