Sharing the past: Collective memory

Please have some comments and questions posted by 8 p.m. Wednesday, February 11!

Chorus discussants: Tim Simonds, Erin Calfee, Daria Solomon, Lyndsey Barnes, Jonathan Mosca, Alexandra Corrigan

Posted at Feb 11/2009 07:56PM:
erin calfee: I thought what Assmann was saying about memory being a re-membering of a group or re-collecting of items that were once united very interesting (pg 11). It implies a lost unity, but in doing so excludes anyone who was not previously a member from remembering. This got me thinking about what remembering really means and whether it even makes sense at all to apply the term to a future generation. For example, does it make sense to say anyone of my generation "remembers" the Vietnam War? Does this really fit under "memory" or is it really "history" innapropriately labeled "memory"? And if the individuals of a society cannot "remember" does it still, in some way, make sense for a nation to "remember" an event? What does it mean for a nation to "remember"? This intersects with Nora's ideas about the division of what he argues was a once unified memory and history and the concept of a "memory-nation" (see pg 11). I'd like to discuss what Nora meant by this phrase, and whether it really doesn't apply today (as he argues).

I'd also like to talk about the Connerton paper. I liked his emphasis on habit-memory and his inclusion of everyday things such as 'how to call someone over' as pieces of memory. I wonder, however, what Nora would have to say about this kind of memory. He talks about the collapse of memory and the modern age being the age of archiving adn creating sites of memory, or lieux de memoire. However, aren't these persisting habit-memories clear examples of perhaps inconsequential (are they?) yet persisting environment of memory, or milieux de memoire?

tim simonds: Pierre Nora and Paul Connerton both discuss the relationship between memory and the body. For Connerton a social habit memory exists in the body of a social collective, unattainable to an individual. For Nora "true memory," or behavior, has been undermined by our contemporary obsession with history and the archive. Nora writes that writing history or recording the past has destroyed the ability for memory to be inscribed within and on the body. Connerton writes that “habit cannot be thought of without a notion of bodily automatism,” (5) and thus that social-habit memory is unavoidably embodied in the “social body.” He states “social habit-memory is. . . distinctively social-performative” (35). Keeping in mind that society plays an imperative role in recalling a memory, to what extent can we call architecture a body or part of the “social body” and to what extent can it be classified as an archive that undermines “true memory?”

Posted at Feb 11/2009 08:39PM:
keffie: Tim, you bring up a really interesting point about architecture being incorporated into the "social body" and I think it can be unpacked and pushed even further. What about vernacular architecture and how might that play into the constitution of the 'social body' and collective memories? The example of the Osage Indian tent organization addressed in Assmann may also support your contention.

Erin, you bring up what I see as a fundamental tension and fuzziness between memory and history as categories versus as lived and practiced. Can you come up with some more concrete examples that perhaps break down Nora's dichotomy between lieux and milieux de memoire, between memory and history?

Posted at Feb 11/2009 10:39PM:
Lyndsey Barnes: I was struck by the tension between the Assmann reading and Nora's article. Nora claims that there are no more milieux de memoire, or "environments of memory." But couldn't one argue that the cold societies that Assmann discusses have milieux de memoire? Their ceremonies (for example, the Osage Indian tent ceremony that Keffie brought up) focus on a "timeless cosmic order" rather than history-based ceremonies of hot societies.

As for more concrete examples for Erin's ideas, we could look at the concept of institutional memory. When one is part of an organization, such as a government or a fraternity, institutional memory and tradition plays a large part in how the organization operates and how decisions are made. However, many of the institution's members were not present for the inception of these practices. Does the institution itself become a lieux de memoire - a way to place the past in the present? Or is establishing these practice (and in a way, a collective identity) simply a way to keep order in the organization?

I'd also like to touch on our 9/11 readings from last week in comparison to the debate about the Holocaust memorials in Assmann. Can people of our generation only understand Auschwitz by relating it to a tragedy that we have experienced? How does this taint or enhance its memory/history?

Posted at Feb 14/2009 12:37PM:
daria solomon: I thought that within our discussion on thursday the distinction between a discursive and a non-discursive re-using of memory within architecture brings out some interesting questions and hopefully answers to what everyone's been thinking about. If architecture can be use discourse as a political statement or a more subtle statement of values that is perhaps even unacknowledged as a statement itself, what distinguishes the two forms of architecture? Is it simply a matter of agency, the interests behind the building's construction? What about instances when a statement within a construction is desired to be non-discursive but viewers interpret it differently than its original intention? I'd also like to keep in mind the element of performance; where does this fit into using a discourse within an architecture?

alexandra corrigan

sorry this is so late! forgot my computer for the long weekend.

I think we did a good job covering the basics of the readings by Nora, Connerton and Assmann. We talked about performance and ritual, the sites/places and landscapes of memory, and the continuity/history problem in memory. My questions from before and after the discussion were disparate, and mostly concerning the liminality of memory/history and place. I am interested in whether history is destructive, or if the history of history is destructive to memory. I question the idea of “unconscious memory transfer,” but do believe in some semblance of it. I would just ask what form it took – because if it is form and senseless, how can we begin to react to it through architecture. I am interested in when, if and how these rituals, ceremonies and structures can become merely pastiche if we are really talking about memory as something so amorphic and intangible. I was drawn to this idea when Connerton wrote, “in compulsive repetition the agents fail to remember prototype” and “movements of history torn from movement of history, then returned…have no longer life but are not yet death.” Brought up in class too, I think the arguments of these writers could be bolstered by contemporary criticism that questions the arbitrariness of a canon of history. I would be really interested in testing collective memory, architecture and history through a re-constructed history scene (like a ‘through the ages’ living museum!) I think the ideas brought up in class of citationality and bachelard’s poetics of space were also further topics to discuss.

Posted at Feb 20/2009 04:47PM:
Erin Calfee: sorry this is late! The discussion we had made me think a lot about the strict divisions Nora makes between memory and history. I think the fact that one can study the history of history reveals the failure of history to truly separate itself from memory. There would be no interest in studying how history is re-interpreted over time if each historian were not subconsciously influenced by his time period, culture, and the memories this context implies. This is one place where I think the division that history is critical while collective memory is not falls short. Nora presents history as an incomplete reconstruction, which makes sense because the past cannot possibly be fully recreated in the present with all of its detail. History may try to be completely secular, but it can't because it has to make some decisions about what to remember and include in its incomplete recreation. The topics of interest are to some extent uncritically chosen and originate in the conception of the past of the collective memory which influences the historians interests. I think maybe another point to explore where history and memory meet is historical reenactments. Are these really critical, or by reenacting are you claiming and accepting that history? Perhaps by relating to a historical group you are associating yourself and your heritage with that group, even if only by the broadest definition of heritage, heritage of yourself as a human.
I also want to challenge the statement that memory is continuous and ongoing while history is separate from this evolution, dividing present and past. At a minimum, history influences collective memory. Rather than dividing past and present it resurrects the past to interact with the present. A long time ago collective memory may have been very linear (because the past becomes mostly inaccessible without written records) but more recently archives and historians who access those archives have made possible the interaction of collective memory with previous stages of its development. Therefore the current collective memory stems out of not only its most recent past, but also from previous pasts as they resurface from historical research. In this way, history challenges the linear development of collective memory by allowing it to interact with long forgotten versions of itself from the more distant past.

Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology