Urban Memory and Visual Culture in Berlin

Dr Simon Ward is Lecturer in the School of Modern Languages at Durham University, where he teaches German literature and visual culture.

"The scope of Ward’s arguments exceeds the specific context of Berlin and presents wider reflections on the relationship between the transformation of the city through cycles of destruction and rebuilding, and the ongoing need to address obsolescence and forgetting by creating a presence of the past. Thus, Urban Memory and Visual Culture in Berlin is an essential book for readers interested in the relationship between time, place, and the city, and the distinctive trajectories of urban memory in postwar Berlin.'- Sandra Jasper, University of Cambridge, German Studies Review Volume 41, No. 1, February 2018 Review [in German] on literaturkritik.de by Stephan Ehrig: http://literaturkritik.de/public/rezension.php?rez_id=23566. "This book is highly recommended to all those who look for a new comprehensive approach toward postwar urban memory cultures in Berlin. It combines the implementation of accepted theories with a visual culture approach on the built environment and photography/film“simultaneously moving beyond the East-West divide as enshrined in the traditional 1945/1961/1989 narrative." - Jan Musekamp, H-Urban, H-Net Reviews, February 2018. Read the full review here.

• Acknowledgements Introduction: Berlin and the question of 'urban memory' Chapter One: Remembering the 'Murdered City': Berlin, West and East, 1957-1974 Chapter Two: Place Memory Work in East and West Berlin 1975-1983 Chapter Three: The Remembered City on Display 1983-1994 Chapter Four: In Search of a City: Urban Memory in Unified Berlin 1994-2009 Conclusion: The Collectives of Contemporary Urban Memory, 2012