Digitalization of Memory Practices – China, Serbia, and Beyond

Book talk and panel discussion.

How do digital platforms shape what societies remember – and who gets to control those memories? Digital technologies have transformed memory-making, enabling new forms of personal and grassroots remembrance while also opening up new arenas for state and platform intervention.

This panel discussion explores the digitalization of memory practices and its implications for societies. The discussion starts from China, where contestations between a curating state and active netizens are particularly pronounced, then moves on to Serbia, and beyond country-specific perspectives to reflect on the broader implications of digitalization for collective memory.

Maximilian Mayer, associate professor of International Relations and Global Politics of Technology at University of Bonn, will introduce the recently published volume The Digitalisation of Memory Practices in China: Contesting the Curating State (Bristol University Press, 2025).

Panel inputs

• Maximilian Mayer (University of Bonn): "The Power of Making Collective Memories: Understanding the curating state in China and its limits”
• Elena Meyer-Clement (ToRS): “Curating Memories for the Future: Remembering country life on Chinese TikTok”
• Tea Sindbæk Andersen (ToRS): “Remembering War Heroine Milunka Savić Online and Offline: The First World War as hybrid memory in Serbia”
• Bo Ærenlund Sørensen (ToRS)

No registration necessary.