Transcript Performing Memory

The Performance of
Memory-Commemorative
Practices, Bodily
Memory, Public Events
and Public Memorials
Professor:
Jan Marontate
Last Day: “Time Maps” & the
Social Shaping of Memory
Discourses
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Questions of relevance
Long and short term
making connections
identifiying
discontinuities
– Marking « starts » and
« finishes »
Celebration of Canadian citizenship
Origins, Collective
Memory & Priority
Claims
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Mnemonic “decapitation”
(Zerubavel)
Mnemonic Communities & time
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Not just people
Can be
practices, things
(like media),
events
Example of
divergence
model
Shaping, Association,assimilation
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Periods, epochs as mnemonic transformation of historical continuum
Separate groupings over same time (and sometimes same places)
Today
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Film screening– part of Spike Lee’s When
the levees broke
Discussion of ideas for projects
Short lecture ---Guest Speaker (cancelled)
was Kelly Stewart, curator of a new
exhibition at the New Westminster Museum
and Archives on historic Chinese-Canadian
communities
Finding Topics & Conducting
Research for Short Reports
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Seek other information on the subject represented.
– “facts”, opinions
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Critically analyze the “fit” between the depiction and
documentation about the subject represented.
– What does the depiction include and what is left out?
– Connections between current/past?
– What factors may have influenced the representation?
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Be sure to discuss both the object of remembrance
and the depiction of it in context.
“Site of Memory” & Social
Frameworks of Memory?
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"where [cultural]
memory crystallizes
and secretes itself"
(Nora 1989: 7)
– Places
– Concepts & practices
– Objects
Doorway of No Return. Gorée Island. Sénégal.
House of Slaves
places
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archives,
museums,
cathedrals,
palaces,
cemeteries, and
memorials;
concepts and practices
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commemorations,
generations,
Mottos
rituals;
objects
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inherited property
– mementos
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monuments
manuals,
emblems,
basic texts
symbols.
Recall: Non-places, Silencing:
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Memories of Amish
Schoolhouse Killings
– Site where children were
killed
– Destruction of Amish
Schoolhouse
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Handouts: critics
review new exhibitions
– « Vancouver
Flashback » (Street
scenes from the recent
past—)
How does the past shape the
present & future?
Schudson “Lives, Laws & Language. Commemorative
vs. non-commemorative forms of effective public
memory”
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Personally (lives, lived experience, oral
history)
Socially (laws, institutions, codes of ethics
etc.)
Culturally (language, symbolic systems)
The “person” as a carrier of
public memory
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1. Manifestations: personal
“careers” and life histories
as devices for accessing &
tracking changes
Processes:
– Prompting as context
– Disappearance of older
generations
– familiarity of new generations
with new “paradigms” rather
than “conversion”
– Commitments to old
paradigms vs. revisionism
Lessons “Learned” & Observing
change in Collective memory
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personal experience as guide (avoidance)
Example: Change in “language” has potential to alter
meaning
Observation of shifts in collective representations
through changes in language
Importance of temporal, spatial, group affiliations of
individual testimonies as contexts
“Dynamics” of Collective
memory (Schudson)
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Pre-emptive Metaphors & Devices (avoidance technique), ex.
Trauma designations like holocaust, genocide
Demonstration effects (interaction of personal experience &
experience of others)
– Ex. Nazis & anti-racism
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Accidents as models for risk avoidance (ex. tsunami victims)
Coordinative, conjunctive & serial effects– (ex. the right to
vote & working class white men in different places)
Cultures of memory (diverse) (ex. Different uses of collective
identity in different national contexts, ex. Post WWII fascist
countries, attitudes towards elders as carriers of public
memory, etc….)
“ Cultures” of collective
memory (Olick)
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Different ontological orders, different
epistemological & methodological implications
Collective memory as
– Aggregated individual recollections?
– Official commemorations (or silencing)?
– Constitutive features of shared identity?
“Collected” Memory
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based on individualistic principles (aggregated
individual memories of members of a croup)
Assume: only individuals remembers
Different rememberers may be valued differently
Publicly available symbols
Methods: assign same values to all rememberers
OR redistributively (ex. To include previously
disenfranchised)
Advantages of Individualist
approaches (“Collected” Memory)
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Potential to reduce political bias embedded in
existing representations of collective memory
by recognizing many different kinds of
collective memory in different places in
society
Posture of Neutrality?
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Should we
– assume a collective memory
or identity exists?
– assume a collectivity exists
that shares a memory?
– Consider ideology, will?
– ex. Survey of Germans about
their identity & effects on
politics
– Ex. I am Canadian beer
commercial
A screen capture of
Joe Canadian from an
I am Canadian
commercial, with the
maple leaf of the
Canadian flag
projected on the
background
Collective Memory (vs.
collected)
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Patterns of socialization not reducible to individual
psycho-social processes?
groups provide conditions and distinctions through
which particular events are defined as consequential
Symbols, institutions, technologies etc. considered
somewhat “autonomous”
Memory performed through language, narrative,
dialogue, genres, …shared practices
Collective memory AS communication
Social Museum of Harvard
Exhibition Review and Cultural
Heritage Institutions as Contexts
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Importance of
contextualizing
images
Handout
« Categorized,
Compared &
Displayed:
Social Ills as
Museum
Specimens
Workers in Pittsburgh, photographed by Lewis Hine, on view in “Classified Documents,” at Harvard.