The members of the Frankfurt Memory Studies Platform deeply mourn Wulf Kansteiner, historian of the Holocaust, postwar Germany and Europe, and a field-shaping figure of memory studies. Wulf held not only one of the first professorships of “Memory Studies” (at Aarhus University), was founding editor of our field’s flagship journal Memory Studies (SAGE, since 2008) and president of the Memory Studies Association (2023-2025), but he was also one of the most astute theorists of collective memory.
His article “Finding Meaning in Memory” (2002) was first systematic consideration of the relation between history and memory, and between historians and scholars of memory. “Genealogy of a Category Mistake (2004)” drew attention to a major pitfall in memory research—that of category mistakes, not only in the study of trauma. His more recent work on agonistic memory, on digital memory, and on the challenges that generative AI poses for historians and memory researchers belongs to the most important and incisive contributions to current memory studies.
In Pursuit of German Memory: History, Television, and Politics after Auschwitz (2006) established Wulf Kansteiner as the foremost scholar on television and collective memory. It was in this capacity that he came to Frankfurt in January 2016 to deliver his “New Frontiers in Memory Studies” keynote lecture “The Politics of Migration Memory in Prime Time Crime”, which can be found in the FMSP Resources.
As a core member of the “Mnemonics” network, which organizes annual summer schools on memory studies (in Frankfurt: 2017 and 2026), Wulf has closely worked with, deeply impressed, and strongly inspired our international group of colleagues and several generations of Ph.D. students. We are all immensely grateful for many stimulating dialogues that led us to new, often provocative insights.
Wulf Kansteiner died, unexpectedly and far too early, on August 8, 2025, at the age of 60.
Read the Statement of Aarhus University, written by Hans Lauge Hansen.
Read the Statement of the Memory Studies Association.