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Title: Literature in Context


1
Literature in Context
2
Lecture 9
  • Period Study
  • Cultural Studies
  • Literary History
  • Cultural Memory

3
Literature in Context
  • Period Study, Literary History, Cultural Memory,
  • Literatures in English, Postcolonial Studies,
    Literary
  • Translation are interrelated notions or
    approaches to
  • the study of literature.
  • They are attempts at a scientific approach to
    literature,
  • they propose related ways of a systematic study
    of
  • literature and its phenomena.

4
Literature in Context
  • University curricula
  • based on literary kinds
  • based on literary periods
  • based on individual authors
  • based on literary theories
  • based on social context

5
Cultural StudiesSee http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki
/Cultural_studies
  • The term was coined by Richard Hoggart in 1964
    when
  • he founded the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary
  • Cultural Studies.
  • Hoggart, Richard The Uses of Literacy Aspects
    of
  • Working Class Life. London Chatto and Windus,
    1957
  • Williams, Raymond. Culture and Society,
    1780-1950.
  • New York Harper Row, 1966.

6
Richard Hoggart(1918)
7
Raymond Williams(1921-1988)
8
Cultural Studies
  • Literary periods in a cultural context
  • Raymond Williams Culture and Society
  • art and society are seen together
  • 'culture' as a total expression of a way of life
  • Cultural Studies contemporary, popular
  • Period Study various forms of art within a
    historical
  • period in a social, political context

9
Cultural StudiesSee http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki
/Cultural_studies
  • Cultural studies is an academic field grounded in
  • critical theory and literary criticism.
  • It generally concerns the political nature of
  • contemporary culture, as well as its historical
  • foundations, conflicts, and defining traits.
  • Researchers concentrate on how a particular
    medium
  • or message relates to matters of ideology, social
    class,
  • nationality, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender.

10
Cultural StudiesSee http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki
/Cultural_studies
  • Cultural studies approaches subjects combining
  • feminist theory, social theory, political theory,
    history,
  • philosophy, literary theory, media theory,
    film/video
  • studies, communication studies, political
    economy,
  • translation studies, museum studies and art
  • history/criticism to study cultural phenomena in
  • various societies.
  • Cultural studies seeks to understand the ways in
    which
  • meaning is generated, disseminated, and produced
  • through various practices,beliefs, institutions,
    and
  • political, economic, or social structures within
    a given
  • culture.

11
Cultural StudiesSee http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki
/Cultural_studies
  • Cultural studies concerns itself with the meaning
    and
  • practices of everyday life. Cultural practices
    comprise
  • the ways people do particular things (such as
    watching
  • television, or eating out) in a given culture.
  • As the process associated with globalization has
  • spread throughout the world, cultural studies has
  • begun to analyse local and global forms of
    resistance
  • to Western hegemony.

12
Ziauddin Sardar, Borin Van LoomIntroducing
Cultural Studies. Totem Books, 1997
  • Five main characteristics of cultural studies
  • 1. Cultural studies aims to examine its subject
    matter in terms of cultural practices and their
    relation to power. For example, a study of a
    subculture (such as white working class youth in
    London) would consider the social practices of
    the youth as they relate to the dominant classes.
  • 2. It has the objective of understanding culture
    in all its complex forms and of analyzing the
    social and political context in which culture
    manifests itself.

13
Ziauddin Sardar, Borin Van Loom Introducing
Cultural Studies. Totem Books, 1997
  • 3. It is both the object of study and the
    location of political criticism and action. For
    example, not only would a cultural studies
    scholar study an object, but she/he would connect
    this study to a larger, progressive political
    project.
  • 4. It attempts to expose and reconcile the
    division of knowledge, to overcome the split
    between tacit cultural knowledge and objective
    (universal) forms of knowledge.
  • 5. It has a commitment to an ethical evaluation
    of modern society.

14
Cultural StudiesSee http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki
/Cultural_studies
  • In the context of cultural studies, the idea of a
    text not
  • only includes written language, but also films,
  • photographs, fashion or hairstyles the texts of
    cultural
  • studies comprise all the meaningful artifacts of
    culture.
  • Similarly, the discipline widens the concept of
  • "culture". "Culture" for a cultural studies
    researcher
  • not only includes traditional high culture (the
    culture of
  • ruling social groups) and popular culture, but
    also
  • everyday meanings and practices. The last two, in
    fact,
  • have become the main focus of cultural studies. A
  • further and recent approach is comparative
    cultural
  • studies, based on the discipline of comparative
  • literature and cultural studies.

