Memory Matters

In this volume, the editors make use of current memory scholarship to explore ethical, moral and cultural issues that continue to shape the ways in which memory is conceived in a range of scientific, therapeutic and legal settings.

"The past is never dead. It's not even past." — William Faulkner The three thought-provoking essays in Memory Matters explore how the process of memorialization keeps the past alive in the present and shape the way we imagine our possible futures. The product of a one-day symposium hosted by the Humanities Center at Miami University of Ohio, it focuses on issues of commemoration in the contexts of U.S. history, Native America, and museums. In "From Lexington and Concord to Oklahoma City: The Perils and Promise of Public History," Edward T. Linenthal offers a fresh perspective on creating national memorials. In "The Remembered/Forgotten on Native Ground," Daniel M. Cobb draws upon Benedict Anderson's notion of the "remembered/forgotten" to explore the work of memory at the sites of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the Wounded Knee Massacre, and the Miami Removal. And in "Museums Matter," Helen Sheumaker explores how museums function as repositories and creators of cultural memory. The volume also includes a transcript based on the question-and-answer session following the original presentations. Stemming from a two-year scholarly project, "Memory and Culture: Engaged Scholarship, Multidisciplinary Connections, and the Public Humanities," Memory Matters provides scholars and those interested in such fields as museum studies, memorial studies, and cultural history with provocative discussions of the ways in which representation, power, and memory intersect.

Memory Matters juxtaposes in tripartite structure texts by a child of German bystanders (Wolf), an Austrian-Jewish child-survivor (Klüger), a daughter of Jewish émigrés (Honigmann), a daughter of an officer involved in the German resistance (Bruhns), a granddaughter of a baptized Polish Jew (Maron), and a granddaughter of German refuges from East Prussia (Dückers). Placed outside of the distorting victim-perpetrator, Jewish-German, man-woman, and war-postwar binary, it becomes visible that the texts neither complete nor contradict each other, but respond to one another by means of inspiration, reverberation, refraction, incongruity, and ambiguity. Focusing on genealogies of women, the book delineates a different cultural memory than the counting of (male-inflected) generations and a male-dominated Holocaust and postwar literature canon. It examines intergenerational conflicts and the negotiation of memories against the backdrop of a complicated mother-daughter relationship that follows unpredictable patterns and provokes both discord and empathy. Schaumann’s approach questions the assumption that German-gentile and German-Jewish postwar experiences are necessarily diametrically opposed (i.e. respond to a “negative symbiosis”) and uncovers intersections and continuities in addition to conflicts.

Commemorating traumatic events means attempting to activate collective memory. By examining images, metonymic invocations, built environments and digital outreach interventions, this book establishes some of the cognitive and emotional responses that make us incorporate the past suffering of others as a painful legacy of our own.

Jonathan Nossiter, acclaimed filmmaker and former sommelier, had his first taste of wine at the age of three in Paris, from his father's fingertip. For him, wine is "memory in its most liquid and dynamic form," as essential an expression of culture as cinema, books, baseball, painting, even sex. With great wit and passion, he celebrates wine and its enthusiasts—and defends both from those who tell us what to drink and how to think about it. In Liquid Memory, the American expatriate investigates the infinite mysteries of terroir, the historical sense of place that makes wine a living, thrilling expression of cultural identity that can stretch back centuries. The book is a deliriously joyful master class in locating the soul of a wine, and in learning to trust your own palate and desires. Nossiter, who has already created an uproar in the world of wine with his film Mondovino, arms us against the tyranny of snobs, critics, and charlatans who would prevent us from taking part in what should be a gloriously democratic bacchanalia. From the sacred wine shops and three-star restaurants of Paris to the biodynamic vineyards of Burgundy, from the hipster bistros of New York to film locations in Rio de Janeiro and Athens, this singular journey invites us to consider how power, misused, can sometimes mask an absence of taste—and how our own personal taste can combat power in any sphere. A controversial bestseller in Europe, Liquid Memory is sure to rile the establishment, enlighten the thirsty, and reveal the inner life of the world's most mysterious, contradictory, and jubilatory drink.

A proven program from #1 New York Times bestselling author and brain researcher Dr. Daniel Amen to help you change your brain and improve your memory today! Brain imaging research demonstrates that memory loss actually starts in the brain decades before you have any symptoms. Learn the actions you can take to help not just prevent memory loss later in life . . . but to begin restoring the memory you may have already lost. Expert physician Dr. Amen reveals how a multipronged strategy—including dietary changes, physical and mental exercises, and spiritual practices—can improve your brain health, enhance your memory, and reduce the likelihood that you’ll develop Alzheimer’s and other memory loss–related conditions. Keeping your brain healthy isn’t just a medical issue; it’s a God-given capacity and an essential building block for physical, emotional, and spiritual health. Take action against the fast-increasing memory crisis that threatens this crucial part of who you are—and help your brain, body, and soul stay strong for the rest of your life.

This book studies how our personal memory is transformed as a result of technological and cultural transformations: digital photo cameras, camcorders, and multimedia computers inevitably change the way we remember and affect conventional forms of recollection.

In an ancient account of painting’s origins, a woman traces the shadow of her departing lover on the wall in an act that anticipates future grief and commemoration. Lisa Saltzman shows here that nearly two thousand years after this story was first told, contemporary artists are returning to similar strategies of remembrance, ranging from vaudevillian silhouettes and sepulchral casts to incinerated architectures and ghostly processions. Exploring these artists’ work, Saltzman demonstrates that their methods have now eclipsed painting and traditional sculpture as preeminent forms of visual representation. She pays particular attention to the groundbreaking art of Krzysztof Wodiczko, who is known for his projections of historical subjects; Kara Walker, who creates powerful silhouetted images of racial violence in American history; and Rachel Whiteread, whose work centers on making casts of empty interior spaces. Each of the artists Saltzman discusses is struggling with the roles that history and memory have come to play in an age when any historical statement is subject to question and doubt. In identifying this new and powerful movement, she provides a framework for understanding the art of our time.