Forgetting & Technology

Are there things, ideas, or beliefs that are best forgotten? Can digital technology help reinforce forgetting? What are the motives for forgetting? What is being forgotten and remembered in the virtual world?

Lately, I've been imagining what a course would look like that aimed to investigate issues related to technology and memory. Of course, I would like for a course to expand this inquiry with an investigation about writing practices in different contexts and among different audiences.

Just when we think that memory is gradually disappearing from academic or public inquiry, memory continues to thrive as a significant object of inquiry. Take for example Viktor Mayer-Schönberger's "Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age," which makes a strong case for believing that technology continues to make forgetting and forgetfulness obsolete. Much of what we want to forget is constantly remembered through technological and digital tools that "mark" much of what we attempt to erase and forget. This makes us think about how much of the information that we "delete" in the virtual world is not necessarily erased completely. Therefore, technology, such as the Internet, becomes a permanent marker for anything and everything that is circulated virtually. Does this assure us that technology facilitates human memory (as suggested by Sharon Crowley)? Certainly. Does this suggest that technology is part of public discourse that continues to challenge much of what we can say as opposed to what should (not) be said? Perhaps. With the ever growing popularity of Facebook and Twitter, forgetting and memory continue to function as power binaries that need to be investigated in relation to humankind's relationship with technology. Mayer-Schönberger's book may serve as a worthwhile read to further continue thinking about these issues.

On another note, I had announced that I had plans of removing this blog. However, I changed my mind. Now, I would like to move this blog to Wordpress. Please stay tuned for more info about this.

Remember Icons/Memory and Media

My apologies for the delay in posting a new entry in this blog. Since the last time I posted an entry, there has been quite a lot remembering. The passing of icons such as Michael Jackson, Farah Fawcett and Patrick Swayze has reminded us about the necessity of keeping their images and/or recordings within our collective memory in order to keep them with us in spirit. I have been amazed at the outpouring of remembrance for Michael Jackson and how his videos are now immortalized for generations to come. These videos demonstrate how much of technology assists human memory in sustaining our collective history, which includes pop culture. We create pop culture and we sustain it through technology.

I've been at work on Ch. 4 of my dissertation, which examines the context for remembering along the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. Some of the topics I explore here include cultural memory, spatial memory, and subjective/communal memory. I hope to be finished with this chapter by the end of this month.

Today, I ran into Andrea Lunsford's bibliography titled "Memory and Media," which I highly recommend if you want to further study the relationship between memory and technology. The bibliography is also useful if you are constructing a course with the same theme.

I welcome my new followers and I encourage you to stay tuned for my upcoming announcement of a special website that features everything about rhetorical memory.

Update/Memory Conference

This post is long overdue! I have been at work on my dissertation, which I hope to finish in August (cross your fingers). I am currently writing the chapter that examines the use of memory in Gloria E. Anzaldua's "Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza". The one specific thing I can say about the chapter is that it really makes a strong case for the interweaving of personal and communal memory. After this chapter, I will write the chapter about Frederick Douglass' first autobiography. I am hopeful that all these chapters will come together with careful revision and editing. Wish me so much luck!

Given that Facebook and the "Twitterverse" have grown tremendously, I was thinking to move this blog to those realms. It would be marvelous to have an entire network of memory scholars in addition to listservs. If I create a network, I might possibly discontinue this blog. I think I had previously mentioned that I would discontinue the blog after I finish my dissertation. I will think about it. More about that later.

For now, I leave with this announcement that should of interest to any and all memory scholars, as well as interdisciplinary scholars:

"Transcultural Memory Conference":

A conference jointly organized by the Department of English and Comparative Literature, Goldsmiths, University of London, and The Centre for the Study of Cultural Memory, Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, University of London, marking the inauguration of The Centre for the Study of Cultural Memory.

Date: 5-6th February, 2010.

Conference organizers: Lucy Bond, Rick Crownshaw and Jessica Rapson (Goldsmiths); Katia Pizzi and Ricarda Vidal (Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies).

Venue: Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, University of London

Keynote speakers:

Astrid Erll (University of Wuppertal)
Andrew Hoskins (University of Warwick)
Dirk Moses (University of Sydney)
Michael Rothberg (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

Discussant:

Susannah Radstone (University of East London)

Skeptical reactions to the rise of memory studies have focused on the viability of concepts such as ?collective? memory. Can societies really remember collectively? More to the point, can individuals really remember what they have not directly witnessed or experienced? Is to speak of collective memory simply to speak of ideology or political fantasy? The concept of cultural memory has overcome this binary opposition between the individual and the collective, attending to their reciprocal relationship and the cultural grounds on which their mediation takes place (Assman). How, though, does memory work when events are remembered across and
between cultures?

