Research lines and the origin of the sociology of memory

Abstract

It is now more than fourty years that the study of memory has become a real sector of sociology with its paradigms and its research methodology. The paper outlines some lines of contemporary research starting from the legacy of what is commonly called the founding father of the sociology of memory: Maurice Halbwachs. For this epigon?( allievo) of Durkheim, in fact, memory is a social fact that takes shape in space and time and which is connected to the needs of the present. The analysis between dream and memory is significant for distancing his research from Bergson and from a subjectivistic cultural trend of memory.