Wring ’the’Image:’’ The’Interacon of Photographsand Texts ... · Individual’Memory’...
Transcript of Wring ’the’Image:’’ The’Interacon of Photographsand Texts ... · Individual’Memory’...
Wri$ng the Image: The Interac$on of Photographs and
Texts in the 20th Century
Compara(ve Literature A.Y. 2016-‐2017
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Memory Studies
1. Individual memory
2. Collec(ve memory
3. Cultural memory
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Individual Memory Individual memory is defined as a personal interpretation of an event from ones own life. This personality is related to own ex- periences during socialisation processes and thus it is highly subjective.
But:
All subjective memories are related to the cognition of relevant peers and thus are the basis for collective memories (as we-identification of social groups).
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Individual Memory in Rela(on to Collec(ve Memory
• The social group in which s/he iden(fies with unques(on-‐ably
influences the opinions, beliefs, and a7tude of the individual. Individuals weave together their past experien-‐ces to form collec(ve memories.
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Collec:ve Memory
Collective memories are socially con-structed based on common sentiments, values, and the present circumstances in which the group finds itself.
Memories created by groups serve as important role in creating a sense of identity.
Each ‘we’ is constructed through specific discourses that mark certain boundary lines and define respective principles of inclusion and exclusion and suggests that to acknowledge the concept of collective memory is to acknowledge the concept of some collective identity
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Maurice Halbwachs (1877-‐1945)
• The Social Frameworks of Memory, originally published in 1925.
• The Legendary Topography of the Gospels in the Holy Land, published in 1941.
• The Collec$ve Memory (1950, New York: Harper and Row, 1982).
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• Memory func(ons within a collec(ve context. • Collec(ve memory is selec(ve. • Different modes of bahavior. • Different images of Jesus’ life • Construc(on of reality is different according to the social class one belongs to.
• The Social Frameworks of Memory: memory and society
• To remember is to be (ed to collec(ve frameworks of social reference points in (me and space.
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• Memory orders the experience and ensures the con(nuity of collec(veness.
• Tradi(ons, ideas and images : collec:ve memories are not pure recollec:on but reconstruc:ons.
• Halbwachs vs. Henri Bergson • Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness (Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience, 1889).
• MaPer and Memory (Ma$ère et mémoire, 1896).
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• Bergson’s dura:on (French: la durée) is a theory of (me and consciousness that bound memory to intui(on.
• Halbwachs: consciousness of dura(on is a social fact. To remember one needs “others”
• Example: The Legendary Topography of the Gospels in the Holy Land, where the loca(ons of major events linked to the origins of Chris(anity change according to doctrinal and poli(cal developments.
• Loca(ons are a kind of “staged authen(city”. 9
• Halbwachs theory vs. abempts to coceive colelc(ve memory in biological terms (“racial memory”). C.G. Jung’s theory of the archetypes.
• Cultural framework instead of a biological one.
• The specific character deriving from belonging to a dis(nct society and culture is the result of socializa(on and customs.
• The “survival of the type” is a func(on of the cultural memory
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• F. Nietzsche: Humans must find a means by which to maintain their nature consistently through genera(ons.
• Solu(on is offered by CULTURAL MEMORY:
1. A collec(ve concept for all knowledge that directs behavior and experience in the intereac(ve framework of a society
2. A collec(ve concept meaning repeated societal prac(ce and ini(an(on.
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• “Cultural memory” is defined through a double delimita(on that dis(nguishes it from:
-‐ “Communica(ve” or “everyday” memory: no “cultural” characteris(cs
-‐ “science”, because scinece relates to a collec(ve self-‐image. This delimita(on was developed by Halbwachs with respect to the dis(nc(on between “memory” and “history”.
Our focus is on the dis(nc(on between “comunica(ve” and “cultural” memory.
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Communica:ve Memory
• It includes those varie(es of collec(ve memory based on everyday communica(on that cons(tute the field of ”oral history”.
• Non-‐specializa(on, reciprocity roles, thema(c instability, disorganiza(on.
• This memory takes place between partners who change roles.
• Through this manner of communcia(on each individual composes a memory which is “socially mediated” and “related to a group”.
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• Individual memory and communcia(on with “others” meant as groups of people, who concieve unity and peculiarity through a common image of their past.
• Families, professional groups, poli(cal par(es, associa(ons. Every individual belongs to such groups and entertains numerous collec(ve self-‐images and memories.
• “Oral History” and communica(ve memory: a limited temporal horizon (no more than 80-‐100 years = 3 or 4 genera(ons).
• Communica(ve memory offers no fixed point which would bind it to the ever expanding past in the passing of (me.
• Fixity can be only be achieved through a cultural transforma(on.
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Transi:on • From communci(ve memory to objec(vized culture
• Transi(on is fundamental and it makes the methaphor of memory even unapplicable.
• Halbwachs stopped at the point where collec(ve memory turns into objec(vized culture. Perhaps he believed that once living communica(on cristallized in the forms of objec(vized culture, the group rela(onship and the contemporary reference are lost.
• Objec(vized culture: texts, images, ci(es, monuments, etc.
• Memory is transformed into history 16
Cultural Memory • Characterized by its distance from everyday. • Cultural memory has its fixed point and its horizon does not change with the passing of (me.
• Cultural Memory has fixed point, i.e. fateful events of the past, whose memory is maintained through a) cultural forma(ons [texts, images, ci(es, monuments, etc.] and b) ins(tu(onal communica(on [recitals, prac(ce, observance].
• “Figures of memory”
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• Rites, fes(vals, epics, poems, images form “islands of (me” of a temporality suspended from (me.
• In cultural memory such islands of (me expands into memory spaces of “retrospec(ve contempla(veness”, an expression by Aby Warburg.
• “Mnemonic energy” leads to the objec(va(on of culture with respect to high art, but also to posters, postage stamps, costumes, customs, etc.
• Cultural forma(on: a collec(ve experience crystallizes and its meaning may become accessible again across millennia.
• Aby Warburg’s Altas of Memory (Mnemosyne) large-‐scale project: reconstruc(on of the pictorial memory of Western Civiliza(on.
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Maurice Halbwachs (1877-1945)
“There are no ideas without images: more precisely, idea and image do not designate two elements of our states of consciousness, one social and the other individual, but rather two points of view where society can focus on the same objects at the same :me”. (Halbwachs, M. 1925, p. 9)