Collective Memory and
Public Discourse
School of
Communication, SFU,
Spring 2007
Professor:
Jan Marontate
Exhibition of Storefront Display covered with toxic dust from September 11, 2001,
New York City. Source NYTimes, Aug. 25, 2006
See also article by Fried about another exhibition related to the September 11, 2001
terrorist attacks
Second Short Report
Presentations (continued)
Discussion of Term
Assignment
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Handout 4
Primary & secondary sources
Class Presentation Dates for Term
Assignment (will be split in two groups)
Today : Slight Change in
Theme
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Memory in the context of Socio-political &
cultural change
– Supression?
– Celebration?
– Persistance of memory?
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Film screening depicting changing sites of
memory in everyday life & rapidly changing
socities
Recall: What constitutes a
“Site of Memory”?
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"where [cultural] memory crystallizes and
secretes itself" (Nora 1989: 7)
places
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archives,
museums,
cathedrals,
palaces,
cemeteries, and
Memorials
And non-places
concepts and practices
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commemorations,
mottos
rituals
food
Above: Sheep on top of car being transported to Dakar,
Senegal for ritual slaughter for the festival of the sheep
(Tabaski in Waloof)
Left: Small cakes known as Madeleines, a specialty of
The region of Commercy in France, mentioned in
Marcel Proust’s In remembrance of Things Past.
(literally à la recherche du temps perdu
objects
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inherited property
– mementos
– Ex. High school
yearbook
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monuments
manuals,
emblems,
basic texts
symbols.
Censorship & Iconoclasm
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Censurship
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Iconoclasm : deliberate destruction of images
rooted in religious, political or other sociocultural beliefs
– Ex. Destruction of 3rd c. A.D. Buddhas by Taleban in
Afghanistan completed March 12, 2002
Difference in meaning between vandalism & iconoclasm:
vandals “ignorant”, purposeless acts of destruction
Silencing:
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Recall: Memories
of Amish
Schoolhouse
Killings
– Site where
children were
killed
– Destruction of
Amish
Schoolhouse
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Ex. Destruction of
Monuments
Changing visions of the past as a
way to change the present
(Connerton)
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Acts of repudiation, like
the execution of
leaders.:
– King of France during
the French revolution
(Connerton)
– Saddam Hussein in
December 2006
Preparations for the execution of Saddam Hussein
Life (Personal) histories and
collective memory
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Rescuing the lived experience of marginalized
or subordinate groups ?
Problems in confronting personal histories
with “objective” records (ex. Connerton,
Zerubavel)
Social Memory vs. Historical
Reconstruction (Connerton)
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Historical reconstructions independent of
social memory
– Historians, evidence & authority
Traces of the past (documents, artifacts, first hand
observations)
 Notions of “truth”
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– Historical writing and politics (ex. Basis for
understanding the war between Israel & the
Palestinians– differing collective memories of the
past and its meaning for the present)
Historical reconstructions and the
shape of shared memories of the
past
– depends on group membership
Question of Belief & disbelief
 Survival of witnesses?
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– Context
different points of view
 Different opportunities for deceit
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– Importance of types of documentation (primary,
secondary) for understanding historical
reconstructions
Memories as Habits
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Notion of “universal” or shared mental
traditions or processes within populations or
groups (ex. Eye-witnesses, survivors,
holocaust deniers, etc.)
Mnemoic communities and individuals
– Exceptionalism, Conformity
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Conventions or norms or practices of
“sameness”
– rule-following behaviours like language systems
or clothes or even bodily practices, postures….
Example: John Berger “Men in suits”
Viewing “men in suits” today
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What do we need to know about socio-historic
context? (Who? What? Where? Why?)
– Sumptuary laws in 19th-century Germany
– Place of photography in society
– Technical limits of photography
– Conventions of posing for picture-taking sessions
– Why was this collected?
What binds recent memories
and distant ones?
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Groups provide frameworks to locate
memories
Different groups have different frameworks
Collective memory about communication
– in specific contexts between group members
Film Screening
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Video clips from Goodbye Lenin
Suggestion for in-class exercise
– Identify of types of “sites” of memory of old
regime that were shown in film and give
specific examples
– What “sites” of memory were deliberately
removed?
– Which ones did the children feel were
important for their mother?