Synopsis
Theories of Memory provides a comprehensive introduction to the rapidly expanding field of memory studies. It is a resource through which students will be able both to broaden their knowledge of contemporary theoretical perspectives and trace the development of ideas about memory from the classical period to the present. The Reader is organised into three parts: *Part I, Beginnings, is historical in scope. Its three sections, Classical and Early Modern Ideas of Memory; Enlightenment and Romantic Memory, and Memory and Late Modernity lay out the key psychological, rhetorical, and cultural concepts of memory in the work of a range of thinkers from Plato to Walter Benjamin. *Part II, Positionings, identifies three major perspectives through which memory has been defined and debated more recently: Collective Memory; Jewish Memory Discourse; and Trauma. *Part III, Identities, examines the key role of memory in contemporary constructions of identity under the headings Gender; Race/Nation; and Diaspora. The general introduction sets out the significance of the field of memory studies while the accessible introductions to the nine sections also include suggestions for further reading in the area. Features*Offers a comprehensive introduction to the rapidly expanding field of memory studies*Both theorizes and historicizes the concept of memory for students of literature and culture*Foregrounds the importance of memory in contemporary theory*Provides a thorough survey of theories of memory from the classical period to the present*Edited by a team with a distinct range of expertise as well as experience of teaching theories of memory to graduate students
About the Authors
Michael Rossington is Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. He has published mainly on the writings of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley. He is currently working on his contribution to The Poems of Shelley, Vol. 3, to be published by Longman. Michael Rossington and Anne Whitehead co-edited Between the Psyche and the Polis: Refiguring history in literature and theory (Ashgate 2000).
Anne Whitehead is Senior Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Literature at Newcastle University, UK. She is the author of Trauma Fiction (Edinburgh, 2004) and Memory: New Critical Idiom (Routledge, 2009). She has co-edited The Edinburgh Companion to the Critical Medical Humanities (Edinburgh, 2016), Theories of Memory: A Reader (Edinburgh, 2007) and W. G. Sebald: A Critical Companion (Edinburgh, 2004), as well as a special issue of Feminist Theory on feminism and affect. She has published articles on contemporary literature in a range of journals, including Modern Fiction Studies, Textual Practice, and Contemporary Literature.
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