Cultural memory

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Cultural memory is a concept that draws heavily on European social anthropology, especially German and French. It is not well established in the English-speaking world. It posits that memory is not just an individual, private experience but also part of the collective domain, which both shapes the future and our understanding of the past. It has become a topic in both historiography (Pierre Nora, Richard Terdiman) and cultural studies (e.g., Susan Stewart). These emphasize cultural memory’s process (historiography) and its implications and objects (cultural studies), respectively.

Contents

Two schools of thought have emerged: one articulates that the present shapes our understanding of the past, while the other assumes that the past has an influence on our present behavior. [1] [2] It has, however, been pointed out (most notably by Guy Beiner) that these two approaches are not necessarily mutually exclusive. [3]

Historiographical approach

Time

Crucial in understanding cultural memory as a phenomenon is the distinction between memory and history. Pierre Nora (1931–) put forward this distinction, pinpointing a niche between history and memory.

Scholars disagree as to when to locate the moment representation "took over". Nora points to the formation of European nation states. For Richard Terdiman, the French Revolution is the breaking point: the change of a political system, together with the emergence of industrialization and urbanization, made life more complex than ever before. This not only resulted in an increasing difficulty for people to understand the new society in which they were living, but also, as this break was so radical, people had trouble relating to the past before the revolution. In this situation, people no longer had an implicit understanding of their past. In order to understand the past, it had to be represented through history. As people realized that history was only one version of the past, they became more and more concerned with their own cultural heritage (in French called patrimoine) which helped them shape a collective and national identity. In search for an identity to bind a country or people together, governments have constructed collective memories in the form of commemorations which should bring and keep together minority groups and individuals with conflicting agendas. What becomes clear is that the obsession with memory coincides with the fear of forgetting and the aim for authenticity.

However, more recently[ when? ] questions have arisen whether there ever was a time in which "pure", non-representational memory existed – as Nora in particular put forward. Scholars like Tony Bennett rightly point out that representation is a crucial precondition for human perception in general: pure, organic and objective memories can never be witnessed as such.[ citation needed ]

Space

It is because of a sometimes too contracted conception of memory as just a temporal phenomenon, that the concept of cultural memory has often been exposed to misunderstanding. Nora pioneered connecting memory to physical, tangible locations, nowadays globally known and incorporated as lieux de mémoire. He certifies these in his work as mises en abîme; entities that symbolize a more complex piece of our history. Although he concentrates on a spatial approach to remembrance, Nora already points out in his early historiographical theories that memory goes beyond just tangible and visual aspects, thereby making it flexible and in flux. This rather problematic notion, also characterized by Terdiman as the "omnipresence" of memory, implies that for instance on a sensory level, a smell or a sound can become of cultural value, due to its commemorative effect.[ citation needed ]

Either in visualized or abstracted form, one of the largest complications of memorializing our past is the inevitable fact that it is absent. Every memory we try to reproduce becomes – as Terdiman states – a "present past".[ citation needed ] This impractical desire for recalling what is gone forever brings to surface a feeling of nostalgia, noticeable in many aspects of daily life but most specifically in cultural products.

Cultural studies approach

Embodied memory

Recently, interest has developed in the area of 'embodied memory'. According to Paul Connerton the body can also be seen as a container, or carrier of memory, of two different types of social practice; inscribing and incorporating. The former includes all activities which are helpful for storing and retrieving information: photographing, writing, taping, etc. The latter implies skilled performances which are sent by means of physical activity, like a spoken word or a handshake. These performances are accomplished by the individual in an unconscious manner, and one might suggest that this memory carried in gestures and habits, is more authentic than 'indirect' memory via inscribing.[ citation needed ]

The first conceptions of embodied memory, in which the past is 'situated' in the body of the individual, derive from late nineteenth century thoughts of evolutionists like Jean Baptiste Lamarck and Ernst Haeckel. Lamarck’s law of inheritance of acquired characteristics and Haeckel's theory of ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny, suggested that the individual is a summation of the whole history that had preceded him or her. (However, neither of these concepts is accepted by current science.)

