Beyond National and European Frames: The Commune’s Memory in Films

My purpose will be to show how the Paris Commune’s memory could constitute an alternative mode of remembering, allowing us to understand several films and cultural productions that echo contemporary protest movements (Indignados, Occupy Wall Street…). Inspired by the work of Kristin Ross, and particularly her latest book Communal Luxury: The Political Imaginary of the Paris Commune (2015), I would like to suggest that the Commune’s memory constitutes a remembering template which doesn’t meet the predominant concepts developed by the Memory Studies (the trauma as central category, the Nation State as determinant framework…). Far from these concepts, what I call the Commune’s memory designates a memorial dynamic turned towards the future, characterized by an utopian dimension and that goes beyond the national and European frames to link micro and macro levels (the Commune articulated to the Universal Republic)