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Annotation
The article is interesting for its use of framing human and computer memory and its discussion of email. Using Heiddigger as a synthetic theory, the authors ask what happens to historical consciousness in the time of modern technology? How is the past deployed in the use and archiving of email in corporate settings. Cognitive science subscribes to the notion of memory as a container for memories. We've modeled information technology memory similarly. The term ‘memory’ is used to refer, both literally and figuratively, to a computer’s capacity for storing and accumulating information. BUT authors suggest reframing the concepts of memory to that of a more psychological perspective. (e.g. Edwards & Potter, 1992; Middleton & Edwards, 1990). They suggest that memory occurs while communicating. It is something that speakers perform rather than simply possess. These performances are informed by cultural understandings of what is to be counted as adequate and felicitous recall. Remembering is, then, a social act, a way of accomplishing some activity in the present through invoking the past in an appropriate and skilled manner. Any memory is thus subjective. A truthful memory is one that matches other "proper" versions or if no other version exists, then it follows a certain logic. Technology adds a contextual layer to the memory in its ability to add validity/truth, i.e., documentation. Email serves in this manner as an archiving device. Through analyzing email, the authors attempt to show a non-discursive side to remembering. The authors note that it may look as if they're giving too much weight to the non-discursive form of archiving, but they say that non-discursive and discursive remembering and forgetting are intertwined.
Citation
Lightfoot, Geofrey, Steven D. Brown, and David Middleton. 2001. Performing the Past in Electronic Archives: Interdependencies in the Discursive and Non-discursive Ordering of Institutional Rememberings. Culture & Psychology 7, no. 2:123.
belongs to i forgot, so what? forgetting in the digital age project
tagged forgetting_theory technology
by dcheung
...on 15-APR-08
Brief Annotation
Divided into three sections with different theoretical approaches: phenomenology for memory, epistemology for history, and hermeneutics for forgetting. In the final section of his book Ricoeur turns his attention to the questoin of forgetting which, he insists, is integral and necessary part of remembering. Central to the ethics of memory is the relation between forgetting and forgiving.
Citation
Ricœur, Paul. Memory, history, forgetting / Paul Ricoeur ; translated by Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer. 0226713415 (hardcover : alk. paper) series Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2004.
Call#: Van Pelt Library B2430.R553 M4613 2004
Call#: Van Pelt Library B2430.R553 M4613 2004
Call#: Ctr for Adv Judaic Studies Lib, 4th & Walnut Sts. CJS B2430.R553 M4613 2004
Call#: Ctr for Adv Judaic Studies Lib, 4th & Walnut Sts. CJS B2430.R553 M4613 2004
belongs to i forgot, so what? forgetting in the digital age project
tagged forgetting_theory
by dcheung
...on 15-APR-08
Annotation
Schacter addresses what he deems the seven sins of memory: transience, absent-mindedness, blocking, misattribution, suggestibility, bias and persistence. Most of these equate to some form of forgetfulness or forgetting (the first three with loss; the last three with error), but in the last chapter, Schacter addresses whether these sins are "vices or virtues." He looks at the evolutionary and psychologically adaptive qualities of forgetfulness. Specifically, he points to the concepts of transience (memory loss over time allows for the dismissal of no longer current information), blocking (allows the rejection of insignificant data), misattribution (forgetting or misdirecting details allows for generalizability), and bias (forgetting negative information allows for optimism). Bias allows us to view our individual and collective histories in a more optimistic light. Such a bias allows for basic human survival, e.g., remembering or forgetting details of the Nazi concentration camps allowed survivors to move on. Similarly, bias is the concept Nietzsche addresses in On the Use and Disadvantages of History of Life.
Citation
Schacter, Daniel L. . Seven sins of memory : how the mind forgets and remembers / Daniel L. Schacter. 0618040196 series Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 2001.
Call#: Van Pelt Library BF376 .S33 2001
Call#: Van Pelt Library BF376 .S33 2001
belongs to i forgot, so what? forgetting in the digital age project
tagged forgetting_theory
by dcheung
...on 15-APR-08
Note: Penn tags ATE my annotation b/c it was too long and then it didn't bother to allow me to cut and paste before it reloaded the page and lost all my changes!
Annotation
A broad survey text on memory theory ranging from the Classical philosophers to current Identity theories. Of special note are the texts which address forgetting particularly Friedrich Nietzsche's On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life and John Frow's Toute la memoire du monde: Repetition and Forgetting. [Penn Tags ate my entire annotation on these two texts and I'll be darned if I'm retyping it, but basically...] Nietzsche writes eloquently showing how forgetting creates happiness and allows us to live existentially; indeed, he suggests that man cannot live at all without forgetting. Frow takes us through two models of memory: the first the prevalent model in cognitive psychology passed down from Aristotle suggests that Memory is a physical construct, archivable and indexable. He notes that the computer model of 'memory' is modeled after this system. Forgetting in such a model is merely incidental. The other model is a dynamic closed system in which time is not causal, but rather all moments are co-present. Reversible rather than retrievable, data are not stored but rather arranged and rearranged. Forgetting is thus an integral principle of this model, since the activity of compulsive interpretation that organizes it involves at once selection and rejection. The introduction briefly touches on Paul Ricoeur's and Avishai Margalit's work on forgetting and amnesty.
Other key authors to look at: Maurice Halbwachs, Benedict Anderson, Edward Said, Dominick LaCapra
Citation
Theories of memory : a reader / edited by Michael Rossington and Anne Whitehead ; contributing editors, Linda Anderson ... [et al.]. 0801887283 (cloth : alk. paper) series Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007.
Call#: Van Pelt Library BF371 .T446 2007
Call#: Van Pelt Library BF371 .T446 2007
belongs to i forgot, so what? forgetting in the digital age project
tagged forgetting_theory
by dcheung
...on 15-APR-08