15
Cultural StudiesSee http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki
/Cultural_studies
  • Cultural studies is not a unified theory but a
    diverse
  • field of study encompassing many different
  • approaches, methods, and academic perspectives
    as
  • in any academic discipline, cultural studies
    academics
  • frequently debate among themselves.

16
Tony Harrison
17
Tony Harrison (1937)
18
Tony Harrison V(1985)
19
Harrison
  • V is a poem by Tony Harrison (1937) written in
    1985.
  • The poem describes the authors visit to his
    parents' grave in a Leeds cemetery and finding
    that the place was littered with beer cans and
    vandalised by obscene graffiti.
  • The cemetery is Holbeck cemetery in the Beeston
    area of Leeds. It overlooks the Elland Road
    football ground. Tony Harrison grew up in this
    neighbourhood.

20
Harrison
  • The poem contains political references. It was
    written under the premiership of Mrs. Thatcher,
    during the 1984-1985 miners strike and makes
    reference to this as well as to National Union of
    Mineworkers leader, Arthur Scargill.

21
Harrison
  • Motto
  • My father still reads the dictionary every day.
  • He says your life depends on your power to master
    words.'
  • Arthur Scargill
  • Sunday Times, 10 January 1982

22
Harrison
  • The poem incorporates the graffiti on the grave
    into its own text. The graffiti include mostly
    obscene swear words and the name of the local
    football club in the abbreviated form United.
    The poem explores the ambiguous meaning of it
    that of a football club, or a feeling of social
    unity in a broader sense. Also, there is much
    punning on the word v.

23
Harrison
  • If love of art, or love, gives you affront
  • that the grave I'm in's graffitied then, maybe,
  • erase the more offensive FUCK and CUNT
  • but leave, with the worn UNITED, one small v.
  • Victory? For vast, slow, coal-creating forces
  • that hew the body's seams to get the soul.
  • Will earth run out of her 'diurnal courses'
  • before repeating her creation of black coal?

24
Harrison
  • The poem also makes reference to the versuses
    of life, communism v. fascism, Left v. Right,
    white v. black, man v. woman, rich v. poor,
    etc.

25
Harrison
  • These Vs are all the versuses of life
  • From LEEDS v. DERBY, Black/White
  • and (as I've known to my cost) man v. wife,
  • Communist v. Fascist, Left v. Right,
  • Class v. class as bitter as before,
  • the unending violence of US and THEM,
  • personified in 1984
  • by Coal Board MacGregor and the NUM,
  • Hindu/Sikh, soul/body, heart v. mind,
  • East/West, male/female, and the ground
  • these fixtures are fought on's Man, resigned
  • to hope from his future what his past never found.

26
Harrison
  • A filmed version of V. was broadcast by Channel 4
    in October 1987. Prior to that conservative MPs
    protested against it in the parliament and in the
    press.
  • Gerald Howarth said that Harrison was Probably
    another bolshie poet wishing to impose his
    frustrations on the rest of us.
  • Harrison replied that Howarth was Probably
    another idiot MP wishing to impose his
    intellectual limitations on the rest of us.

27
Literary PeriodsDominant Qualities
  • Defining literary periods based on dominant
    qualities.
  • Dominant qualities colour most elements of
    intellectual life in a given culture at a
    certain time also influence art, music,
    architecture, landscape gardening, philosophy,
    politics, etc.
  • a few broad tendencies in common at a high level
    of
  • abstraction
  • with individual, temporal, local variations
  • subordinate currents exist as well as dominant
    ones
  • declining and emergent energies
  • e.g. New Historicism takes this line of study

28
How to examine a literary period how it is
framed by a set of significant events
  • The Renaissance in England, for example
  • the first visit of Erasmus (1499),
  • Caxton's printing press at Westminster (1476),
  • the discovery of America (1492),
  • the court of the young Henry VIII
  • (on the throne 1491-1547),
  • the Protestant Reformation,
  • Copernicus's new astronomy (1543),
  • the reign of Elizabeth I (1558-1603)

