Unsettled Debts: 1968 and the Problem of Historical Memory| Unsettled Debts: 1968 and the Problem of Historical Memory—Introduction

Abstract

How might scholars of communication revisit the “spirit of ’68” without succumbing to distorted forms of memory such as nostalgia and myth? This brief essay introduces the contents of “Unsettled Debts: 1968 and the Problem of Historical Memory,” a Special Section that addresses the problem of historical memory as such by analyzing media objects and moments from 1968 that have been activated in the service of contemporary social movements, obscured through superficial citation, or omitted from the dominant record altogether. With recommendations for orienting to the past in the interest of decisive action in the present, this section will be of value to scholars of archival method, media activism, social movements, antiracism, feminism, internationalism, and critical theory.