In the Handbook of Culture and Memory, Brady Wagoner and his team of international contributors explore how memory is deeply entwined with social relationships, stories in film and literature, group history, ritual practices, material artifacts, and a host of other cultural devices. Culture is seen as the medium through which people live and make meaning of their lives. In this book, analyses focus on the mutual constitution of people's memories and the social-cultural worlds to which they belong. The complex relationship between culture and memory is explored in: the concept of memory and its relation to evolution, neurology and history; life course changes in memory from its development in childhood to its decline in old age; and the national and transnational organization of collective memory and identity through narratives propagated in political discourse, the classroom, and the media.

While the fall of the Berlin Wall is positively commemorated in the West, the intervening years have shown that the former Soviet Bloc has a more complicated view of its legacy. In post-communist Eastern Europe, the way people remember state socialism is closely intertwined with the manner in which they envision historical justice. Twenty Years After Communism is concerned with the explosion of a politics of memory triggered by the fall of state socialism in Eastern Europe, and it takes a comparative look at the ways that communism and its demise have been commemorated (or not commemorated) by major political actors across the region. The book is built on three premises. The first is that political actors always strive to come to terms with the history of their communities in order to generate a sense of order in their personal and collective lives. Second, new leaders sometimes find it advantageous to mete out justice on the politicians of abolished regimes, and whether and how they do so depends heavily on their interpretation and assessment of the collective past. Finally, remembering the past, particularly collectively, is always a political process, thus the politics of memory and commemoration needs to be studied as an integral part of the establishment of new collective identities and new principles of political legitimacy. Each chapter takes a detailed look at the commemorative ceremony of a different country of the former Soviet Bloc. Collectively the book looks at patterns of extrication from state socialism, patterns of ethnic and class conflict, the strategies of communist successor parties, and the cultural traditions of a given country that influence the way official collective memory is constructed. Twenty Years After Communism develops a new analytical and explanatory framework that helps readers to understand the utility of historical memory as an important and understudied part of democratization.

While memory research has recently focused on brain images and neurological underpinnings of transmitters, "Human Memory: A Constructivist View" assesses how our individual identity affects what we remember, why and how. This book brings memory back to the constructivist questions of how all the experiences of an individual, up to the point of new memory input, help to determine what that person pays attention to, how that information is interpreted, and how all that ultimately affects what goes into memory and how it is stored. This also affects what can be recalled later and what kind of memory distortions are likely to occur.

The authors describe constructionist theories of memory, what they predict, how this is borne out in research findings, presenting everyday life examples for better understanding of the material and interest. Intended for memory researchers and graduate level courses, this book is an excellent summary of human memory research from the constructivist perspective.
Defines constructivist theory in memory researchAssesses research findings relative to constructivist predictionsIdentifies how personal experience dictates attention, interpretation, and storageIntegrates constructivist based findings with cognitive neuroscience

This international collection brings together scientists, scholars and artist-researchers to explore the cognition of memory through the performing arts and examine artistic strategies that target cognitive processes of memory. The strongly embodied and highly trained memory systems of performing artists render artistic practice a rich context for understanding how memory is formed, utilized and adapted through interaction with others, instruments and environments. Using experimental, interpretive and Practice-as-Research methods that bridge disciplines, the authors provide overview chapters and case studies of subjects such as: * collectively and environmentally distributed memory in the performing arts; * autobiographical memory triggers in performance creation and reception; * the journey from learning to memory in performance training; * the relationship between memory, awareness and creative spontaneity, and * memorization and embodied or structural analysis of scores and scripts. This volume provides an unprecedented resource for scientists, scholars, artists, teachers and students looking for insight into the cognition of memory in the arts, strategies of learning and performance, and interdisciplinary research methodology.

Cognitive impairment, through Alzheimer's disease or other related forms of dementia, is a serious concern for afflicted individuals and their caregivers. Understanding patients' mental state and combatting social stigmas are important considerations in caring for cognitively impaired individuals. Psychosocial Studies of the Individual's Changing Perspectives in Alzheimer's Disease describes programs and strategies that professional and family caregivers can implement to engage and improve the quality of life of persons suffering from cognitive impairment. Including real-world cases by international experts and a personal approach to the subject, this book is an important resource for caregivers, researchers, and families living with dementia.