29
How to examine a literary period priorities in
its views
  • features certain priorities in its views
    concerning the world and art
  • e.g., in Classicism balance, form, proportion,
    propriety (good taste, good manners correctness,
    otherwise known as decorum), dignity, simplicity,
    objectivity, rationality, restraint,
    responsibility (rather than self-expression),
    unity (rather than diversity)

30
How to examine a literary periodviews of
humans, favourite genres
  • promotes a certain view of humankind
  • e.g., in Romanticism the celebration of the
    individual
  • uses specific genres (rather than others)
  • e.g., in 19th c. Realism the novel with its
    details, its particularisation of the lives of
    ordinary people

31
How to examine a literary periodfavourite
subjects, favourite forms
  • favours certain subjects for art
  • e.g., in Modernism inner individual perception
  • (impressionistic presentation, stream of
  • consciousness technique, such as in Virginia
    Woolf's Mrs Dalloway)
  • shows characteristic formal elements (including
    the
  • example above)
  • e.g., in Postmodernism Narcissistic narrative
  • intruding into one's own fiction to ponder upon
  • its powers
  • A literary trend may not correspond exactly to a
    cultural
  • period, e.g., Postmodernism and the Post-Modern
    Period.

32
Literary period horizontal or vertical study
  • The study of High Modernism
  • 1928 in literature in England
  • in the historical context of the UK
  • in the artistic or social or political context
    of
  • continental Europe
  • in the life of Virginia Woolf
  • The history of literature

33
The history of literature
  • history of literature a series of literary
    periods
  • connections may be established among texts
  • (see W.B. Yeats, Leda and the Swan)
  • allusion,
  • intertextuality interdependence of texts
    through genre, conventions
  • vs traditional notions of influence study of
    direct sources

34
How is literature read, or judged?
  • Yet another way of looking at literature how it
    was read, by whom, how it was judged
  • readership, horizon(s) of expectations
  • (Hans Robert Jauss)
  • How do you judge a piece of literature? Do you
    have to? Should you? Can you avoid doing so? How
    do you select a work or period to be studied? Can
    evaluation change reading? Can evaluation prevent
    reading?
  • How are literary canons formed?
  • Literary canon selection, exclusion, promotion

35
Period Study. Literary History.
  • "Dates and periods are necessary to the study and
  • discussion of history, for historical phenomena
    are
  • conditioned by time and are produced by the
    sequence
  • of events. But, unlike dates, periods are
    not facts.
  • They are retrospective conceptions that we form
    about
  • past events, useful to focus discussion, but very
    often
  • leading historical thought astray.
  • G. M. Trevelyan English Social History.
  • Harmondsworth Penguin Books (1942) 1970, 107

36
Literary Histories
  • A few examples

37
Saintsbury, George A Short History of English
Literature. London Macmillan, (1898) 1953
  • The Preliminaries of English Literature
  • The Earliest Anglo-Saxon Poetry
  • Caedmon, Cynewulf, and Those about Them
  • Angol-Saxon Prose
  • The Decadense of Anglo-Saxon
  • The Making of English Literature
  • The Transition
  • First Middle English Period (1200-1250)
  • Second Middle English Period (1300-1360)
  • Early Romances Metrical
  • 5. Early Romances Alliterative

38
Saintsbury, cont.
  • Chaucer and His Contemporaries
  • Chaucers Life and Poems
  • Langland and Gower
  • Chaucers Prose Wyclif, Trevisa, Mandeville
  • The Fifteenth Century
  • The English Chaucerians Lydgate to Skelton
  • The Scottish Poets Historical, Political, and
    Minor
  • The Four Great Scottish Poets (The Kings Quair,
    Henryson, Dunbar, Douglas)
  • Later Romances in Prose and Verse
  • Minor Poetry and Ballads
  • Miscellaneous Prose

