Susan A. Crane

Susan A. Crane is Associate Professor of Modern European History at the University of Arizona. Her research focuses on thematic issues of collective memory, historical consciousness and historical photography, particularly in modern German history.

Yes, I really wrote a whole book about Nothing. It's about a very particular kind of Nothing, the one that happened in the past. I like to think that Nothing is happening all the time, including right now as you read this, because that's how we start remembering the past, when we are thinking about Nothing else. When we wonder why something has changed -- or not; why Nothing is left of what we once had; why Nothing happened when really, something should have, to correct an injustice; or why Nothing happened at all and that was just boring. All of these kinds of Nothing tell us something about why we care to remember the past at all. That's where histories of memories, and the fun, begins.