The question of how well children recall and can discuss emotional experiences is one with numerous theoretical and applied implications. Theoretically, the role of emotions generally and emotional distress specifically in children's emerging cognitive abilities has implications for understanding how children attend to and process information, how children react to emotional information, and how that information affects their development and functioning over time. Practically speaking, increasing numbers of children have been involved in legal settings as victims or witnesses to violence, highlighting the need to determine the extent to which children's eyewitness reports of traumatic experiences are accurate and complete. In clinical contexts, the ability to narrate emotional events is emerging as a significant predictor of psychological outcomes. How children learn to describe emotional experiences and the extent to which they can do so coherently thus has important implications for clinical interventions.

As people are living longer on average than ever before, the number of those with dementia will increase. Because many will live a considerable time at home with their diagnosis, we need to know more about the ways people can adapt to and learn to live with dementia in their everyday lives. Lars-Christer Hyden argues in this book that to do so will involve re-imagining what dementia really is and what it can mean to the afflicted and their loved ones. One of the most important everyday opportunities for sharing experiences is the simple act of storytelling. But when someone close to you gradually loses the ability to tell stories and cherish the shared history you have together, this is seen as a threat to the relationship, to the feeling of belonging together, and to the identity of the person diagnosed. Therefore, learning about how people with dementia can participate in storytelling along with their families and friends helps to sustain those relationships and identities. In Entangled Narratives, Hyden not only emphasizes the possibilities that are inherent in collaborative storytelling, but instructs professionals and otherwise healthy relatives to learn how to effectively listen and, ultimately, re-imagine their patients and loved ones as collaborative meaning-makers in their lives.

Memory loss is not always viewed purely as a contingent neurobiological process present in an ageing population; rather, it is frequently related to larger societal issues and political debates. This edited volume examines how different media and genres - novels, auto/biographical writings, documentary as well as fictional films and graphic memoirs - represent dementia for the sake of critical explorations of memory, trauma and contested truths. In ten analytical chapters and one piece of graphic art, the contributors examine the ways in which what might seem to be the individual, ahistorical diseases of dementia are used in contemporary cultural texts to represent and respond to violent historical and political events - ranging from the Holocaust to postcolonial conditions - all of which can prove difficult to remember. Combining approaches from literary studies with insights from memory studies, trauma studies, anthropology, the critical medical humanities and media, film and comics studies, this volume explores the politics of dementia and incites new debates on cultures of remembrance, while remaining attentive to the lived reality of dementia.

What remains of the colours of our childhood? What are our memories of a blue rabbit, a red dress, a yellow bike? Were they really those colours? And later on, what colours do we associate with our student years, our first loves, our adult life? How does colour leave its mark on memory? How does it stimulate memory? How does it transform it? Or, to reverse that question, how does colour become the victim of memory's whims and lapses?

In an attempt to reply to these questions - and to many others - Michel Pastoureau presents us with a journal about colours that covers over half a century (1950-2010). Through personal memories, notes taken on the spot, uninhibited comments, scholarly digressions and the remarks of a professional historian, this book retraces the recent history of colours in France and Europe. Among the fields of observation that are covered or evoked are the vocabulary and data of language, fashion and clothing, everyday objects and practices, emblems and flags, sport, literature, painting, museums and the history of art.

This text - playful, poetic, nostalgic - records the life of both the author and his contemporaries. We live in a world increasingly bursting with colour, in which colour remains a focus for memory, a source of delight and, most of all, an invitation to dream.

Mere decades after the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the promise of European democracy seems to be out of joint. What has become of the once-shared memory of victory over fascism? Historical revisionism and nationalist propaganda in the post-Yugoslav context have tried to eradicate the legacy of partisan and socialist struggles, while Yugonostalgia commodifies the partisan/socialist past. It is against these dominant 'archives' that this book launches the partisan counter-archive, highlighting the symbolic power of artistic works that echo and envision partisan legacy and rupture. It comprises a body of works that emerged either during the people's liberation struggle or in later socialist periods, tracing a counter-archival surplus and revolutionary remainder that invents alternative protocols of remembrance and commemoration. The book covers rich (counter-)archival material - from partisan poems, graphic works and photography, to monuments and films - and ends by describing the recent revisionist un-doing of the partisan past. It contributes to the Yugoslav politico-aesthetical "history of the oppressed" as an alternative journey to the partisan past that retrieves revolutionary resources from the past for the present.