39
Saintsbury, cont.
  • Elizabethan Literature to the Death of Spenser
  • Preliminaries Drama
  • Preliminaries Prose
  • Prelminaries Verse
  • Spenser and His Contemporaries
  • The University Wits (Peele, Green, Marlowe, Kyd,
    Lodge, Nash)
  • Lyly and Hooker The Translators, Pamphleteers
    and Critics
  • Later Elizabethan and Jacobean Literature
  • Shakespeare
  • Shakespeares Contemporaries in Drama
  • The Schools of Jacobean Poetry
  • Jacobean Prose Secular
  • The Golden Age of English Pulpit - I

40
Saintsbury, cont.
  • Caroline Literature
  • Blank Verse and the New Couplet
  • The Metaphysicals The Lyric Poets The
    Miscellansts, etc.
  • The Drama till the Closing of the THeatres
  • The Golden Age of the English Pulpit II
  • Miscellanous Prose
  • Scots Poetry and Prose
  • The Augustan Ages
  • The Age of Dryden Poetry
  • The Age of Dryden Drama
  • The Age of Dryden - Prose

41
Saintsbury, cont.
  • Queen Anne Prose (Swift, Steele, Addison, etc.)
  • Pope and His Elder Contemporaries in Verse
  • Middle and Later Eighteenth-Century Literature
  • The Poets from Thomson to Crabbe
  • The Eighteenth-Century Novel
  • Johnson, Goldsmith, and the Later Essayists
  • The Graver Prose
  • Eighteenth-Century Drama
  • Miscellaneous Writers
  • The Triumph of Romance
  • 1. The Poets from Coleridge to Keats

42
Saintsbury, cont.
  • 2. The Novel Scott and Miss Austen
  • The New Essay (Lamb, Hunt, Hazlitt, De Quincey,
    etc.)
  • The Last Georgian Prose
  • The Minor Poets of 1800-1830
  • Victorian Literature
  • Tennyson and Browning
  • The Victorian Novel (Dickens, Thackeray,
    Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, etc.)
  • History and Criticism (Carlyle, Ruskin, Arnold,
    Pater, etc.)
  • Poetry since the Middle of the Century
  • Miscellaneous (J. S. Mill, Darwin, etc.)

43
Baugh, Albert C. A Literary History of England.
London Routledge Kegan Paul, 1948
  • Book I. The Middle Ages
  • The old English Period (to 1100)
  • The Middle English Period (1100-1500)
  • Book II. The Renaissance
  • The Early Tudors (1485-1558)
  • The Reign of Elizabeth (1558-1603)
  • The Early Stuarts and The Commonwealth
    (1603-1660)
  • Book III. The Restauration and Eighteenth Century
    (1660-1789)
  • The Rise of Classicism
  • Classicism and Journalism
  • The Disintegration of Classicism
  • Book IV. The Nineteenth Century and After

44
Dodsworth, Martin, ed. The Penguin History of
Literature. Harmondsworth Penguin Books, (1970)
1994
  • The Middle Ages
  • English Poetry and Prose 1540-1674
  • English Drama to 1710
  • Dryden to Johnson
  • The Romantic Period
  • The Victorians
  • The Twentieth Century
  • 8. American Literature to 1900
  • 9. American Literature since 1900

45
Ford, Boris, ed. The New Pelican Guide to
English Literature. Harmondsworth Penguin Books,
(1983) 1990
  • Medieval Literature
  • Part One Chaucer and the Alliterative Tradition
  • Part Two The European Inheritance
  • The Age of Shakespeare
  • From Donne to Marvell
  • From Dryden to Johnson
  • From Blake to Byron
  • From Dickens to Hardy
  • From James to Eliot
  • The Present
  • 9. American Literature

46
Penguin Pelican
47
Daiches, David A Critical History of English
Literature. 4 vols. London Secker and Warburg,
(1960) 1969
  • From the Beginnings to the Sixteenth Century
  • Shakespeare to Milton
  • Shakespeare
  • Drama from Jonson to the Closing of the
    Theatres
  • Milton
  • Prose in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth
    Centuries
  • Scottish Literature to 1700
  • 3. The Restoration to 1800
  • 4. The Romantics to the Present Day
  • The Present Age in British Literature
  • (Bloomington, London Indiana University Press,
    (1958) 1969

