Abstract

The theory of cultural memory can be read as a theory of culture, identifying a memory function besides other cultural functions, and as a theory of memory, introducing cultural memory as a third aspect of memory besides individual and social memory. As a form of memory, culture provides orientation in a multimillennial temporal horizon and a specific universe of meaning, as well as a concept of—however diversified and heterogeneous—individual and collective identity. It is about knowledge with an “identity-index” as opposed to pure, “objective” knowledge. The concept of cultural memory is distinct from individual and social or “communicative” memory by its existing also in disembodied form. Here we must distinguish between “canon” (active, circulating memory) and “archive” (what is stored away but may be reactivated any time).