Volume 7: Memory
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Volume 7: Memory Introduction, the editors. Ihab Saloul. “Performative Narrativity”: Palestinian Identity and the Performance of Catastrophe. Response by Anikó Imre Timothy R. Tangherlini. “Where was I?”: Personal Experience Narrative, Crystallization and Some Thoughts on Tradition Memory. Responses by David C. Rubin and Bergsveinn Birgisson Sara Reith. Through the “Eye of the Skull”: Memory and Tradition in a Travelling Landscape. Response by Alice Binchy Discussion by Guy Beiner. Event Reviews by Katherine Loague, Natalie M. Underberg. Book Reviews by Ruth Goldstein, Ryan Sayre, Anna B. Creagh, Taylor Joy Mitchell, Amanda Maria Morrison, and Trevor J. Blank. © 2008, The University of California Cultural Analysis: An Interdisciplinary Forum on Folklore and Popular Culture Volume 7: Memory Anthony Bak Buccitelli & Tok Thompson, editors. Introduction..................................1 Articles and Responses Ihab Saloul. “Performative Narrativity”: Palestinian Identity and the Performance of Catastrophe. Response by Anikó Imre......................................5 Timothy R. Tangherlini. “Where was I?”: Personal Experience Narrative, Crystallization and Some Thoughts on Tradition Memory. Responses by David C. Rubin and Bergsveinn Birgisson..............................................41 Sara Reith. Through the “Eye of the Skull”: Memory and Tradition in a Travelling Landscape. Response by Alice Binchy......................................................77 Discussion Guy Beiner. In Anticipation of a Post-Memory Boom Syndrome.....................107 Event Reviews Katherine Loague. #510: If the Shoe Fits…...........................................................................R1 Natalie M. Underberg. Playing Folklorists Online: Teaching about Folk Art through Interactivity......................................................................R7 Book Reviews Ruth Goldstein.Traveling Spirit Masters: Moroccan Gnawa Trance Music in the Global Marketplace ( Kapchan).......................................................................................R13 Ryan Sayre. Risk and Technological Culture: Towards a Sociology of Virulence (Van Loon)...........................................................................R15 Anna B. Creagh. National Dreams: The Remaking of Fairy Tales in Nineteenth-Century England. (Schacker) .......................................................................... R20 Taylor Joy Mitchell . Tex[t]-Mex: Seductive Hallucinations of the “Mexican” in America. (Nericcio)...................................................................................................................R22 Amanda Maria Morrison. Check It While I Wreck It: Black Womanhood, Hip-Hop Culture, and the Public Sphere. (Pough)....................................................................................R24 Trevor J. Blank. American Science Fiction TV: Star Trek, Stargate, and Beyond. (Johnson-Smith)..................................................................R28 i Editorial Board Fekade Azeze, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia Ezekiel Alembi, Kenyatta University, Kenya Pertti J. Anttonen, University of Helsinki, Finland Hande Birkalan, Yeditepe University, Istanbul, Turkey Regina Bendix, Universität Göttingen, Germany Charles Briggs, University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A. Véronique Campion-Vincent, Maison Des Sciences De L’Homme, France Linda Dégh, Indiana University, U.S.A. Valdimar Tr. Hafstein, University of Iceland, Reykjavik Jawaharlal Handoo, Central Institute of Indian Languages, India Galit Hasan-Rokem, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem Jason Baird Jackson, Indiana University, U.S.A. Kimberly Lau, University of California, Santa Cruz, U.S.A. John Lindow, University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A. Sabina Magliocco, California State University, Northridge, U.S.A. Jay Mechling, University of California, Davis, U.S.A. Fabio Mugnaini, University of Siena, Italy Sadhana Naithani, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India Peter Shand, University of Auckland, New Zealand Francisco Vaz da Silva, University of Lisbon, Portugal Maiken Umbach, University of Manchester, England, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain Ülo Valk, University of Tartu, Estonia Fionnuala Carson Williams, Linen Hall Library, Belfast, Northern Ireland Ulrika Wolf-Knuts, Åbo Academy, Finland Staff Editors: Anthony Bak Buccitelli, Karen Miller, Tok Thompson Review Editors: Jean Bascom, Ted Biggs, Joy Tang Copy Editors: Jennifer Gipson, Bianca Hagan, Maggi Michel, Michelle Robinson Website Developer: Brooke Dykman ii Memory: Introduction Introduction to Cultural become diffuse. Across cultures there are Analysis Volume 7, Special broad similarities in the