Histos Supplement 11 (2020) ix–xliv INTRODUCTION: COLLECTIVE MEMORY IN ANCIENT GREEK CULTURE: CONCEPTS, MEDIA, AND SOURCES * Maria Fragoulaki 1. Memory Studies and the Present Volume ultural or collective memory defies a stable definition. It can be viewed as an interdisciplinary space where different and at times overlapping terms, media, and methodologies speak to each other, casting new light on the multifaceted phenomenon of collective remember- ing or ‘the interplay of present and past in socio-cultural contexts’. 1 In the study of ancient societies this interdisciplinary dialogue can be particularly illuminating in exploring the dynamic and negotiable character of the memory of the past. Memory can be better observed through the symbiotic relationship of a variety of media (texts, objects, places, forms) and through different periods and genres, as a process of constant redefinition and reconfiguration, based not only on storing, inscribing and recording, but also on forgetting, effacing, destroying, and losing for ever. Τhe chapters of the present volume explore aspects of the shaping (and reshaping) of collective memory in ancient Greece, viewing it as a holistic cultural phenomenon, mobile, transformative and transformable. The volume contains different types of sources, media of memory and theoretical approaches, exploring boundaries, dialogues and interactions: literary works (Homer, Pindar, Herodotus, Thucydides, and significant intertexts), oral traditions and folktale, inscriptions, material culture, funerary epigrams and statues, ethnography. Its chronological scope encompasses the Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic periods. Some chapters (Pelling, Fragoulaki, Agócs, Baragwanath, Shear) zoom into a specific source (literary work or inscrip- tion), whereas others (Skinner, Low) provide more general and all- encompassing discussions. Themes and frameworks of memory explored in this volume are: kleos (‘fame’) and commemoration; praise as memory and media of praise; intertextuality and/as memory; the relationship between historiography, mythography, and ethnography; the interaction between * I use the following abbreviations: CT I–III = Hornblower (1991–2008); PMG = Page (1962). 1 Erll (2008) 2. C