Farewell Lecture Ann Rigney “Protest Memory and Changing the Future”

On Friday 6 December, Professor of Comparative Literature Ann Rigney will bid farewell to Utrecht University with her final lecture ‘Protest Memory: How Narrating the Past Can Change the Future’.

Stories about protest movements

Rigney bases her lecture on her recent project Remembering Activism and explores the ways in which protest movements, rarely commemorated in public monuments and often ending in defeat, are nevertheless remembered over time in stories that recall hope in the possibility of change. Trees, and how they are defended, will figure prominently in her talk.

Ann Rigney

Ann Rigney has been Professor of Comparative Literature since 2003 and was head of the Department of Languages, Literature, and Communication between 2017 and 2019. Since she came to Utrecht in 1988, she has taught many courses in the field of literary studies and coordinated the Research Master in Comparative Literary Studies.

Rigney specialises in collective memory and the ways in which it is culturally produced through storytelling. She is the founder of the Utrecht Forum for Memory Studies and the author of many books. In her publications, she has applied her expertise in narrative and collective memory to topics as diverse as public apologies, transitional justice, public monuments and, most recently, social movements.

Her farewell lecture will be followed by a reception.

To attend the lecture online, click here.