Objects

Memory can, for instance be contained in objects. Souvenirs and photographs inhabit an important place in the cultural memory discourse. Several authors stress the fact that the relationship between memory and objects has changed since the nineteenth century. Stewart, for example, claims that our culture has changed from a culture of production to a culture of consumption. Products, according to Terdiman, have lost 'the memory of their own process' now, in times of mass-production and commodification. At the same time, he claims, the connection between memories and objects has been institutionalized and exploited in the form of trade in souvenirs. These specific objects can refer to either a distant time (an antique) or a distant (exotic) place. Stewart explains how our souvenirs authenticate our experiences and how they are a survival sign of events that exist only through the invention of narrative.

This notion can easily be applied to another practice that has a specific relationship with memory: photography. Catherine Keenan explains how the act of taking a picture can underline the importance of remembering, both individually and collectively. Also she states that pictures cannot only stimulate or help memory, but can rather eclipse the actual memory – when we remember in terms of the photograph – or they can serve as a reminder of our propensity to forget. Others have argued that photographs can be incorporated in memory and therefore supplement it.

Edward Chaney has coined the term 'Cultural Memorials' to describe both generic types, such as obelisks or sphinxes, and specific objects, such as the Obelisk of Domitian, Abu Simbel or 'The Young Memnon', which have meanings attributed to them that evolve over time. Readings of ancient Egyptian artefacts by Herodotus, Pliny, the Collector Earl of Arundel, 18th-century travellers, Napoleon, Shelley, William Bankes, Harriet Martineau, Florence Nightingale or Sigmund and Lucian Freud, reveal a range of interpretations variously concerned with reconstructing the intentions of their makers.

Historian Guy Beiner argued that "studies of cultural memory tend to privilege literary and artistic representations of the past. As such, they often fail to engage with the social dynamics of memory. Monuments, artworks, novels, poems, plays and countless other productions of cultural memory do not in themselves remember. Their function as aides-mémoire is subject to popular reception. We need to be reminded that remembrance, like trauma, is formulated in human consciousness and that this is shared through social interaction". [4]

Between culture and memory: experience

As a contrast to the sometimes generative nature of previously mentioned studies on cultural memory, an alternative 'school' with its origins in gender and postcolonial studies underscored the importance of the individual and particular memories of those unheard in most collective accounts: women, minorities, homosexuals, etc.

Experience, whether it be lived or imagined, relates mutually to culture and memory. It is influenced by both factors, but determines these at the same time. Culture influences experience by offering mediated perceptions that affect it, as Frigga Haug states by opposing conventional theory on femininity to lived memory.[ citation needed ]In turn, as historians such as Neil Gregor have argued, experience affects culture, since individual experience becomes communicable and therefore collective.[ citation needed ] A memorial, for example, can represent a shared sense of loss.

The influence of memory is made obvious in the way the past is experienced in present conditions, for – according to Paul Connerton, for instance – it can never be eliminated from human practice.[ citation needed ] On the other hand, it is perception driven by a longing for authenticity that colors memory, which is made clear by a desire to experience the real (Susan Stewart).[ citation needed ] Experience, therefore, is substantial to the interpretation of culture as well as memory, and vice versa.

Traumatic memory transmission

Traumatic transmissions are articulated over time not only through social sites or institutions but also through cultural, political, and familial generations, a key social mechanism of continuity and renewal across human groups, cohorts, and communities. The intergenerational transmission of collective trauma is a well-established phenomenon in the scholarly literature on psychological, familial, sociocultural, and biological modes of transmission. Ordinary processes of remembering and transmission can be understood as cultural practices by which people recognize a lineage, a debt to their past, and through which "they express moral continuity with that past." [5] The intergenerational preservation, transformation, and transmutation of traumatic memory such as of genocide tragic historical legacy can be assimilated, redeemed, and transformed. [6]

Studies

Recent research and theorizing in cultural memory has emphasized the importance of considering the content of cultural identities in understanding the study of social relations and predicting cultural attitudes. In 2008, the first issue of quarterly journal Memory Studies concerning subjects of and relating to cultural memory was published by SAGE.

