Cultural Memory

Fredric Jameson argued that in an age of
postmodernity "the very function of the news media
is to relegate . recent historical experiences as
rapidly as possible into the past." This course
will consider the bold proposition that art and
literature, to paraphrase modernist poet Ezra
Pound, is "news that stays news," which might
speak to our current crisis of collective memory.
We will question whether or not art and literature
have a special purchase on historical experience
by analyzing what is meant by the term cultural
memory and why it might be of importance to
artists and writers. We will pay particular
attention to key scholars within cultural memory
studies such as Aleida Assmann, Pierre Nora, and
Andreas Huyssen and cover examples from various
traditions of cinema and sculpture. We will also
study a range of literary forms by authors such as
M. NourbeSe Philip, Ishmael Reed, Layli Long
Soldier, and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha.