NITMES (Network in Transnational Memory Studies) was a collaborative project among some of the leading scholars in cultural memory studies that ran from 2012 to 2015.
The Network was initiated by Professor Ann Rigney of Utrecht University. The project’s goal was to intensify collaboration between a number of key players in the field of cultural memory studies and lay the foundations for new longer-term projects. In a series of international workshops and through regular exchanges between the participant institutions, NITMES sought to re-orient the conceptualisation and study of cultural memory away from the national frameworks in which it has long been studied to the transnational frameworks (European, regional, global) in which memory narratives are currently produced, circulated, and debated.

NITMES aimed to find new ways of conceptualising and studying cultural memory beyond the framework of the nation-state. In doing so, it provided tools for understanding identity and heritage that are better fitted to the entanglements of the contemporary world. 
NITMES was particularly concerned with the role of media and the arts in the emergence and dissemination of ‘travelling’  narratives and commemorative practices.

In addition to Rigney the other founding members of the initiative are Aleida Assmann from Konstanz, Astrid Erll from Frankfurt, Rosanne Kennedy from the Australian National University, Michael Rothberg from Illinois and Barbara Törnquist-Plewa from Lund.
It was funded by NWO (The Dutch Research Council) and the participating institutions.

One of the outcomes of NITMES was NITBITS: a series of 11 short videoclips intended for use in the classroom on key concepts in memory studies by members of NITMES.

Click here for NITBITS.