Aspects Of Social Memory Research Articles

Theory of “Cultural Memory” by J. Assmann and Reflection of Multiculturalism: Myth, Memory and Remembrance in Cultures of “Axial Age”

The paper discusses various aspects of the concept of “cultural memory” coined by Jan Assmann and related both to the problem of determining the categories of culture that became the first objects of philosophical reflection in the era of the Axial Age and to the issues of the modern crisis of the ideology of globalism and multiculturalism. Using the example of some categories of an archaic myth that have not lost their cultural and social relevance at present, the variability of the genesis of philosophy in various civilizations of the epoch of the “Axial Age” is demonstrated - both those in which it arises as an independent form of worldview and those where this process stops at the stage of a highly speculative myth. Special attention is paid to the cultural and social aspects of memory and recollection of the past as forms of spiritual “resistance” to external cultural influences and the preservation of religious and ethnic identity, which is equally relevant both during the genesis of philosophy and in modern post-industrial society during the crisis of globalist ideology and the philosophy of multiculturalism.

Alma Jeftić: Social Aspects of Memory: Stories of Victims and Perpetrators from Bosnia-Herzegovina

Article Alma Jeftić: Social Aspects of Memory: Stories of Victims and Perpetrators from Bosnia-Herzegovina was published on June 1, 2022 in the journal Comparative Southeast European Studies (volume 70, issue 2).

Psychological, Social, Cultural, Literary and Legal Dimensions of Memory

As many researchers have pointed out, the past two decades have seen ‘a hypertrophy of memory’. Never before have so many different disciplines investigated the mysteries behind the ways we remember, trying to show that memory does influence various sciences, from sociology, to law, to literature. This article ventures to outline the scope of these investigations, looking at memory from a different, broad perspective. Following a short introduction, section two focuses on the ‘technical’ details of memory, explaining how our mind remembers (and forgets), and remarking upon the so-called ‘sins of memory’. Section article addresses social aspects of memory, in particular the notion of collective memory. The author explains this increasingly popular term, introducing several other interconnected expressions. Section four focuses on cultural dimensions of memory. It first outlines, then analyses the relationship memory and philosophy have had through the ages, showing how the perceptions of the latter have changed. Next, the author evokes the once popular, nowadays slightly forgotten discipline, known as mnemotechnics, or ‘art of memory’. Section five is devoted to the relations between literature and memory. The article first explains how, in many ways, memory influences literature and then argues that literature is one of the best grounds to observe how different mechanisms of memory work. Thus, the author analyses three contemporary works, Marcel Proust’s In the Search of Lost Time, Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz’s Maidens of Wilko, and Czeslaw Mislosz’s Lost Places, showing how they can help us unveil some of memory’s mysteries. In the last part of the essay, the author investigates the ties between international law and collective memory. Giving insight into this unobvious relationship, on the examples of present-day Argentina and Germany, the article notes that international law both influences and is influenced by collective memory.

“Lighting up in distant regions the sacred fire of the Nation” : the Centenary celebrations (1910) and the Welsh community in Patagonia

Given the pride of place accorded to Welsh descendants in the recent Bicentennial of the May Revolution in Chubut, it may be assumed that Welsh settlers would have received similar recognition when the Centenary was marked in 1910. However, Welsh Patagonians were then regarded very differently by the central authorities, who used the 1910 festivities as part of a campaign to “Argentinise” Chubut populations. Though a crucial snapshot of the process of inclusion of what was perceived as a reticent ethnic group into the nation’s “imagined community”, the marking of the Argentine Centenary in Chubut remains mostly unexplored. Based on the view that key aspects of social memory are conveyed and sustained by ritual performance and commemoration, this article discusses how the invented tradition of the Fiestas Mayas was reenacted in the Centenario in Welsh-populated areas in Chubut according to reports by contemporary sources.

Science Podcast

The show includes social aspects of memory, a look back at NASA's space shuttle program, patterns of insurgent and terrorist attacks, and more.

Remembering race: White racial identity attitudes and two aspects of social memory.

This study investigated whether the White racial identity statuses proposed by J. E. Helms (1984, 1990, 1995) could explain individual differences in how racial stereotypes influence memory for race-related information as measured by memory sensitivity and response bias on a recognition memory task. Participants were 197 White undergraduate and graduate students who read 3 stimulus paragraphs embedded with Black and White stereotypical items. The race of the target character in the stimulus was randomly reported to be Black or White. After a 1-week interval, participants completed a measure of recognition memory, as well as a measure of White racial identity attitudes. Results offer support for the hypothesis that the White racial identity statuses influence how racial stereotypes affect information processing.

Remembering race: White racial identity attitudes and two aspects of social memory.

Remembering race: White racial identity attitudes and two aspects of social memory.

How what we tell becomes what we know: Listener effects on speakers’ long‐term memory for events

Telling others about past events can be viewed as rehearsing one's memory for a set of events, and a recollection on one occasion might exert long‐term influences on event memory. Because variations in the social context of recollection affect how we tell others about events, such variations can also come to influence long‐term memory. In our study, we varied aspects of the listener's behavior during an event recollection by having participants view brief movie excerpts, and then we had them either recount those excerpts to attentive listeners, recount them to distracted listeners, or not recount them at all. We then compared participants’ long‐term memory for the movie excerpts. Our results show that attentive listeners facilitate long‐term memory, whereas situations with distracted listeners are difficult to distinguish from the situations with no listener and with no recounting at all. The paradigm and these exploratory results represent one potential avenue for investigating social aspects of memory.