1 Cultural Studies, Cultural MemoryLiterature in Context Cultural Studies, Cultural Memory
2 Cultural Studies Cultural Memory
3 Literature in Context Period Study, Literary History, Cultural Memory, Literatures in English, Post-colonial Studies, Literary Translation: - interrelated notions or approaches to the study of literature - attempts at a scientific approach and a systematic study of literature and its phenomena.
4 Literature in Context University curricula: based on literary kindsbased on literary periods based on individual authors based on literary theories based on social context
5 Cultural Studies See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_studiesTerm coined by Richard Hoggart , 1964 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, New York: Harper & Row, 1966.
6 Richard Hoggart (1918)
7 Raymond Williams ( )
8 Cultural Studies Literary periods in a cultural contextRaymond 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 Studies See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_studies- an academic field grounded in critical theory and literary criticism - generally concerns the political nature of contemporary culture, as well as its historical foundations, conflicts, and defining traits - concentrates on how a particular medium or message relates to matters of ideology, social class, nationality, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender
10 Cultural Studies See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_studies- combines 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 - focuses on 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 Studies See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_studies- concerns itself with the meaning and practices of everyday life cultural practices: the ways people do particular things (watching television, eating out etc) in a given culture - analyses local and global forms of resistance to Western hegemony (political concerns)
12 Five main characteristics of cultural studies:Ziauddin Sardar, Borin Van Loom: Introducing Cultural Studies. Totem Books, 1997 Five main characteristics of cultural studies: 1. Aims to examine its subject matter in terms of cultural practices and their relation to power. E.g., a study of a subculture (white working class youth in London) would consider the social practices of the youth as they relate to the dominant classes.
13 Five main characteristics of cultural studies:Ziauddin Sardar, Borin Van Loom: Introducing Cultural Studies. Totem Books, 1997 Five main characteristics of cultural studies: 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.
14 Five main characteristics of cultural studies:Ziauddin Sardar, Borin Van Loom: Introducing Cultural Studies. Totem Books, 1997 Five main characteristics of cultural studies: 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.
15 Five main characteristics of cultural studies:Ziauddin Sardar, Borin Van Loom: Introducing Cultural Studies. Totem Books, 1997 Five main characteristics of cultural studies: 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.
16 Cultural Studies See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_studiestext 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.
17 Cultural Studies See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_studiesculture concept of “culture" also widened: - traditional high culture (the culture of ruling social groups) - popular culture, and also - everyday meanings and practices (last two have become the main focus)
18 Cultural Studies See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_studiescomparative cultural studies A further and recent approach is comparative cultural studies, based on the discipline of comparative literature and cultural studies.
19 Cultural Studies See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_studiesCultural 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.
20 Tony Harrison
21 Tony Harrison (1937)
22 Tony Harrison: V (1985)
23 Harrison Tony Harrison (1937) V - a poem written in 1985.- describes the poet’s 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: Holbeck cemetery in the Beeston area of Leeds. It overlooks the Elland Road football ground. Tony Harrison grew up in this neighbourhood.
24 Harrison political references- written under the premiership of Mrs. Thatcher, during the miners’ strike - also makes reference to National Union of Mineworkers’ leader, Arthur Scargill.
25 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
26 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”.
27 Harrison If love of art, or love, gives you affrontthat 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?
28 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.
29 Harrison These Vs are all the versuses of lifeFrom 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.
30 Harrison These Vs are all the versuses of lifeFrom 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,
31 Harrison 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.
32 Harrison A filmed version of V. was broadcast by Channel 4 in October 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”.
33 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,
34 Cultural Memory 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
35 Cultural Memory as a ConceptIntroduced to the archaeological disciplines by Jan Assmann Assman’s 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
36 Communicative Memory vs Cultural Memorycommunicative memory: memories that an individual shares with his contemporaries. cultural memory: 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.
37 Communicative Memory vs Cultural MemoryEven 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.
38
39 Communicative and Cultural Memory JAN ASSMANNAstrid Erll, Ansgar Nünning (Hg.), Cultural Memory Studies. An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook, Berlin, New York Jan Assmann, “Communicative and Cultural Memory” Aleida Assmann, “Canon and Archive”
40 Cultural Memory See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_memoryMemory 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.
41 Cultural Memory See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_memoryBecause 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. historiography emphasizes cultural memory’s process and implications cultural studies: emphazises cultural memory’s objects
42 Cultural Memory Historiographical approach See: http://en. wikipediadistinction between memory and history put forward by Pierre Nora memories: the events that actually happened histories: subjective representations of what historians believe is crucial to remember
43 Cultural Memory Historiographical approach See: http://en. wikipediaIn 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.
44 Cultural Memory Historiographical approach See: http://en. wikipediaMore recently: questions 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.
45 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. Dan Sperber, Explaining Culture. A Naturalistic Approach. Malden, MSA: Blackwell, 1996, 74
46 Cultural Memory Cultural Studies approach See: http://en. wikipediaembodied memory the body can be seen as a container, or carrier of memory also in psychiatry: Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score. Viking, 2014 memory contained in objects souvenirs and photographs in the cultural memory discourse.
47 Cultural Memory Cultural Studies approach See: http://en. wikipediaphotography 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.
48 Cultural Memory Between Culture and Memory: Experience See: http://enlived or imagined experience relates to culture and memory: - is influenced by them - determines them at the same time 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.
49 Cultural Memory Between Culture and Memory: Experience See: http://enCulture 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.
50 Dublin General Post Office
51 The Death of Cuchulain (1911) by Oliver Sheppard
52 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, 7–25.
53 “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 space—i.e., an historical consciousness—by creating 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
54 “Memory Culture” The way a society ensures cultural continuityby 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
55 Forms of Cultural MemoryFormal – institutional – private – personal History Schools, subjects, syllabi, exams Religion Holidays (public, national, religious, private rituals) Anecdotes Memories Controversial, minority views, counter-narratives
56 Cultural Memory and LiteratureLiterary 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
57 Cultural memory at DES, SEASBritish Literature in the Hungarian Cultural Memory project at the Department of English Studies, dir. Prof. Ágnes Péter Cultural Memory and Literature An international conference (24–25 Sept, 2010)
58 Cultural memory resourcesCultural Memory, Collective Memory sites Brief introduction to names and concepts: Up to date academic info on projects and conferences: Definition with interpretation and sources before 2000: https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/citd/holtorf/2.0.html
59 Cultural Memory Texts Jan Assmann, “Collective Memory and Cultural Identity” Collective Memory and Cultural Identity - JStor 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
60 Studying Cultural MemoryCenter for the Study of Cultural Memory at the University of London University of Brighton The Centre for Bible and Cultural Memory, Faculty of Theology, Copenhagen: