The formative past and the formation of the future

The formative past and the formation of the future. Recent decades have seen a steady flow of scholarship on collective remembering and formation of shared identities. This volume contributes to this conversation in four ways. First, it takes part in theoretical discussion on collective remembering by targeting specific theorems and exploring these in analyses of specific, historical source records. Secondly, essays in the volume reflect a rich underlying cross disciplinary discussion, which is certainly required for these complex phenomena. Thirdly, a recurring focus in the collection are instances of collec.tive remembering in religious traditions and settings. Such instances, it is argued, are often .memory savvy" and thus pro.vide interesting case studies. Finally, the volume attempts to understand the dynamics and interplay between past, present, and future in processes of collective remembering and identity formation.