Olick is a major figure in cultural sociology and social theory and has made significant contributions to the interdisciplinary field of memory studies.
"[1] As Olick and his colleagues have documented,[2] the concept has a long history, but is most commonly traced back to Maurice Halbwachs, a student of Émile Durkheim.
[3] His empirical work focuses on Holocaust memory in postwar Germany, tracing the ways in which state leaders grapple with the difficult legacy of the Nazi past.
"[4] As Olick puts it: "Combining insights from the linguistic philosopher J. L. Austin and from Karl Marx, I was motivated by the analytical principle that people do things with words, but not in circumstances of their own choosing.
Taking inspiration from these perspectives, but also moving beyond them, Olick draws on Mikhail Bakhtin, Norbert Elias, and Pierre Bourdieu to formulate a "process-relational" approach to culture.