Another month, another book review. I find that these are a good way to keep your critical eye in  when working on a larger time consuming publication or  acclimatising to a new discipline and research project. In this case it seems the upturn in my reviewing activity is linked to my move to Umeå and Digital Sociology coupled with the necessity to prioritise new primary research and the completion of the final draft of my forthcoming book. The last time I did this many reviews was when I was writing the first draft of that book as my PhD thesis.

Reviewing Anna Reading and Tamar Katriel’s Cultural Memories of Nonviolent Struggles – Powerful Times for Media, Culture and Society has been really useful in helping me to orientate my efforts within an emerging thread of scholarship that takes more seriously the interface of memory, social movement and social media studies. Perhaps, the major difference between my current work and that of the contributors to Reading and Katriel’s volume is their focus on nonviolent struggles whereas I am interested in more militant memories. I hope that some of these differences and their consequences are teased out in an event I am co-organisng with Anastasia Kavada to take place at the University of Westminster and in collaboration with the Centre for the Study of Cutural Memory in early June.  I will blog about this event more when I find time but for now those interested can find my review here on MCS’s OnlineFirst section. As always if you don’t have access and you would like a copy just drop me an email.