New publication! Memory and the Language of Contention

Edited by Sophie van den Elzen and Ann Rigney

How does language shape the memory of activism? And how do memories, of hope or of repression, inflect the language used by social movements in the present day?

This edited volume, featuring international scholars across literary and cultural studies, anthropology, legal studies, and linguistics, shows how memories of activism live in the medium of language. It contends that working with, and working on, the historical resonance of words and linguistic commonplaces is a central feature of political contention.

This book is available open access. You can download it here.

Dr. Sophie van den Elzen teaches modern literature at Utrecht University and researches cultural memories of activism and language as a medium for social change. She is the author of Slavery in the International Women’s Movement, 1832-1914: Memory Work and the Legacy of Abolitionism (CUP, 2025).

Ann Rigney is professor of Comparative Literature, Utrecht University. She directed the ERC-Funded project Remembering Activism (2019-2024) and recently co-edited The Visual Memory of Protest (2023). She is finishing a new book called Remembering Hope.