BS2615-1-WI10

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.

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.

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).