Conference on Memory

I am so tempted

Limits of the Past: The Human Sciences and the Turn to Memory
An Interdisciplinary Graduate Colloquium
Vanderbilt University
19-20 April 2002

Since the cultural turn in the humanities and social sciences, the place of memory in shaping cultural meaning and collective and individual action has been a focus of scholars from a wide range of fields. For many reasons-the end of the twentieth century and the millennium in western calendars; the vast deployment of nationalist myths in ethnic confrontations over the last two decades; the nostalgic trend in literature, cinema, and the media-the uses of memory have also become an ever-present marker of our own modernity. This conference seeks to explore the borders of the turn to memory toexamine how memory liberates, constrains, or otherwise affects social and political possibilities. The point of the conference is less to highlight the dominance of memory in culture than to come to terms with implications of the turn to memory for interpreting social practice.

The conference is an invitation to graduate students in the humanities and social sciences to think through the nature of “memory work” in the constitution of our understanding of the world. What limitations compromise a memorial construction of the world? What are the implications of the turn to memory for scholarly praxis and disciplinarity? How do the dynamics of memory work vary within and among disciplines, their media and modes of discourse? What are the issues with which the turn to memory cannot necessarily engage? If memory is both a force for unity and collective action and a force for divisiveness and manipulation, what bearing does it have for the present? These are only some of the questions contributors might address.

They extended the deadline for abstracts until February 8th, but the conference does conflict with my classes. I am sorely tempted to submit an abstract to this thing; Nashville isn’t that far, and much of my work on Blake revolved around his perception of memory as an enemy to the progress of man. The topic is just close to my heart, but what, me give a paper? Not likely just now. I’m too confused.

The final question is the one I’d like to address. Social memory has become increasingly complex since Blake’s time, but the basic conflict is the same: failure of the grand narratives and difficulty separating heroes from villians. The concept of a “gladiator” culture that refuses to abate. Sheesh, I’ve got to quit thinking about it, I can’t go.