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Explore how memory shapes societies, connecting past to present, through rituals, habits, and social order as per Paul Connerton. Discover correlations to historic events, social research, and individual actions. Review how memory structures influence culture and politics. Engage in thought-provoking questions on social and individual memory reliance, habit memory significance, and the importance of rituals in conveying societal values.
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“How Societies Remember”By Paul Connerton Presentation by: Amy Milligan & Ron Gorda
Earlier Research on Memory • Inscribed Texts and Traditions • Individual Memory Study • Social Memory Study
Memory Reliance • Personal Memory • Cognitive Memory • Habit Memory
Connerton and Memory • Cultural not individual process • Incorporated rather than inscribed • Defines culture • Establishes order • Perpetuates and sustains the culture
Memory & Time • Interconnection between past and present • Both are interdependent • Establishes patterns of perception and behavior
Memory and Society • Connects inhabitants of a society • Defines the societies purpose • Establish social order within that society • Becomes its’ history, usually through replacement • Past dictates present perceptions and actions • Sustains society through repetition and transmission • Can be revised over time
Exemplephied by: • Rituals or ceremonies • Bodily practices
Historic Examples • French Revolution • Rituals – Public Events • Bodily Practices – Fashions • Third Reich • Religion • Jews • Christians • Muslims
Social and Political Research • Maurice Halbwachs • Maurice Bloch • R.A. Rappaport • David Efron • Thomas Mann
Social and Political Research • M. Oakeshot • Marcel Proust • M. Sahlins • P. Winch • D. Sudnow
Correlation to Knowledge Structures • People as Knowledge Structures through the study of: • Inscribed Texts and Traditions • People • Rituals and Ceremonies • Bodily Practices • Can then Derive: • Group • Culture, Social Structure and Politics • Motivations or Actions • Logic
Reviews • Adams, V. (1990). How Societies Remember (review). Sociological Review, 38, 790-794. • Separates habit, cognitive and social memory. • Dismisses anthropological research on habits and bodily practices • Kumar, K. (1990). How Societies Remember (review). Sociology, 24, 568-569. • Loose ends • Bodily practices & habit memory importance
Question 1 • How do these principals apply to our past treatment of the American Indian?
Question 2 • How do these principals apply to cults and other radical groups?
Question 3 • Do you feel that your personal actions are based upon Connerton’s observations? What is based on Social Memory? What is based on Individual Memory?
Question 4 • Can you think of other examples of habit memory that may perpetuate social memory?
Question 5 • Do you agree that the form of a ritual or ceremony is more important than the content?
Question 5 • If social memory is plastic and changeable, then what is being perpetuated by habit memory? Is it only the feeling of community and connection to the larger group?