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Michael Hemenway

Cultural Memory and the Bible - 17 views

Sterling, you are absolutely right. cultural memory theory is indebted to oral tradition studies and this is how cultural memory initially came to be applied to the biblical text as a means of und...

memory cultural bible summary

Michael Hemenway

A tentative answer to the question: has civil society cultural memory? | Social Researc... - 2 views

  • cultural memory is embodied in objectivations that store meaning in a concentrated manner; meanings to be shared. They can be texts (such as sacred texts), chronicles, or poetry. They can be monuments, such as buildings or statues, or any material signs or memorabilia erected as reminders. In addition, cultural memory is embodied in regularly repeated and repeatable practices: festivals, ceremonies, and rites. Finally, cultural memory--like individual memory--is linked to places.
  • Cultural memory constructs and maintains identity. As long as a group of people maintains and cultivates a common cultural memory, the group continues to exist. Yerushalmi (1982) shows that Jews consciously cultivated identity through remembrance. The frequency of the injunction "Zachor!" (Remember!) in the Jewish Bible is a case in point.
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    This is a nice article on cultural memory.
Michael Hemenway

Cultural memory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 3 views

  • Crucial in understanding cultural memory as a phenomenon is the distinction between memory and history. This distinction was put forward by Pierre Nora, who pinpointed a niche in-between history and memory. Simply put, memories are the events that actually happened, while histories are subjective representations of what historians believe is crucial to remember. This dichotomy, it should be noted, emerged at a particular moment in history: it implies that there used to be a time when memories could exist as such — without being representational.
    • Michael Hemenway
       
      This is am important discussion. Though I may not agree with Nora here, this is a common depiction of the relationship between history and memory, with memory being the raw material for histories.
  • Either in visualized or abstracted form, one of the largest complications of memorializing our past is the inevitable fact that it is absent. Every memory we try to reproduce becomes – as Terdiman states – a 'present past'. It is this impractical desire for recalling what is gone forever that brings to surface a feeling of nostalgia, noticeable in many aspects of daily life but most specifically in cultural products.
  • German Egyptologists Jan Assmann in his book "Das kulturelle Gedächtnis",
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    Nice, generic introduction to the field of cultural memory studies. Nothing particularly related to Bible, except the mentions of Jan Assmann, who writes extensively on history, memory and the bible (Moses the Egyptian).
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    Unlike most other theory and method, it would seem that this one has been pioneered by scholars in the field (Bible and ancient text-study)
Michael Hemenway

Remembering Abraham: culture, memory ... - Google Books - 1 views

    • Michael Hemenway
       
      p. 6 offers a nice short description of Hendel's view of history in the Hebrew Bible - "more a midrash on the times than the times themselves" (6)
    • Michael Hemenway
       
      "shared memory of a collective past" (8) - remembering the Exodus story became a central site of cultural memory and identity for the people of Israel and remains so today.
    • Michael Hemenway
       
      genealogies are often sites of cultural memory that are loaded with identity markers. If we read genealogies in light of cultural memory, we might get a better sense of the selectivity of the list and the agenda at work in composing it.
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    • Michael Hemenway
       
      p. 100 has a nice discussion of Hendel's understanding of cultural/collective memory and its relationship to myth and history.
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    Another good resource for exploring the role of memory in biblical history.
Micah Hemenway

Religion and cultural memory: ten ... - Google Books - 1 views

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    Collection of essays from some of the prominent voices in cultural memory studies.
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    This is rather theoretical work, but some very useful material.
Michael Hemenway

The dissemination of the centre - University of Copenhagen - 0 views

  • The Old Testament was created in periods of globalization, in the Persian and the Hellenistic-Roman period. The writings is a piece of memory work meant for creation of national or local identity and particularity in a global world, in the 1st millennium b.c.e. In a globalized world, counter-activity is always present, which focuses on the local, small tradition, the particular narrative, which creates its own way of coherence. The notion of "cultural memory" is used both in the humanities and in social science. Cultural memory appears as overwriting (palimpsests) and re-use of material artifacts, such as buildings, monuments, and texts, and of ritual practice. Memorization can be conscious or unconscious, incorporated in the body, and become visible material culture and monuments. The notion of landscape plays a crucial role in memory work, representing a special challenge in the project. People are never alone, but always relate to place, education, nation, family, religious and political groups, and so on. These collectives are the frames that direct people's comprehension of reality. This is the human context from which one also should look upon  memory and remembrance.
    • Michael Hemenway
       
      This paragraph highlights the essential relationship between memory, identity and social location. The Bible is merely one site of cultural memory in antiquity.
Michael Hemenway

BiCuM: The Centre for Bible and Cultural Memory - University of Copenhagen - 0 views

  • The notion of cultural memory is the decisive factor in a society's reconstruction of the past through a number of media. BiCuM investigates how memory is a fundamental instrument in the formation of cultural, religious, ethnic, and national identity in the Old Testament. The research of the Centre demands an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on relevant studies of the Eastern Mediterranean area in Antiquity.
    • Michael Hemenway
       
      Here is a nice, brief description of cultural memory and the aims of this centre.
Micah Hemenway