48
David Daiches
49
Perkins, David A History of Modern Poetry. From
the 1890s to the High Modernist Mode. Cambridge,
MA Harvard University Press, 1976
  • 1. Poetry around the Turn of the Century
  • 2. Poetry in Rapport with a Public
  • 3. Popular Modernism
  • The New Poetry of America
  • Imagism
  • Poetry for Democracy
  • Conservative and Regional Poets of America
  • Black Poets of America The First Phase
  • British Poetry after the War, 1918-1928
  • 4. The Beginnings of the High Modernist Mode

50
Perkins, David A History of Modern Poetry.
Modernism and After. Cambridge, MA Harvard
University Press, 1987
  • The Age of High Modernism
  • The Ascendancy of T. S. Eliot, 1925-1950
  • Eliots Later Career
  • Modes of Modern Style in the United States
  • Hart Crane
  • The Poetry of Critical Intelligence
  • The Period Style of the 1930s in England
  • W. H. Auden
  • The English Romantic Revival
  • The Resurgence of Pound, Williams, and Stevens
  • Postmodernism

51
Period Studies
  • Innes, Christopher Modern British Drama
    1890-1990.
  • Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 1992
  • Proceeds by a mixture of chronological, generic,
    cultural and theoretical features
  • Bradbury, Malcolm The Modern British Novel 1878
  • 2001. London Penguin Books, 2001
  • Proceeds by chronology, each decade a
    characteristic quality is attributed to

52
Period Studies
  • Childs, Peter The Twentieth
  • Century in Poetry. A Critical
  • Survey. London and New York
  • Routledge, 1999
  • Proceeds by a mixture of
  • chronological, generic, cultural
  • and theoretical features.

53
Period Studies
  • Bradbury, Malcolm McFarlane, James, eds.
  • Modernism. A Guide to European Literature
    1890-1930.
  • London Penguin Books (1976) 1991
  • 1. The Name and nature of Modernism
  • 2. The Cultural and Intellectual Climate of
    Modernism
  • 3. A Geography of Modernism
  • 4. Literary Movements
  • 5. The Lyric Poetry of Modernism
  • 6. The Modernist Novel
  • 7. Modernist Drama

54
Histories of Genres
  • Allen, Walter The English Novel. Harmondsworth
  • Penguin Books (1954) 1958
  • Grierson, Herbert J. C. Smith, J. C. A Critical
    History
  • of English Poetry. New Jersey Humanities Press,
  • London Athlone Press (1944) 1983

55
Cultural Memory
  • How we create an image of the past,
  • How we make sense of our past from our present,
  • How we understand ourselves and our past,
  • What stories we tell to ourselves about
    ourselves,
  • What we choose to remember or forget,
  • How we explain the reasons why we remember or
    forget something,
  • How we make sure that we hand over the memories
    that matter to us

56
Cultural Memory as a Concept
  • Introduced to the archaeological disciplines by
    Jan Assmann
  • Assmans definition the "outer dimension of
    human
  • memory" 
  • "memory culture (Erinnerungskultur)
  • "reference to the past (Vergangenheitsbezug)
  • https//tspace.library.utoronto.ca/citd/holtorf/2.
    0.html

57
Communicative Memory vs Cultural Memory
  • The communicative memory contains memories
    that an individual shares with his
    contemporaries.
  • The cultural memory is based on fixed points
    in the past. Even in the cultural memory, the
    past is not preserved as such but is cast in
    symbols as they are represented in oral myths or
    in writings, performed in feasts, and as they are
    continually illuminating a changing present. In
    the context of cultural memory, the distinction
    between myth and history vanishes.

58
(No Transcript)
59
Communicative and Cultural MemoryJAN ASSMANN
  • Astrid Erll, Ansgar Nünning (Hg.), Cultural
    Memory Studies. An International and
    Interdisciplinary Handbook, Berlin, New York
    2008.
  • Jan Assmann, Communicative and Cultural
    Memory 109-118
  • Aleida Assmann, Canon and Archive
  • 97-108

60
Cultural MemorySee http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Cultural_memory
  • As a term, cultural memory was first introduced
    by the
  • German Egyptologists Jan Assmann in his book Das
  • kulturelle Gedächtnis (1992). Assmann and fellow
  • scholars have identified a general interest in
    memory
  • and mnemonics since the early 1980s, illustrated
    by
  • phenomena as diverse as memorials and
    retro-culture.
  • Some might see cultural memory as becoming more
  • democratic, due to liberalization and the rise of
    new
  • media. Others see cultural memory as remaining
  • concentrated in the hands of corporations and
    states.

