The Labour of Memory: Memorial Culture and 7/7

by Matthew Allen

The Labour of Memory presents empirical research on commemoration and the 2005 London bombings. The study proceeds with the view that remembrance involves work. This shifts the focus from established topics in memory studies to less explored aspects of memorial culture, including political economy and experience. Matthew Allen undertakes close readings of extracts from interviews with organisers and participants of 7/7 memory work. Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault, Giles Deleuze, Giorgio Agamben and Hannah Arendt, he considers how issues of autonomy, subjectivity and affect shape practices of remembrance.
Allen studies cosmologies of memorial culture and finds that remembrance practices present contemporary opportunities for working upon and caring for the soul.

170 pages, Hardcover

First published October 29, 2014