Remembering Hope

Abstract This book explores how protest survives in the stories told about it, offering a new account of collective memory centered on active citizenship. How does the memory of past protest feed into new mobilizations? How is hope in the possibility of making the world a better place communicated across time with the help of media and cultural forms? Remembering Hope addresses these questions with reference to a range of cases from late nineteenth-century socialism to today’s climate activism, using the shape-shifting memory of the Paris Commune as a unifying thread. It treats a wide variety of cultural genres, from periodicals, calendars, and archives to photography, graffiti, and documentaries. In the process, it shows that activism and cultural memory are deeply entwined, hence challenging the assumption that looking back can never be progressive. Above all, it demonstrates how culturally mediated memories become carriers of hope by mobilizing a readiness to act irrespective of the outcome.