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Barry Schwartz. Study of historical reputations Not just present politics Memory studies not just about why but how collective memory is constructed Need to theorize on both variations & explain persistance. Time Maps & Framing/Containing Memory. origin. prehistory. history.
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Barry Schwartz • Study of historical reputations • Not just present politics • Memory studies not just about why but how collective memory is constructed • Need to theorize on both variations & explain persistance
Time Maps & Framing/Containing Memory origin prehistory history
Today’s Class • Lecture & Discussion Themes • Time Maps & Collective Memory (conclusion) • If time: begin thinking about Collected Personal Memories vs. Collective Memory • Film Screening
“Time Maps” & the Social Shaping of Memory (E. Zerubavel) • Questions of relevance • Long and short term • Eventful and uneventful periods • Connections • Discontinuities
Analyzing the Structures of Socio-Mental memory traditions • conventional ways of stringing memories together into culturally-meaningful narratives • strategies to create the illusion of historical continuity (bridges) • genealogical structures of ancestry & descent • “watersheds” that separate one period from the next & inflating mental divides • The social construction of “beginnings” (origin “myths” and the legitimation of claims about the past)
Establish connections in narratives, scenarios, plotlines Mental historical outlooks, Selective use of history, Often anticipate future Progress narratives (1)Plotlines & Narrative Forms
Decline narratives Both imply single direction Plotlines & Narrative Forms
Zigzag Narratives • Conversion • Recovery • Rise & fall
Evolutionary narratives • Unilinear (deterministic) • Multilinear (ex. Cladograms--branching)
Circles (Cycles), • recurrence
Zodiac & Lunar Calendar (Chinese & Western Calendar approximations)
Western (Solar-Lunar combo.) Calendar Systems • Combination of Bablyonian & Greco-Roman astrological & astronomical theories & myths • 24 hour day & 7 day week • nomenclature based on cycle named for 7 heavenly bodies (visible with ancient technologies) & associations with deities in Greco-Roman & other pantheons • Sunday (heavenly body ascendant in first hour of first day--Sun) • Monday (moon) • Tuesday (Mars—God of War) • Wednesday (Mercury) • Thursday (Jupiter) • Friday (Venus) • Saturday (Saturn)
Density Variations --Mountains and valleys • eventful vs. uneventful moments in the past • Unevenly distributed
Commemgram example • Eventful times, • Multiple pasts
Tasbaski Preparations-Senegal Tabaski (Wolof) –l Aïd-el-Kebir
2-Creating Historical Continuity by bridging gaps • Linking noncontiguous points in time or place to establish continuity • Same place • Same things (relics & memorabilia) • Imitation of the past (ex. Courtroom etiquette religious ritual) • “same” time (commemorative holidays, reenactments, seasonal identity
Musical terms Legato (connected) Staccato (breaks) Historical “Phrasing” in Narratives
3--Mapping connections with the past through ancestry & descent (models for contact chains) • Not always based on consanguinity • historical contact chains • continuous structures
Interconnectedness • Genealogical Distance (consanguinity) • Ancestral depth (# of generations)
Time and Social Distance Not just people Can be practices, things, events
Monogenist & Polygenist Models of Human Descent • Socio-mnemonic dimensions of ancestry
4-Discontinuities: Mnemonic Cutting & Shaping Memory • Conceptualizing Discontinuities (breaks)
Assimilation & Difference • Periods, epochs as mnemonic transformation of historical continuum
History & Prehistory in Mnemonic Traditions • Example: Pre-contact and Post contact history of N. America
Posture of Neutrality? • 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) • 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
Reading Presentations • Foucault,Popular memory Group, pp. 252-260 • Ranger, Petterson, Sennett, pp. 275- • Schudson, Lang & Lang, Ducharme & Fine, pp. 287-299 • Kantsteiner, Alexander pp 300-310. • Assmann, Connerton 334-342 • Postponed: Gadamer, 180-183, Burke, Megillpp. 188-197
Planning Assignments • Assigning Second reading presentations • Discussion of strategies for finding case study & term assignment projects
Films • representing memory narratives (position of the story-teller • Positioning the researcher (Loyalities) • Next week: • Presenting a narrative from the point of view of participants (Sleeping Tigers: Asahi Baseball Story)