The Bible and Interpretation - 2 views

  • Cultural or collective memory (also known as “social memory”) has become a major issue of the last fifty years in several fields. The concept originated within sociology but has more recently taken in psychology and history (see especially Zerubavel E, 2003; Zerubavel Y., 2005) to become an interdisciplinary area of investigation (see Middleton and Edwards, 1990).
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    Phil Davies on Cultural Memory
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    Phil is a bit polemical, but this is a good intro.
Michael Hemenway

The memoirs of God: history, memory ... - Google Books - 1 views

    • Michael Hemenway
       
      Halbwachs summary (pp. 127ff.) is very useful. Three main contributions: "the opposition between memory and history; the role of physical location in collective memory; and the importance of social power in cultural memory" (127). I agree with Smith and others (Yerushalmi, Assmann), that history and memory do not operate in an oppositional binary as Halbwachs seems to suggest. The relationship between the past, history and memory is more complex than this.
    • Michael Hemenway
       
      His summary 138 is very useful. He speaks about the relationship between remembering the past and affecting the present.
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    The last chapter of this book offers a nice summary of some of the important early theoretical work in cultural memory studies, particularly by French scholars. Smith also offers some examples of how the Sinai event is remembered differently in the Bible.
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    I'd really like to read this book - it's going on my list.
Michael Hemenway

Moses the Egyptian: the memory of ... - Google Books - 0 views

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    Assmann is an important figure in cultural memory studies. This book describes his idea of mnemohistory.
Michael Hemenway

Memory, tradition, and text: uses of ... - Google Books - 0 views

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    Cultural Memory has been applied to NT studies, particularly Gospel appropriation of jesus traditions, for a while. This book collects some good studies in this area.
Michael Hemenway

CCM_Home - 0 views

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    Centre for the Study of Cultural Memory (CCM) - new collaborative centre housed at University of London School of Advanced Study
Micah Hemenway

Memory in the Bible and antiquity ... - Google Books - 3 views

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    Collection of essays from a conference.
suesaldin

Psychoanalytic Criticism - 28 views

Thanks, Aaron. You've hit on a lively topic in psychology - nature versus nurture. I agree that physiologically our human brain structure has been stable for an extraordinarily long time. I thin...

Psychoanalytic Criticism

Michael Hemenway

Universe of the mind: a semiotic ... - Google Books - 1 views

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    Great paragraph on the relationship between language, text and memory (18).
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    Section 3 of this work is dedicated to the question of cultural memory and its relationship to history.
suesaldin

Asian Biblical Hermeneutics and Postcolonialism: Contesting the Interpretations (Bible ... - 0 views

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    Examines three ways the Bible has been interpreted in Asia historically: "Orientalist," "Anglicist" and "Nativist." The table of contents indicates that the author advocates "textual cleansing" and a "postcolonial translation strategy" for the multifaith culture of Asia.
suesaldin

Customer Reviews: Voices from the Margin: Interpreting the Bible in the Third World - 0 views

  • Western colonial governments and missionary movements over centuries brought the gospel of Jesus Christ to many parts of the world. At the turn of this new century, with most African, Asian, and South American countries having gained independence from their former colonists, Third World Christians struggle with a heritage of Western theology, expectations, and abuses. New generations in a maturing church are questioning the need for Christ's message to be filtered through, and approved by, Western scholarship. With some sense of hurt and resentment, yet with a desire to effectively bring the gospel to their own peoples, Third World theologians support creative biblical hermeneutics that fit their cultures. This book is a collection of thirty-four writings by authors from twenty-two countries.
  • Many writers want to interpret Christ in ways that honor ancient, rich cultures that may have been crushed by colonization or rejected as evil by early missionaries. Others simply want the message of the Bible to be embraced by needy people of their country: the overwhelming theme of the book is that our God notices, loves, and defends the marginalized - that is, poor, oppressed, and powerless people.
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    This review reflects in straightforward language the need for and goal of postcolonial criticism. It seems that the writer's faith is renewed and enlarged by this approach to reading the text.
suesaldin

Sugirtharajah: Postcolonial Criticism and Biblical Interpretat - Oxford University Press - 0 views

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    "In this stimulating study, R. S. Sugirtharajah explores the implications of postcolonial criticism for biblical studies. He provides a comprehensive overview of the origins, definitions, and procedures of postcolonial criticism, followed by a discussion of the significance of postcolonial criticism in biblical interpretation. He reveals how postcolonial criticism can offer an alternative perspective to our understanding of the Bible, and how, when the Bible has been deployed as a Western cultural icon, it has come to be questioned in new ways. " This book provides an overview of postcolonial Biblical criticism from a leading scholar - may be heavy going but is recommended for interested lay readers.
Michael Hemenway

Postcolonial Biblical Criticism - 10 views

Sue, this is a marvelous summary of a complicated approach. thanks. Dube is a marvelous read!

Postcolonial

Mary Price

Reader-response criticism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

  • Reader-response critics hold that, to understand the literary experience or the meaning of a text, one must look to the processes readers use to create that meaning and experience
  • In stressing the activity of the scholar, reader-response theory justifies such upsettings of traditional interpretations as, for example, deconstruction or cultural criticism.
  • Since reader-response critics focus on the strategies readers are taught to use, they address the teaching of reading and literature
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  • Also, because reader-response criticism stresses the activity of the reader, reader-response critics readily share the concerns of feminist critics and critics writing on behalf of gays, ethnic minorities, or post-colonial peoples.
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