Abstract

Posterity is the waiting horizon for today’s actions, the dimension in which a future is built in memory and for memory: posterity are those who will have to remember us, those who will continue the lesson we have left. In short, the dimension in which the future and the past not only touch each other, but inter-define each other. Starting from the observation that in the studies on cultural memory the category of posterity has never taken on particular importance, the essay tries to highlight its heuristic advantages (especially in bringing to the fore the manipulative dimension of memory and the negotiation between authorial and receptive requests). To give substance to the theoretical reflections, three cases of observation are brought: the Diary of Anne Frank, The night by Wiesel, If this is a man by Primo Levi.