Introduction

Beginning with a discussion of a forgotten pandemic memorial in Exeter&s;s Northernhay Gardens, UK, this chapter lays out the scholarly context and conceptual foundations of this book. Early academic treatments of the COVID-19 pandemic&s;s societal impacts are considered along with the wider landscape of memory studies. Attention is given to how debates about public remembering in Holocaust studies and related areas can be usefully brought into dialogue with discussions of the pandemic. The chapter considers why it is that pandemics are more difficult for a society to remember in comparison to war and violence, and whether there can ever be an ideal moment to begin memorialising COVID-19&s;s impacts in Britain.