Other approaches

Jan Assmann in his book "Das kulturelle Gedächtnis", drew further upon Maurice Halbwachs's theory on collective memory. [7] Other scholars like Andreas Huyssen have identified a general interest in memory and mnemonics since the early 1980s, illustrated by phenomena as diverse as memorials and retro-culture. Some might see cultural memory as becoming more democratic, due to liberalization and the rise of new media. Others see cultural memory as remaining concentrated in the hands of corporations and states.[ citation needed ]

See also

Related Research Articles

The term collective trauma calls attention to the "psychological reactions to a traumatic event that affect[s] an entire society." Collective trauma does not only represent a historical fact or event, but is a collective memory of an awful event that happened to that group of people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Forgetting</span> Loss or modification of information encoded in an individuals memory

Forgetting or disremembering is the apparent loss or modification of information already encoded and stored in an individual's short or long-term memory. It is a spontaneous or gradual process in which old memories are unable to be recalled from memory storage. Problems with remembering, learning and retaining new information are a few of the most common complaints of older adults. Studies show that retention improves with increased rehearsal. This improvement occurs because rehearsal helps to transfer information into long-term memory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sociology of knowledge</span> Field of study

The sociology of knowledge is the study of the relationship between human thought, the social context within which it arises, and the effects that prevailing ideas have on societies. It is not a specialized area of sociology. Instead, it deals with broad fundamental questions about the extent and limits of social influences on individuals' lives and the social-cultural basis of our knowledge about the world. The sociology of knowledge has a subclass and a complement. Its subclass is sociology of scientific knowledge. Its complement is the sociology of ignorance.

Cultural history records and interprets past events involving human beings through the social, cultural, and political milieu of or relating to the arts and manners that a group favors. Jacob Burckhardt (1818–1897) helped found cultural history as a discipline. Cultural history studies and interprets the record of human societies by denoting the various distinctive ways of living built up by a group of people under consideration. Cultural history involves the aggregate of past cultural activity, such as ceremony, class in practices, and the interaction with locales.It combines the approaches of anthropology and history to examine popular cultural traditions and cultural interpretations of historical experience.

Pascal Robert Boyer is an American cognitive anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist of French origin, mostly known for his work in the cognitive science of religion. He taught at the University of Cambridge for eight years, before taking up the position of Henry Luce Professor of Individual and Collective Memory at Washington University in St. Louis, where he teaches classes on evolutionary psychology and anthropology. He was a Guggenheim Fellow and a visiting professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara and the University of Lyon, France. He studied philosophy and anthropology at University of Paris and Cambridge, with Jack Goody, working on memory constraints on the transmission of oral literature. Boyer is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Collective memory refers to the shared pool of memories, knowledge and information of a social group that is significantly associated with the group's identity. The English phrase "collective memory" and the equivalent French phrase "la mémoire collective" appeared in the second half of the nineteenth century. The philosopher and sociologist Maurice Halbwachs analyzed and advanced the concept of the collective memory in the book Les cadres sociaux de la mémoire (1925). Collective memory can be constructed, shared, and passed on by large and small social groups. Examples of these groups can include nations, generations, communities, among others. Collective memory has been a topic of interest and research across a number of disciplines, including psychology, sociology, history, philosophy, and anthropology.

Paul James Connerton was a British social anthropologist best known for his work on social and body memory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Historic house museum</span> House that has been transformed into a museum

A historic house museum is a house of historic significance that is preserved as a museum. Historic furnishings may be displayed in a way that reflects their original placement and usage in a home. Historic house museums are held to a variety of standards, including those of the International Council of Museums. Houses are transformed into museums for a number of different reasons. For example, the homes of famous writers are frequently turned into writer's home museums to support literary tourism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sociology of human consciousness</span> Aspect of sociology

The sociology of human consciousness or the sociology of consciousness uses the theories and methodology of sociology to explore and examine consciousness.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guy Beiner</span> Israeli historian

Guy Beiner is an Israeli-born historian of the late-modern period with particular expertise in Irish history.

