ARTICLES Creating a new discipline of memory studies

The multidisciplinary field of memory studies combines intellectual strands from many domains, including (but not limited to) anthropology, education, literature, history, phil-osophy, psychology and sociology. Our article has four parts. We first consider defin-itions of memory and note that the single term itself is not particularly useful. Rather, scholars must specify the type or variety of memory under investigation. Second, we consider the breadth of memory studies and briefly survey disciplines in addition to those listed above that may prove interested parties to the new field. Third, we argue that the field of memory studies is just emerging, and that its proper development will require creation of a systematic set of methodological tools (qualitative and quantitative) that may be borrowed from various social sciences and adapted to new purposes. Finally, we describe two undergraduate programs in memory studies that have been developed at Washington University in St. Louis, USA and that might be used as models for similar programs. Key words collective memory; program in memory studies; science of memory; varieties of memory The founding of this new journal recognizes the emerging fi eld of memory studies, one that draws on a range of disciplinary traditions to examine the forms and functions of representing the past. The concept of memory is used by scholars in many different dis-ciplines and in a multitude of senses. On the one hand, interest and excitement about memory can provide a unifying theme, as exemplifi ed in this journal, but on the other hand, the bewildering diversity of uses of the term may lead to miscommunication and frustration. Scholars from different disciplines may use the term memory (and related con-cepts) in quite different senses. Memory studies is currently a multidisciplinary fi eld; our hope for the future is that it will become interdisciplinary