The Dictionary of collective memory is a project about the identification, description and analysis of notions used by stories, representations and management of memory of political and social traumas in Europe and America in the 20th and 21st centuries. Through an accurate research, it provides an important taxonomic and descriptive work of the expressions and manifestations of public memory and contemporary political trauma. At the same time, it can help to expand scientific knowledge of social processes upon which this public memory, its management and consequences have been built. With more than 400 words, the Dictionary will focus on America and Europe but will also include references to Asia, Africa and Oceania. It will be shaped upon articles, boxes, annexes and indexes and will encompass the end of the World War II and the present.
The project has been designed and managed by the International Research Group on Memory and Society, a group of 15 researchers affiliated with different European and American universities. This group has carried out several joint research projects in previous years on the social processes regarding the construction of the collective memory from political traumas in Europe and America and is coordinated by professor Ricard Vinyes of the Contemporary History Department at the University of Barcelona. It counts with the collaboration of some 200 experts such as Alessandro Portelli (La Sapienza, Roma); Nancy Berthier (Paris-Sorbonne); Marta Marín Dòmine (Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada ); Ludmila da Silva Catela (Universidad de Córdoba, Argentina); Valentina Rozas Krause (Universidad Diego Portales, Chile); Elizabeth Jelin (IDES, Argentina); Jordi Font (Museu Memorial de l’Exili, Barcelona); Jordi Guixé (European Observatory on Memories, Barcelona); Montserrat Iniesta (Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada ); Xavier Domènech (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona); Claudia Wasserman (Universidade Federal de Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil); Isabel Piper Shafir (Universidad de Chile); and Caroline Silveira Bauer (Universidade Federal de Pelotas, Brazil ).