Edited by veteran Czech diplomat and senior religion scholar Glenn Hughes, The Presence of the Past presents new insights from a conference hosted by the Vaclav Havel Program for Human Rights and Diplomacy at Florida International University, in cooperation with the Czech non-profit organization Post Bellum and the Vaclav Havel Library. Its fundamental topic is memory, the human capacity to retain its contents in the flux of time, which is explored and discussed both theoretically and in terms of current action-oriented public discourse. The distinguished group of philosophers, theologians, political scientists, historians, journalists, and political activists who contributed to this volume share their perspectives on pressing issues in the modern world, at the nexus of politics and philosophy. This book's most central goal is to bring together those who are used to operating in the realm of ideas, in the so-called "ivory tower," and those who work on the ground-sharp observers of human matters, trained to study them from different perspectives and exposed in their daily lives to the practical problems connected with our capacities of memory, individual or collective. The aim of this dialogue and communication is to open a path to a new beginning. A postscript tries to demonstrate that such an encounter is truly possible; that it can even be productive, and make a good deal of sense.

Our longstanding view of memory and remembering is in the midst of a profound transformation. This transformation does not only affect our concept of memory or a particular idea of how we remember and forget; it is a wider cultural process. In order to understand it, one must step back and consider what is meant when we say memory. Brockmeier's far-ranging studies offer such a perspective, synthesizing understandings of remembering from the neurosciences, humanities, social studies, and in key works of autobiographical literature and life-writing. His conclusions force us to radically rethink our very notion of memory as an archive of the past, one that suggests the natural existence of a distinctive human capacity (or a set of neuronal systems) enabling us to "encode," "store," and "recall" past experiences. Now, propelled by new scientific insights and digital technologies, a new picture is emerging. It shows that there are many cultural forms of remembering and forgetting, embedded in a broad spectrum of human activities and artifacts. This picture is more complex than any notion of memory as storage of the past would allow. Indeed it comes with a number of alternatives to the archival memory, one of which Brockmeier describes as the narrative approach. The narrative approach not only permits us to explore the storied weave of our most personal form of remembering-that is, the autobiographical-it also sheds new light on the interrelations among memory, self, and culture.

How is technology changing the way people remember? This book explores the interplay of memory stored in the brain (internal memory) and outside of the brain (external memory), providing a thorough interdisciplinary review of the current literature, including relevant theoretical frameworks from across a variety of disciplines in the sciences, arts, and humanities. It also presents the findings of a rich and novel empirical data set, based on a comprehensive survey on the shifting interplay of internal and external memory in the 21st century. Results reveal a growing symbiosis between the two forms of memory in our everyday lives. The book presents a new theoretical framework for understanding the interplay of internal and external memory, and their complementary strengths. It concludes with a guide to important dimensions, questions, and methods for future research. Memory and Technology will be of interest to researchers, professors, and students across the disciplines of psychology, philosophy, library and information science, human factors, media and cultural studies, anthropology and archaeology, photography, and cognitive rehabilitation, as well as anyone interested in how technology is affecting human memory. _____ "This is a novel book, with interesting and valuable data on an important, meaningful topic, as well as a gathering of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary ideas...The research is accurately represented and inclusive. As a teaching tool, I can envision graduate seminars in different disciplines drawing on the material as the basis for teaching and discussions." Dr. Linda A. Henkel, Fairfield University "This book documents the achievements of a vibrant scientific project - you feel the enthusiasm of the authors for their research. The organization of the manuscript introduces the reader into a comparatively new field the same way as pioneering authors have approached it." Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schoenpflug, Freie Universitat Berlin

This book offers a comprehensive overview of the concept of repressed memories. It provides a history and context that documents key events that have had an effect on the way that modern psychology and psychotherapy have developed. Chapters provide an overview of how human memory functions and works and examine facets of the misguided theories behind repressed memory. The book also examines the science of the brain, the reconstructive nature of human memory, and studies of suggestibility. It traces the present-day resurgence of a belief in repressed memories in the general public as well as among many clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, "body workers," and others who offer counseling. It concludes with legal and professional recommendations and advice for individuals who deal with or have dealt with the psychotherapeutic practice of repressed memory therapy. Topics featured in this text include: The modern diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) (once called MPD) The "Satanic Panic" of the 1980s and its relation to repressed memory therapy. The McMartin Preschool Case and the "Day Care Sex Panic." A historical overview from the Great Witch Craze to Sigmund Freud's theories, spanning the 16th to 19th centuries. An exploration of the cultural context that produced the repressed memory epidemic of the 1990s. The repressed memory movement as a religious sect or cult. The Repressed Memory Epidemic will be of interest to researchers and clinicians as well as undergraduate and graduate students in the fields of psychology, sociology, cultural studies, religion, and anthropology.

This collection shifts the focus from collective memory to individual memory, by incorporating new performative approaches to identity, place and becoming. Drawing upon cultural geography, the book provides an accessible framework to approach key aspects of memory, remembering, archives, commemoration and forgetting in modern societies.