61
Cultural MemorySee http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Cultural_memory
  • Because memory is not just an individual, private
  • experience but is also part of the collective
    domain,
  • cultural memory has become a topic in both
  • historiography and cultural studies.
  • These emphasize cultural memorys process
  • (historiography) and its implications and objects
  • (cultural studies), respectively.
  • Memory is a phenomenon that is directly related
    to the
  • present our perception of the past is always
  • influenced by the present, which means that it is
  • always changing.

62
Cultural MemoryHistoriographical approachSee
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_memory
  • Crucial in understanding cultural memory as a
  • phenomenon is the distinction between memory and
  • history. This distinction was put forward by
    Pierre
  • Nora, who pinpointed a niche in-between history
    and
  • memory. Simply put, memories are the events that
  • actually happened, while histories are subjective
  • representations of what historians believe is
    crucial to
  • remember. This dichotomy, it should be noted,
  • emerged at a particular moment in history it
    implies
  • that there used to be a time when memories could
    exist
  • as such without being representational.

63
Cultural MemoryHistoriographical approachSee
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_memory
  • Scholars disagree as to when to locate the moment
  • representation 'took over'. Nora points to the
    formation
  • of European nation states. For Richard Terdiman,
    the
  • French revolution is the breaking point the
    change of
  • a political system, together with the emergence
    of
  • industrialization and urbanization, made life
    more
  • complex than ever before. This not only resulted
    in an
  • increasing difficulty for people to understand
    the new
  • society in which they were living, but also, as
    this
  • break was so radical, people had trouble relating
    to the
  • past before the revolution. In this situation,
    people no
  • longer had an implicit understanding of their
    past.

64
Cultural MemoryHistoriographical approachSee
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_memory
  • In order to understand the past, it had to be
  • represented through history. As people realized
    that
  • history was only one version of the past, they
    became
  • more and more concerned with their own cultural
  • heritage (in French called patrimoine) which
    helped
  • them shape a collective and national identity.

65
Cultural MemoryHistoriographical approachSee
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_memory
  • In search for an identity to bind a country or
    people
  • together, governments have constructed collective
  • memories in the form of commemorations which
  • should bring and keep together minority groups
    and
  • individuals with conflicting agendas.
  • The obsession with memory coincides with the fear
    of
  • forgetting and the aim for authenticity.

66
Cultural MemoryHistoriographical approachSee
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_memory
  • However, more recently questions have arisen
    whether
  • there ever was a time in which 'pure', non-
  • representational memory existed. Representation
    is a
  • crucial precondition for human perception in
    general
  • pure, organic and objective memories can never be
  • witnessed as such.

67
Cultural Memory
  • In an oral tradition, all cultural
    representations are
  • easily remembered ones hard-to-remember
  • representations are forgotten, or transformed
    into
  • more easily remembered ones, before reaching a
  • cultural level of distribution.
  • Sperber, Dan Explaining Culture. A Naturalistic
  • Approach. Malden, MSA Blackwell, 1996, 74

68
Cultural MemoryCultural Studies approachSee
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_memory
  • Recently, interest has developed in the area of
  • 'embodied memory'. The body can be seen as a
  • container, or carrier of memory.
  • Memory can be contained in objects. Souvenirs and
  • photographs inhabit an important place in the
    cultural
  • memory discourse.

69
Cultural MemoryCultural Studies approachSee
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_memory
  • Another practice that has a specific relationship
    with
  • memory is photography. The act of taking a
    picture can
  • underline the importance of remembering, both
  • individually and collectively.
  • Pictures cannot only stimulate or help memory,
    but can
  • rather eclipse the actual memory when we
    remember
  • in terms of the photograph or they can serve as
    a
  • reminder of our propensity to forget.