Memorialization generally refers to the process of preserving memories of people or events. It can be a form of address or petition, or a ceremony of remembrance or commemoration.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jan Assmann</span> German Egyptologist (born 1938)

Johann Christoph "Jan" Assmann is a German Egyptologist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aleida Assmann</span> German professor of English and Literary Studies

Aleida Assmann is a German professor of English and Literary Studies, who studied Egyptology and whose work has focused on cultural anthropology and Cultural and Communicative Memory.

Family folklore is the branch of folkloristics concerned with the study and use of folklore and traditional culture transmitted within an individual family group. This includes craft goods produced by family members or memorabilia that have been saved as reminders of family events. It includes family photos, photo albums, along with bundles of other pages held for posterity such as certificates, letters, journals, notes, and shopping lists. Family sayings and stories which recount true events are retold as a means of maintaining a common family identity. Family customs are performed, modified, sometimes forgotten, created or resurrected with great frequency. Each time the result is to define and solidify the perception of the family as unique.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marianne Hirsch</span>

Marianne Hirsch is the William Peterfield Trent Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and Professor in the Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality.

A lieu de mémoire is a physical place or object which acts as container of memory. They are thus a form of memorialisation related to collective memory, stating that certain places, objects or events can have special significance related to group's remembrance. It is a term used in heritage and collective memory studies popularised by the French historian Pierre Nora in his three-volume collection Les Lieux de Mémoire. Nora description them as “complex things. At once natural and artificial, simple and ambiguous, concrete and abstract, they are lieux—places, sites, causes—in three senses—material, symbolic and functional”

Erinnerungskultur, or Culture of Remembrance, is the interaction of an individual or a society with their past and history.

Memory studies is an academic field studying the use of memory as a tool for remembering the past. It emerged as a new and different way for scholars to think about past events at the end of the 20th century. Memory is the past made present and is a contemporary phenomenon, something that, while concerned with the past, happens in the present; and second, that memory is a form of work, working through, labor, or action.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National memory</span> Form of collective memory defined by shared experiences and culture

National memory is a form of collective memory defined by shared experiences and culture. It is an integral part to national identity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ann Rigney</span> Irish/Dutch cultural scholar

Ann Rigney is an Irish/Dutch cultural scholar and Professor of Comparative Literature at Utrecht University. Her research focuses on the transnational interaction between narrative and cultural memory and is authoritative in the field of Memory Studies.

References

  1. Schwartz, Barry. 1991. "Social Change and Collective Memory: The Democratization of George Washington." American Sociological Review 56: 221-236
  2. Schwartz, B. (2010). 'Culture and Collective Memory: Two Comparative Perspectives'. In. Hall, J. R.; Grindstaff, L. and Lo, M-C. Handbook of Cultural Sociology. London: Routledge.
  3. Guy Beiner, Remembering the Year of the French: Irish Folk History and Social Memory (University of Wisconsin Press, 2007, pp. 29-30.
  4. Guy Beiner, “Memory Too Has a History” in Dublin Review of Books (2015). See also Guy Beiner, “Troubles with Remembering; or, The Seven Sins of Memory Studies” in Dublin Review of Books (2017).
  5. Fried Amilivia, Gabriela (2016). State Terrorism and the Politics of Memory in Latin America: Transmissions Across The Generations of Post-Dictatorship Uruguay, 1984–2004. Amherst, New York: Cambria Press. pp. 24, 26. ISBN   9781604979190.
  6. Adelman, A. (1995). "Traumatic memory and the intergenerational transmission of Holocaust narratives". The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child. 50: 343–367. doi:10.1080/00797308.1995.11822409. ISSN   0079-7308. PMID   7480412.
  7. Assmann, J. (1992) Das Kulturelle Gedächtnis: Schrift, Erinnerung und Politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen. Munich: Verlag C.H. Beck

Further reading