Literature and Cultural Memory
Cultural Memory
How we create an image of the past,
How we make sense of our past from our present,
How we understand ourselves and our past,
What stories we tell to ourselves about ourselves,
What we choose to remember or forget,
How we explain the reasons why we remember or
forget something,
How we make sure that we hand over the
memories that matter to us
Cultural Memory as a concept
• introduced to the archaeological
disciplines by Jan Assmann
Assman’s definition: the "outer
dimension of human memory"
• "memory culture“ (Erinnerungskultur)
• "reference to the past“
(Vergangenheitsbezug)
https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/citd/holtorf/2.0.html
"memory culture"
the way a society ensures cultural continuity
by preserving, with the help of cultural
mnemonics, its collective knowledge from one
generation to the next, rendering it possible
for later generations to reconstruct their
cultural identity.
https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/citd/holtorf/2.0.html
"reference to the past"
• reassure the members of a society of their collective
identity and supply them with an awareness of their
unity and singularity in time and space—i.e. an
historical consciousness—by creating a shared past
• can involve rituals and ceremonies at special
occasions such as commemoration days, and at
special places such as ancient monuments, which
function as timemarks and sites of memory
https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/citd/holtorf/2.0.html
Forms of Cultural Memory
Formal – institutional – private – personal
• History
• Schools, subjects, syllabi, exams
• Religion
• Holidays (public, national, religious, private rituals)
• Anecdotes
• Memoires
• Controversial, minority views, counter-narratives
Cultural Memory and Literature
Literary works – popular, canonical
History of literature - of a language
- of a nation
Representation of a literature or culture in
another literature or culture: stereotypes
popular image
history of their
literature
Cultural Memory at DES, SEAS
British Literature in the Hungarian Cultural
Memory project at the Department of English
Studies, dir. Prof. Ágnes Péter
Cultural Memory and Literature
An international conference (24–25 Sept, 2010)
http://kulturalisemlekezet.blogspot.com/
Literatures in English
Postcolonial Studies
• explores the various facets—textual,
figural, spatial, historical, political and
economic—of the colonial encounter, and
the ways in which this encounter shaped
the West and non-West alike
• investigations from many disciplines, as
well as a theoretical perspective from
which to view a variety of concerns
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/13688790.asp
Literatures in English
English literary texts
representing
other cultures
– the living conscience and public depository of
the cultural memories of the world,
telling the story,
incorporating the way of thinking,
and mirroring the language
of other cultures?
Some examples
• Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children (1981),
key events in the history of India
• Kazuo Ishiguro, A Pale View of Hills (1982),
narrated by a Japanese widow living in England
• Keri Hulme, The Bone People (1984)
Maori, Celtic and Norse mythology
• Tibor Fischer, Under the Frog (1992),
the 1950s and 1956 in Hungary
• Panos Karnezis, The Maze (2004),
a novel set in Anatolia in 1922.