ABSTRACT
Memory, commemoration, and historical reenactment are closely related to one another. In a theoretical sense, all three terms refer to ways of representing the past in the present, both on an individual as well as a collective level. Yet this relationship can also be understood in a practical sense: the motivation of reenactors to perform past events is often deeply rooted in a need to preserve memory. This ranges from remembering ancestors and their communities to the commemoration of specific historical events, including battles, encampments, massacres, and disasters. Thus, it could tentatively be argued that reenactment is a bodily expression of memory situated in a concrete space in the present. However obvious the connection between memory and reenactment might seem, it remains a challenge to precisely define the relationship between reenactment as a social practice and the theoretical discourse on memory. While reenactment has become an object of systematic study only during the last two decades, the study of memory has been flourishing for the past four decades in the humanities. The field of memory studies has been institutionalized and incorporated into teaching programs and have developed a complex theoretical and interdisciplinary framework. Scholarly interest in reenactment has also increased, and reenactment studies are developing into an autonomous field. This entry will describe the different theoretical approaches to memory and explain differences and overlaps with the emerging field of reenactment studies.