In an age of globalization, is it still possible to speak of local and national memory, or do the local and national always exist in implicit and explicit dialogue with the transnational? Holocaust-and memory studies have begun to address these questions in tracing the globalization of Holocaust memory as a trope by which other modern atrocities are shaped and remembered, and, of course, the Holocaust has been incorporated into national memories in order to forget indigenous genocides and shore up ideals of nation (Huyssen and Patraka). Conversely, theories of vicarious witnessing have posited an ethical dimension to the remembrance of events across cultural boundaries. The ideas of ?prosthetic? and ?post? memory conceive of the remembrance of events not witnessed by those born afterwards or elsewhere, and of mass- mediated memory as something that does not wholly belong to (and define) the familial, ethnic or national group (Hirsch and Landsberg). (The idea of witnessing across cultural borders has not been without controversy in the academy.) Recent innovations in comparative historiography (Moses, Stone, Moshman), laying vital groundwork for developments in memory studies, have sought to remove the ?conceptual blockages? in comparing modern atrocities, moving beyond notions of the Holocaust?s uniqueness that might inscribe a hierarchy of suffering across modernity, eliciting the structural continuities and discontinuities between atrocious events ? between genocide and colonialism. Just as Moses has configured modernity in terms of a racial century, so in sociology and literary studies race has constituted an overarching narrative that brings together diverse modern spheres of both culturally creative and violent activity and identification (Cheyette and Gilroy). In postcolonial studies, concepts such as trauma have enabled a spatial rather than linear approach to the experiences of colony and postcolony (Durrant). In philosophy, conceptions of bare life have allowed an international consideration of state sovereignties and their biopolitical regimes (Agamben). In architectural and urban studies, city development and its architecture is found to articulate a globalised vernacular, which has implications for spaces and places of memory and memorialisation. All of these disciplines find that it is increasingly difficult and problematic to isolate representations of past, which in turn calls attention to the need for the comparative study of memory as it takes an increasingly transcultural form as Rothberg's recent ground-breaking work on the multi-directionality of memory has shown. The conference organizers invite abstracts on the subject of transcultural memory from across the disciplines English and Comparative Literary Studies, History, Cultural Studies, Architectural Studies, Cultural Geography, Film Studies, Media Studies, Politics, Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology, the Visual Arts, and so on but recognize that the study of memory will often involve an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approach.

Conference papers might address but are not limited to how concepts of transcultural memory might relate to:

new directions/new paradigms in trauma studies; testimony studies; new media; new technologies of historical documentation and archivization;memory as performed and embodied; memory and the senses; conceptions of race; citizenship; ?bare life?; postwar, post-event, post-epochal ?structures of feeling? (e.g.,post-1918, -1945, -1968, -1989 and -9/11); the recent interest in the perspective of perpetrators; memory and gender; memory and religion; colonial, postcolonial, and transatlantic studies; the study of museums, monuments, and memorials, as well as the practical implications for heritage industries, memorialization and urban planning issues of law, justice and reparations; legal definitions of genocide; slavery; the relationship between genocides and other modern atrocities; memory and terrorism; the social implications of natural catastrophes and disasters.

Abstracts (no more than 400 words) by July 21st, to transculturalmemory@gmail.com

SSGA/Philosophy and Memory/RSA Symposium

Since the month of April is fast approaching, I wanted to make an early announcement about the first international conference on the work and life of Chicana rhetor, theorist, and escritora Gloria E. Anzaldua. The conference will be hosted at the University of Texas at San Antonio on May 14-17, 2009 by the Society for the Study of Gloria E. Anzaldua. The profile for SSGA can be found both on Facebook and MySpace. This will surely be an important event!

Also, I wanted to feature the homepage of John Sutton, a researcher on memory who has compiled a good set of links for any researcher on memoria. Sutton is a professor at Macquarie University in Sydney and author of Philosophy and Memory Traces: Descartes to Connectionsim--which is also featured on his homepage. His webpage also features some other good links about the interdisciplinary study on memory, which I think are worthy of attention. 

