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At first glance, memory appears something inert, stuck previously - a memory of something that has occurred and stopped in time. But a better look reveals that memory is dynamic and connects the three temporal dimensions: evoked at the current, it refers to the past, however always views the future. During their convention entitled ‘Communicative and Cultural Memory’, researchers Jan Assmann and Aleida Assmann, each professors on the College of Konstanz, addressed this dynamic character of memory. Jan spoke on the sturdiness and symbolic points of cultural memory, emphasizing their role in the construction of identities, while Aleida prioritized contemporary historical narrative, focusing on mnemonic processes related to the formation of recent nation-states. The event, held on Could 15 at IEA, opened the conference cycle ‘Spaces of Remembrance’, which the researchers uttered in the nation from May 15 to 21 as a part of the Year of Germany in Brazil.
The cycle has been a realization of the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR) and the Institute for Advanced Research on Social and Cultural Mobility, with the assist of IEA and different establishments. Jan made a distinction between two kinds of memory: the communicative one, related to the diffuse transmission of memories in everyday life by orality, and cultural memory - in which the speech was targeted - referring to objectified and institutionalized memories, that may be saved, transferred and reincorporated all through generations. Cultural memory is formed by symbolic heritage embodied in texts, rites, monuments, celebrations, objects, sacred scriptures and other media that function mnemonic triggers to provoke meanings related to what has happened. Additionally, it brings back the time of the mythical origins, crystallizes collective experiences of the previous and can last for millennia. Due to this fact it presupposes a information restricted to initiates. Communicative Memory Wave, alternatively, is limited to the current previous, evokes private and autobiographical reminiscences, and is characterized by a short term (eighty to 110 years), from three to 4 generations.
On account of its informal character, it doesn't require experience on the part of those that transmit it. Jan pointed out the connections between cultural memory and identity. In keeping with him, cultural Memory Wave Program is ‘the faculty that enables us to build a narrative image of the previous and by means of this course of develop an image and an id for ourselves’. Due to this fact, cultural memory preserves the symbolic institutionalized heritage to which people resort to construct their very own identities and to affirm themselves as part of a bunch. This is possible as a result of the act of remembering involves normative points, so that ‘if you need to belong to a community, you could comply with the principles of how and what to remember’, as said by the researcher. He additionally highlighted that, by working as a collective unifying pressure, cultural Memory Wave is considered a hazard by totalitarian regimes. For example, he talked about the case of the Bosnian war, when Serbian artillery destroyed the Library of Sarajevo in an try to undermine the memory of the Bosnians and minorities within the region.
The objective, he stated, was to make culture a blank slate in order that it could possibly be potential to start a brand new Serbian identity from scratch: ‘This was the technique of the totalitarian regime to destroy the previous, because if one controls the present, the past additionally will get underneath control, and if one controls the past, the future additionally gets below control’. Aleida opened her convention calling consideration to a characteristic phenomenon of the recent many years: a disbelief in the idea of the long run and the emergence of the past as elementary concern. Based on the researcher, from the 1980s, confidence sooner or later as a promise of higher days lost energy and gave rise to the restlessness earlier than the past: ‘the idea of progress is increasingly out of date, and the past has invaded our consciousness’. This phenomenon, she mentioned, is the effect of the interval of extreme violence of the twentieth century and new problems confronted by contemporary society, such as the environmental disaster, for instance.
However she cautioned that it's not mere nostalgia or rejection of trendy occasions, since cultural memory is at all times directed to the longer term, ‘remembering forward, so to speak’. Thus, memory appears as a machine to guard the previous towards the corrosive action of time and to offer subsidies for individuals to understand the world and know what to anticipate, ‘so they do not need to reinvent the wheel and start each technology from scratch’, as the researcher explained. Based on the concept of ‘les lieux de mémoire’ (locations of memory) ready by the French historian Pierre Nora, Aleida talked concerning the modifications which have taken place in the construction of nationwide memory in the submit- World Battle II and publish-Berlin Wall. Thinking from the case of France - a country that would be defined by the triumphant character of its people -, the concept of locations of memory refers to concrete symbolic objects similar to monuments, museums and archives, linked to a self-image of heroism and satisfaction by the nations.