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On Collective Memory and the Battle over History with David Mixter

Smaller Narratives for a Larger World
Smaller Narratives for a Larger World
On Collective Memory and the Battle over History with David Mixter
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“Why do we need gift shops at these kinds of solemn sites?.. It’s important for people to see these places, to remember them… for the Holocaust to be thought about, and contemplated especially in the face of attempts to create alternate strains of history that deny its existence, deny the motivation of those who perpetuated that violence. On the other hand, we as a modern society seem to be incapable of avoiding an opportunity to make a buck.”

In this episode, David and Cole discuss the importance of reconstructing the past, the Holocaust museum gift shop, “new” traditions and so much more. David brings insights to the archeological process, collective cultural memory and heritage, and how there is never one true version of the past.

Trained as an archaeologist, David Mixter is Research Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies and Anthropology at Binghamton University. His scholarship focuses on the social implications of cities that have been constructed, lived in, and reconstructed over hundreds or thousands of years. How do these long-lived landscapes construct collective remembering, social inequality, and urban power structures? He is field director of the Actuncan Archaeological Project, a research collaborative studying the pre-Colonial Maya city of Actuncan in western Belize.

 

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