70
Cultural MemoryBetween Culture and Memory
ExperienceSee http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultu
ral_memory
  • The rise of gender and postcolonial studies
  • underscored the importance of the individual and
  • particular memories of those unheard in most
  • collective accounts women, minorities,
    homosexuals,
  • etc.
  • Experience, whether it be lived or imagined,
    relates
  • mutually to culture and memory. It is influenced
    by
  • both factors, but determines these at the same
    time.

71
Cultural MemoryBetween Culture and Memory
ExperienceSee http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultu
ral_memory
  • Culture influences experience by offering
    mediated
  • perceptions that affect it. In turn, experience
    affects
  • culture, since individual experience becomes
  • communicable and therefore collective.
  • A memorial, for example, can represent a shared
    sense
  • of loss.
  • Experience is substantial to the interpretation
    of
  • culture as well as memory, and vice versa.

72
DublinGeneral Post Office
73
The Death of Cuchulain(1911) by Oliver Sheppard
74
Cultural Memory
  • Assmann, Jan Das Kulturelle Gedächtnis Schrift,
    Erinnerung und Politische Identität in frühen
    Hochkulturen. Munich Verlag C.H. Beck, 1992
  • Nora, Pierre 'Between Memory and History Les
    Lieux de Mémoire'. Representations, 26, 1989,
    725.

75
Memory Culture
  • The way a society ensures cultural continuity
  • by preserving, with the help of cultural
    mnemonics, its
  • collective knowledge from one generation to the
    next,
  • rendering it possible for later generations to
  • reconstruct their cultural identity. 
  • https//tspace.library.utoronto.ca/citd/holtorf/2.
    0.html

76
Reference to the Past
  • Reassure the members of a society of their
    collective identity and supply them with an
    awareness of their unity and singularity in time
    and spacei.e., an historical consciousnessby cre
    ating a shared past 
  • It can involve rituals and ceremonies at special
    occasions such as commemoration days, and at
    special places such as ancient monuments, which
    function as timemarks and sites of memory
  • https//tspace.library.utoronto.ca/citd/holtorf/2.
    0.html

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Forms of Cultural Memory
  • Formal institutional private personal
  • History
  • Schools, subjects, syllabi, exams
  • Religion
  • Holidays (public, national, religious, private
    rituals)
  • Anecdotes
  • Memories
  • Controversial, minority views, counter-narratives

78
Cultural Memory and Literature
  • Literary works popular, canonical
  • History of literature
  • - of a language
  • - of a nation
  • Representation of a literature or culture in
    another
  • literature or culture
  • stereotypes
  • popular images
  • history of their literature

79
Cultural memory at DES, SEAS
  • British Literature in the Hungarian Cultural
    Memory
  • project at the Department of English Studies,
    dir. Prof.
  • Ágnes Péter
  • Cultural Memory and Literature
  • An international conference (2425 Sept, 2010)
  • http//kulturalisemlekezet.blogspot.com/

80
Cultural memory resources
  • Cultural Memory, Collective Memory sites
  • Brief introduction to names and concepts
  • http//www.collectivememory.net/2009/12/cultural-m
    emory-and-communicative.html
  • Up to date academic info on projects and
    conferences
  • http//www.collectivememory.net/
  • Definition with interpretation and sources before
    2000
  • https//tspace.library.utoronto.ca/citd/holtorf/2.
    0.html

81
Cultural Memory Texts
  • Jan Assmann, Collective Memory and Cultural
    Identity
  • Collective Memory and Cultural Identity - JStor
  • www.jstor.org/stable/488538
  • Recent publications
  • Cultural Memory Studies An International and
    Interdisciplinary Handbook. Astrid Erll, Ansgar
    Nunning eds. Berlin Walter de Gruyter, 2008
  • Series Cultural Memory in the Present ed. Mieke
    Bal and Hent de Vries, Stanford UP
  • http//www.sup.org/browse.cgi?xseriesyCultural
    20Memory20in20the20Present

82
Studying Cultural Memory
  • Center for the Study of Cultural Memory at the
    University of London
  • http//www.igrs.sas.ac.uk/centre-study-cultura
    l-memory
  • University of Brighton http//arts.brighton.ac.uk/
    study/postgrad/cultural-history-memory-identity-ma
  • The Centre for Bible and Cultural Memory, Faculty
    of Theology, Copenhagen
  • http//www.teol.ku.dk/english/dept/bicum/
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