Collective Memory and Public Discourse

1. 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

2. Course Administration • Handout # 1: Syllabus, Grading, Schedule • Course Website • Handout #2: Partial List of Readings for Weeks 1-4 Salvador Dali, The Persistence of Memory, 1931

3. Fieldwork: Start researching ideas for term work by • 1-Viewing one of each • a documentary film • a « fact-based » fictionalized film Must be about past events (can be very recent past) or the history of a group, a place etc….something that involves sharing memories • 2-Doing « fieldwork ». Visiting an historic site, reconstruction or public monument or building that is intended to commemorate or express memories of a group or event.

4. Examples of possible fieldwork trips in the Vancouver Area • Historic reconstructions: • Stevenson Town, Museum & Brittania Historic Site (Cannery, Shipbuiding, Reconstruction of Workers’ accommodations, Photos, etc.) • Compare the virtual museum , other documents & testimony of descendants to the actual reconstruction of the Cannery living & working conditions • Sites with some traces of the past: • Historic Powell Street area – former Japanese Canadian urban community in Vancouver (before internment camps) • Museums and memorials: • UBC Museum of Anthropology (First Nations Art & History) • Chinese Cultural Centre of Vancouver

5. Today: Core concepts in Studies of Collective Memory • Focus on • History of scholarly work on “collective memory” and origins of early interests • Terminology & related issues

6. Early Interest in Collective Memory: Social Construction of ’Knowledge’ & Individual/Society • Memory as a “social fact” & the social frameworks of memory (Schwartz, 1996) • Émile Durkheim & the ‘French School of Sociology’ • Social morphology, collective life & consciousness as clues to understanding « big questions » (like the persistance of class distinctions etc… • Maurice Halbwachs • The social frames of memory • On collective Memory

7. Later: Collective Memory as a « Modern » phenomenon • Pierre Nora --Sites of Memory (article by Hortloff) • "A lieu de mémoire is any significant entity, whether material or non-material in nature, which by dint of human will or the work of time has become a symbolic element of the memorial heritage of any community (in this case, the French community)" (Nora 1996: XVII)

8. What constitutes a “Site of Memory” • "where [cultural] memory crystallizes and secretes itself" (Nora 1989: 7): • places such as archives, museums, cathedrals, palaces, cemeteries, and memorials; • concepts and practices such as commemorations, generations, mottos, and all rituals; • objects such as inherited property, commemorative monuments (see image right), manuals, emblems, basic texts, and symbols. • Non-places also can be sites

9. Censorship & Iconoclasm • Censurship & Iconoclasm : deliberate destruction of images rooted in religious, political or other socio-cultural beliefs • Ex. Destruction of 3rd c. A.D. Buddhas by Taleban in Afghanistan completed March 12, 2002

10. Silencing: Memories of Amish Schoolhouse Killings • Site where children were killed • Destruction of Amish Schoolhouse

11. Other disciplinary roots of Collective Memory Studies • Philosophy • Henri Bergson– theories of individualism & society • Psychology & Psychiatry • Humanist approaches • Historians of the Annales School (Marc Bloch, Lucien Lefebre)—social & intellectual accounts of the “longue durée” and history ‘from below’) • Politics

12. Problems in understanding how collective or individual “memories” originate & are used • Difficult to link: • “Grand Theory” & structural or contextual determinants (economy, politics, Zeitgeist or spirit of the times) • Individual agency & cognition • Observable practices

13. Example: Multiple Meanings of Same Site • Study of visits to the “Holyland” & connections between pilgrims & the past in context of present (inspired Halbwachs) • vary with different generations, different groups

14. Halbwachs on Memory as a Social Process • Collective Memory – • a reconstruction of the past in light of the present (Lewis Coser) • depend on social environment & identification with groups • Examine how we recollect things & make connections • External prompting: Answering questions others ask us or that we suppose they have asked • “Reconstruction” as part of participating in society • placing ourselves in the perspective of a social group

15. Themes in Halbwach’s work on Memory • Dreams & Memory Images • Language & Memory • Family, Religion, Class and Memory traditions Salvador Dali, Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a pomegranat a second before awakening

16. Individual, Social & Political Memory (Connerton) • Connerton’s work NOT about • individual or personal memory (agency, cognition, consciousness & the unconscious) • politics of commemoration or amnesia (we will be doing this later) • How is the memory of groups conveyed or sustained?

17. Functions of social memories of the past • Commonly legitimate a present social order • Factors & issues • Generational difference • Experiences of the present depend on knowledge of the past • Images of the past conveyed & sustained by ritual performances • Recollection a cultural rather than an individual activities of commemoration and performance

18. Changing visions of the past as a way to change the present (Connerton) • 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

19. Innovations as Rejection of Memories of the Past? • Invention of new ceremonies • new “fashions” (today could it be rejection of the burka?)

20. Typology of Memory Claims (Connerton) • 1-Personal Memory • Sources: Connections with individual’s life history • 2-Cognitive memory • Not necessary about the past but enabled by something we have learned to help us decipher past, present & future • 3-Habit Memory • Performative but not necessarily grounded in specifiv memories

21. Life (Personal) histories and collective memory • Rescuing the lived experience of marginalized or subordinate groups ? • Problems in confronting personal histories with “objective” records (ex. Connerton, Zerubavel)

22. Social Memory vs. Historical Reconstruction (Connerton) • Historical reconstructions independent of social memory • Historians, evidence & authority • Traces of the past (documents, artifacts, first hand observations) • Notions of “truth” • 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)

23. Historical reconstructions and the shape of shared memories of the past • depends on group membership • Belief & disbelief • Survival of witnesses • Context (village vs. urban)– different opportunities for deceit (film– the Return of Martin Guerre)

24. Memories as Habits • Individuals (even bodily practices) • “universal” or shared mental traditions or processes • Conventions or norms or practices of “sameness” (rule-following behaviours like language systems or clothes)

25. What binds recent memories and distant ones? • Groups provide frameworks to locate memories • Different groups have different frameworks • Collective memory about communication • in specific contexts between group members

26. Film Screening • Rabbit-Proof Fence • Fact-based story • Personal Memories? • Collective Memories?