Good Description of how Social-Scientific Criticism from I Peter. Gives concrete example of how Social-Scientific Criticism is utilized. Also good background on Elliott in description, since he founded the technique.
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.
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.
Does not contain a specific chapter on narrative criticism; however it details the literary critical approach from which narrative criticism developed.
"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.
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.
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.