The Limits of Memory March 4, 2010

Thursday, March 04, 2010 - Saturday, March 06, 2010 3:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

In recent decades there has been a surge of interest in memory and the ways in which it functions, circulates and is mobilized. Much of this research has focused on the positive aspects of memory where it is seen as an effective tool for change, healing, understanding, and education. Particularly in the realm of collective memory, there has been a focus on facing the past as a way to learn its lessons and build a better future. While this focus on the past has productively inspired new and innovative ways of dealing with various forms of memory (including traumatic and posttraumatic memory, embodied memory, the transmission of intergenerational memory, technologies and representations of memory, and so on), there are other sides to this focus on the past. Too often today, scholars focus on the positive and empowering uses of memory and downplay or disregard its negative uses.



Every act of remembering also implies some form of selective forgetting and a reconstruction of the past, often according to present political or cultural needs. This conference aims to address some of the limits in theories and practices of memory, focusing on how the uses of memory are often intimately tied up with its abuses.



The conference’s keynote speaker Andreas Huyssen (Columbia University, German and Comparative Literature) will be joined by speakers including Daniel Levy,Lazar Barkan, Diana Taylor, Jeffrey Olick, Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi, Louis Bickford, Cynthia Milton, Jack Saul, and William Hirst.
Location:

6 East 16th Street, 9th floor (Wolff Conference Room)

Admission:
Free; no tickets or reservations required; seating is first-come first-served

Official Website: http://www.newschool.edu/NSSR/eventsList.aspx?id=42696&DeptFilter=NSSR+Philosophy