Next week, I will be presenting a part of the second chapter of my dissertation at the RSA Symposium at UTEP. In particular, I will talk about the trajectory of memoria throughout the history of Western rhetoric and also include a discussion about the use of memory among ethnic rhetors such as Frederick Douglass and Gloria E. Anzaldua. If I feel comfortable, I may post some pictures of the event here. I will definitely include a summary of the event, so stay tuned.

Society for the Study of American Women Writers

The Society for the Study of American Women Writers (SSAWW) has extended deadline for proposals to February 28.

Conference details are as follows:

Title: Fourth Conference of the Society for the Study of American Women Writers
Date: October 21-24, 2009
Location: Sheraton Society Hill, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

SSAWW invites submissions of proposals for panels, roundtables, workshops, or individual papers. They welcome sessions on U.S. women authors and themes from the 17th through the 21st century; sessions and papers that compare U.S. women writers to writers of other nations are also welcome.

All conference participants must be members of SSAWW.

Proposals for entire sessions should include: (1) a paragraph describing the session as a whole; (2) a one-page abstract of each paper; (3) a one-page cv for each participant. The conference prefers four presenters per session, excluding the chair, although submissions for panels of three presenters will be considered.

Proposals for individual papers should include a one-page abstract and a one-page c.v.

Please specify if audio/visual equipment is needed.

Proposals may be submitted to Carolyn Sorisio at csorisio@wcupa.edu

History Has Been Made

Barack H. Obama--
44th President of the United States of America

A Day to Remember

First International Conference on Gloria E. Anzaldua

The SSGA (Society for the Study of Gloria Anzaldua) is currently seeking proposals for papers, panels of 3-4 papers, roundtables, workshops, or performances for its First International Conference on the work and life of Gloria E. Anzaldúa on the fifth anniversary of her passing.

We welcome proposals involving all facets of Anzaldúa's life and work. The following tracks are merely suggested conceptual groupings for panel and performance presentations:

· BORDERS—explorations of border theory, borderlands ethos and other concepts of Anzaldúan thought focused on this key concept of her work
· QUEER STUDIES—el mundo zurdo and the atravesados, key to Anzaldúa's thinking and application of her philosophical work
· EDUCATION—pedagogical concerns surrounding her literary and philosophical works. Some questions that may arise: what are some challenges of teaching Anzaldúa? How does Anzaldúa's thought apply to teaching?
· INTERNATIONAL AND TRANSFRONTERA—The effects of globalization and market economies on culture. What is the status of Anzaldúa studies at the international level?
· SPIRITUALITY—Explorations of Anzaldúa's spiritual teachings. How can we heal the earth and ourselves?

Guidelines
Proposals must include the following:
· 250-word proposal narrative
· 100-word abstract suitable for publication in the conference program book
· Submissions for Panels must include proposals and abstracts for each paper and the name, address, phone number(s), e-mail address, and institutional affiliation of each participant
· Audio/visual needs
· Contact person's name, address, phone number(s), e-mail address, and institutional affiliation

All materials must be electronically date-stamped by February 15, 2009. Proposers will be notified of acceptance by March 15, 2009.

Questions about the submission process may be sent to:
gloria.anzaldua.society@gmail.com

Call for Papers: "Independence and Decolonization" (2010)

Call for Papers:

The Institute for Historical Studies at the University of Texas at Austin will host a symposium, Independence and Decolonization, April 15-17, 2010.

Inspired by the upcoming bicentenary of Mexican independence, thesymposium aims to generate dialogue among scholars from a variety ofdisciplines working on processes of independence, decolonization, andthe reconfiguration of territorial and social borders that suchprocesses generate. We encourage proposals that adopt an explicitly synoptic approach to the interactions between metropolitan powers and colonial/nationalist societies. We welcome proposals from scholarsworking on the following broad problem areas:

1. Global and localdynamics of "first wave" independence movements and decolonization inthe late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries (e.g. UnitedStates, Haiti, Spanish America)

2. Nineteenth century decolonization(e.g. Ottoman successor states, Brazil, Cuba)

3. National liberationmovements and decolonization in the twentieth century. We areinterested in bringing into dialogue a variety of approaches and themes which might include ethnic identities and anti-colonial movements, postcolonial state formation, and economic development ofpostcolonial states.

Interested scholars should submit an abstract of 200-500 words and a one-page CV to Professor Susan Deans-Smith, sdsmith@mail.utexas.eduby March 1, 2009.

Participants will be reimbursed for travel and lodging expenses.

For further information about the Institute for Historical Studies, its programs, and fellowships see: www.utexas.edu/cola/insts/historicalstudies/