practice and ex- pression of memory, yet myriad cultural Issue: Memory. differences between groups and even between individuals intimately link ven beginning to speak of memory memory practices to cultural contexts. Eis difficult, because what is memo- Similarly, different modes of memory ry? If it exists, which it must, then where activities become popular or unpopular is it located? A list of possible answers (film, heritage sites, contemporary bal- includes books, petroglyphs, neurons, lad festivals), yet just as assuredly the traditions, narratives, architecture, film, changes are not completely random. and oak trees. Different disciplines ad- Scholars of folklore have long been dress the question of memory different- at the forefront of research on the con- ly, from computer science to ethnic stud- nections between memory and culture. ies. While the functioning of memory is However antiquated some of their theo- assuredly rooted in biological phenom- ries might seem today, the early works ena, there is a general agreement across of the antiquarian folklorists, at least as many disciplines that the experience of far back as the Grimms’ Deustche Sagen memory involves something more com- (1816-18), reflected many concerns with plex than even the intricate network of the collective remembrance of the past brain impulses that sustains it. In this that would not be unfamiliar to con- sense, memory is a multi-tiered process, temporary scholars of cultural memory. something that involves the coming to- With the increased emphasis on individ- gether of biological, psychological, lin- uals as the originators and dissemina- guistic, social and cultural elements. tors of folklore in the twentieth century, There is a general agreement that folklorists increasingly sought to inter- memory involves recalling the past, rogate the part played by individual whether of one’s own individual expe- memory in the maintenance and repro- rience, or of a learned (social) memory. duction of traditional culture. (Wesselski In cognitive science, Tulving’s work on 1925; 1931; 1934; Anderson 1923; 1935; memory (e.g., 1972, 1983) has proved Lord 1960) In recent years, more nu- seminal at modeling different types of anced investigations of the interplay of individual memory, such as the proce- social and cultural elements in the lives dural, and episodic. Both types we share of traditional performers (Dégh 1969; with much of the animal kingdom (see, Pentikäinen 1978; Glassie 1982; Holbek e.g., Clayton et al 1988, 2007). Human- 1987) have led some scholars to call for ity’s use of complex language, narra- a reinvigoration of the concept of “col- tives, and (more recently) inscriptions lective creation” of traditional materi- has pushed our social, learned memory als, including historical remembrances, to a particular complexity and rhetorical rejected outright by many folklorists in power. Yet when one attempts to trace the early twentieth century. (Hafstein the sources of this power, they quickly 2004) Cultural Analysis 7 (2008): 1-4 © 2008 by The University of California. All rights reserved 1 Anthony Bak Buccitelli & Tok Thompson Memory: Introduction The multifarious nature of memory David Rubin and ������������������Bergsveinn Birgis- often demands an interdisciplinary son bring forward a variety of critiques approach, a demand that often yields of Tangherlini’s approach in their respec- conflicts and confusion in equal propor- tive responses to his article. Aside from tion to it rewards. All interdisciplin- the specific points Rubin and Birgisson ary work is fraught with the potential address in Tangherlini’s article, their for miscommunication and misunder- critical discussion serves to highlight standings, dogged by the difficulties of several places of substantial theoretical mastering multiple knowledge sets. Yet, disjunction between the approaches of at the same time, this halting, stuttering folklorists and those more familiar with conversation is desperately needed, in the approaches of cognitive scientists. order for scholars to agree upon basic While contemporary folklorists have foundational ideas and expose points tended to conceptualize tradition and of conceptual disjunction between disci- traditional memory as a set of tensions plinary methodologies. between the individual and the social, In this volume, scholars from a wide the works of psychologists and cogni- variety of disciplines, from psychology tive scientists, as well as scholars who to cultural studies, have contributed follow their approaches, have tended to their perspectives on the interplay of so- see tradition and memory more as the ciety, culture and memory through the activity of individuals. Under the latter vehicle of narrative. As such, the work model, cognitive functioning is located assembled here proposes to investigate so firmly in individualized biological