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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 June 2023
Reviewing the the so-called “Second Historian's Debate”, in which he had played such an important role, in February 2022, Michael Rothberg wrote that the opponents to his multidirectional approach were confusing history and memory. “Naturally, history and memory cannot be entirely separated from each other, but the target of my own work and also of Moses's catechism essay is public memory, not historical scholarship.” I understand what he means about not targeting the discipline. Rothberg and Moses are both aware that many positions controversial in the German public sphere have long been accepted in the academy, a distinction they clearly make in their critiques. But the comment did prompt me to wonder whether part of the problem of the debate is that Rothberg's and Moses's critique of memory practices is actually more about history than it lets on.
1 Michael Rothberg, “Reflections on a Year of Acrimonious Debate,” Stanford University Press blog (https://stanfordpress.typepad.com/blog/2022/03/reflections-on-a-year-of-acrimonious-discourse.html); German: “Holocaust und Kolonialismus. Wissenschaftler müssen vergleichen,” Berliner Zeitung, February 8, 2022.
2 Michael Rothberg, “Comparing Comparisons: From the ‘Historikerstreit’ to the Mbembe Affair,” Geschichte der Gegenwart, September 23, 2020.
3 Dirk Moses, “Der Katechismus der Deutschen,” Geschichte der Gegenwart, May 23, 2021.
4 Introduction to “The Hayden V. White Distinguished Annual Lecture: Debating Holocaust Memory: The Politics of Comparison in Contemporary Germany” (https://calendar.ucsc.edu/event/the_hayden_v_white_distinguished_annual_lecture_debating_holocaust_memory_the_politics_of_comparison_in_contemporary_germany#.YmA_E_NBzPY).
5 Rothberg, Michael, Multidirectional Memory (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009), 18Google Scholar.
6 Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 37.
7 Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory.
8 Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory.
9 Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 38.
10 Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 5.
11 Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 36.
12 Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 9.