The relationship between cultural memory, identity, and collective forgetting

Culture

Memory Studies

This week's readings discussed the idea of memory and its connection to culture and identity. Memories are versions of ones past that are depicted as words and images (Connerton, 2003). It is how and why a person remembers things that make the study of memories very interesting. According to Coser (1992), Halbwachs believed that there is a definite connection between what people remember and their sense of identity. People tend to identity strongly with the culture in which they live and their relation to that culture. It is through these associations with the culture around them that people remember things. According to Assman (1995), cultural memory is that association of events in ones past with fixed points. The fixed points are fixed events that are maintained and remembered through cultural formation.

According to Kansteiner (2002), collective memory is not just a historical record of things that have happened to people, but rather a collective phenomenon that only manifests itself in the current actions and statements of a person. This notion is further advanced by Assman when he argues that cultural memories are stored archives that occur in the mode of actuality as they are representations that are adopted and given new meaning within new social contexts and historical contexts (Kansteiner, 2002).