This book is about the representations - both visual and linguistic - which people give of their own places of origin. It examines the drawings of interviewees who were asked to draw their own place of origin on a white A3 sheet, using pencil or colour, according to their choice. If they were born in a place they did not remember because they moved in when they were very small, they could draw the place they did remember as the scenario of their early childhood. The drawings are examined from three different perspectives: semiotics, cognitive psychology and geography. The semiotic instruments are used to describe how each person reconstructs a complex image of his/her childhood place, and how they translate their own memories from one language to another, e.g. from drawing to verbal story, trying to approach what they want to express in the best possible way. The cognitive-psychological point of view helps clarify the emotional world of the interviewees and their motivations during the process of reconstruction and expression of their childhood experiences. The geographical conceptualizations concern a cultural level and provide insight into the cartographic models that inspire the maps people drew. One of the main findings was the influence from cultural codes as demonstrated in the fact that most of the US students interviewed drew their maps showing considerable cartographic expertise in comparison to their European counterparts.

The senses can be powerful triggers for memories of our past, eliciting a range of both positive and negative emotions. The smell or taste of a long forgotten sweet can stimulate a rich emotional response connected to our childhood, or a piece of music transport us back to our adolescence. Sense memories can be linked to all the senses - sound, vision, and even touch can also trigger intense and emotional memories of our past.
In The Proust Effect, we learn about why sense memories are special, how they work in the brain, how they can enrich our daily life, and even how they can help those suffering from problems involving memory. A sense memory can be evoked by a smell, a taste, a flavor, a touch, a sound, a melody, a color or a picture, or by some other involuntary sensory stimulus. Any of these can triggers a vivid, emotional reliving of a forgotten event in the past.
Exploring the senses in thought-provoking scientific experiments and artistic projects, this fascinating book offers new insights into memory - drawn from neuroscience, the arts, and professions such as education, elderly care, health care therapy and the culinary profession.

In the past decade, the field of memory has been dramatically reconfigured. Global conditions have powerfully impacted on memory debates, and at the same time, claims to memory are negotiated globally. This is a fundamental shift, as until recently, the dynamics of memory production unfolded primarily within the bounds of the nation-state; coming to terms with the past was largely a national project. Under the impact of processes of globalization, this has changed fundamentally. Today it has become impossible to understand the trajectories of memory outside a global frame of reference. This book offers an innovative inroad into the various problematics of memory in a global age. It presents analytical categories to chart the terrain, and it supplies richly documented case studies that illustrate the complexities of contemporary ways of appropriating the past. Written from different cultural positions and from different disciplinary backgrounds, the collection of essays emphasizes the positionality of memory production as it is negotiated locally and globally.

This book investigates the fascinating concept of a continuum between human memory and memory of materials. The first part provides state-of-the-art information on shape memory alloys and outlines a brief history of memory from the ancient Greeks to the present day, describing phenomenological, philosophical, and technical approaches such as neuroscience. Then, using a wealth of anecdotes, data from academic literature, and original research, this short book discusses the concepts of post-memory, memristors and forgiveness, highlights the analogies between materials defects and memory traces in the human brain. Lastly, it tackles questions of how human memory and memory of materials work together and interact. With insights from materials mechanics, neuroscience and philosophy, it enables readers to understand and continue this open debate on human memory.

This book presents a study of remembrance practices emerging after the 2005 London bombings. Matthew Allen explores a range of cases that not only illustrate the effects of the organisation of remembrance on its participants, but reveal how people engaged in memorial culture to address difficult and unbearable conditions in the wake of 7/7.

Is your memory hierarchy stopping your microprocessor from performing at the high level it should be? Memory Systems: Cache, DRAM, Disk shows you how to resolve this problem.
The book tells you everything you need to know about the logical design and operation, physical design and operation, performance characteristics and resulting design trade-offs, and the energy consumption of modern memory hierarchies. You learn how to to tackle the challenging optimization problems that result from the side-effects that can appear at any point in the entire hierarchy.
As a result you will be able to design and emulate the entire memory hierarchy.
Understand all levels of the system hierarchy -Xcache, DRAM, and disk.
Evaluate the system-level effects of all design choices.
Model performance and energy consumption for each component in the memory hierarchy.

Principles of Learning and Memory presents state-of-the-art reviews that cover the experimental analysis of behavior, as well as the biological basis of learning and memory, and that overcome traditional borders separating disciplines. The resulting chapters present and evaluate core findings of human learning and memory that are obtained in different fields of research and on different levels of analysis. The reader will acquire a broad and integrated perspective of human learning and memory based on current approaches in this domain.