Personal Histories

These ten memoir essays form a collage of family history, teaching, and reflections on misremembering and romance. They begin in Germany, using letters, diaries and photographs to portray Filene's father, mother and her three sisters as they grew up in the effervescent 1920s, only to be scattered by Hitler to London and New York. The narrative spotlight then follows Filene's own journey from 1950s certainties into 1960s tumult. He acquired a Harvard Ph.D. and taught U.S. history at Lincoln University, Missouri, and then the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. At the same time, he participated in the civil rights movement, flirted with the counterculture, left his marriage and dreamed of being an artist in Paris. In the last four essays, he reflects upon what he has learned about the danger of romance, the quirks of memory, and the thrill of making fine-art photographs. In the last essay, he discovers love and meaning amid Trump's presidency and the pandemic.