“Examination of Memory” and the Formation of Modern Socio-Cultural Space

This article analyses the contemporary Russian sociocultural space, exploring the degree of influence of memories of the past on modern society, the use of images of the past in the formation of actual culture. Cultural memory is a major factor in modern socio-cultural space: it contributes to the way people experience their surroundings and their identity through chosen images and artefacts of the past. Professional assessment by the experts is an important tool in understanding how cultural memory works and how it is utilized in socio-cultural experience. This article presents an attempt to reveal the mechanisms of interpretation of the content of cultural memory and the representation of its meanings by means of culture. The article discusses such problems as the process of preserving, transforming and transmitting cultural memory, as well as the possibility of humanistic knowledge in matters of ”memory examination”, analysis and forecasting of the development of the socio-cultural sphere. Keywords: culture, cultural memory, collective memory, commemorative practices, cultural assessmen

Culture and the remembering of trauma

This research investigated the influence of culture and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on global autobiographical remembering (Study 1a) and on the phenomenological properties (Study 1b) and memory-content variables (Study 1c) of trauma-specific autobiographical remembering. Australian, British, and Iranian trauma survivors with and without PTSD completed the Autobiographical Memory Test, Self-Defining Memory Task, and Autobiographical Memory Questionnaire and provided trauma- and negative-memory narratives. We found that there were pan-cultural deficits and distortions in the global autobiographical remembering of participants with PTSD (Study 1a). In addition, the presence of PTSD moderated the usual effect of culture on the phenomenological properties of the trauma memory (Study 1b). Finally, participants with PTSD, regardless of cultural background, had significantly fewer expressions of autonomy and self-determination in their autobiographical remembering than did those without PTSD (Study 1c). The findings suggest that pan-culturally, individuals with PTSD have similar disruptions and distortions in their autobiographical remembering

Remembering Poland: The Ethics of Cultural Histories

Art Spiegelman\u27s Maus, Cynthia Ozick\u27s The Shawl, and Eva Hoffman\u27s Lost in Translation and Exit into History are recent American texts that draw upon cultural histories of Poland to launch their narratives. Each text confronts and reconstructs fragments of twentieth-century Poland at the interactive sites of collective culture and personal memory. By focusing on the contested relationship between Poles and Jews before, during, and after World War II, these texts dredge up the ghosts of centuries-long ethnic animosities. In the post-Cold War era, wherein Eastern Europe struggles to redefine itself, such texts have a formative influence in re-mapping the future of national identities

Historical Memory And Cultural Immunity Of Society As Resources Of The Transformation Of The Culture Of Education

This paper problematizes the current state of historical memory and cultural immunity as a cross-development trend in the field of education, noting that sociocultural thought has focused on understanding of historical memory and cultural immunity as parallel processes, and the transformation of the culture of education is described in relation to a new information reality, which gives rise to the dehistorization of the field of education. The author of the paper believes that the adoption of social and resource methodological schemes brings hope to get the answers for the two important aspects: first, cultural space of the educational society in the analysis of the effects of the wearable information technologies, and, in this regard, the degree of influence of historical memory and cultural immunity, second, the aspect that can be described as “specific” in the educational culture of Russian society, in which the “language” of globalization is translated into the culture-historical context of national education

The development of color categories in two languages: a longitudinal study

This study unites investigations into the linguistic relativity of color categories with research on children's category acquisition. Naming, comprehension, and memory for colors were tracked in 2 populations over a 3-year period. Children from a seminomadic equatorial African culture, whose language contains 5 color terms, were compared with a group of English children. Despite differences in visual environment, language, and education, they showed similar patterns of term acquisition. Both groups acquired color vocabulary slowly and with great individual variation. Those knowing no color terms made recognition errors based on perceptual distance, and the influence of naming on memory increased with age. An initial perceptually driven color continuum appears to be progressively organized into sets appropriate to each culture and language

Music, Memory, and Imagination

This article argues that the capacity of music to reliably cue both autobiographical memories and fictional imaginings can be leveraged to better understand the relationship and interdependence between memory and imagination more generally. The multiple levels involved in musical engagement provide a rich forum for investigating how emotional, semantic, and contextual associations with musical cues influence both memories and imaginings. Moreover, musical excerpts are extended in time and can influence the trajectory of a memory or imagining dynamically as it develops, allowing for a more precise manipulation of the implied semantic space. Because music’s uses and contextual associations are culturally constrained, and culture can be shared, autobiographical memories and fictional imaginings cued by music can show surprising similarities among individuals from the same culture. This article surveys the research on music-evoked autobiographical memories and music-evoked fictional imaginings, proposing a framework for bringing these separate strands of work together to shed light on larger questions about shared underlying mechanisms

Историческая память как фактор формирования социетальной культуры

HISTORICAL MEMORY AS A FACTOR OF THE FORMATION OF SOCIETAL CULTURE O. HUKИсследуются актуальные проблемы в современных условиях в Украине и глобализованном мире. Подробно проанализированы основные понятия памяти и забвения, а также основные концепции западных ученых по проблемам памяти, в частности, М. Хальбвакса, Я. Ассманна, П. Норы, П. Коннертона и др. Большинство из них использует термин «коллективная память», который был введен в научный оборот М. Хальбваксом. Значительное внимание уделяется структурному и функциональному анализу коллективной памяти как социального явления, различающего разные типы памяти, которые в определенной степени влияют на формирование социальной культуры. Выделены две основные тенденции для решения вопросов национальной политики памяти в украинском обществе: чрезмерные и недостаточные. В контексте второй тенденции рассматривается конкретная «память жертв» как своего рода коллективный механизм, что приводит к забыванию прошлых событий, которые общество переживает как травматические. Подчеркивается необходимость обсуждения этих вопросов в публичном дискурсе и работы над формированием социальной культуры, способствующей консолидации нации.= The article is dedicated to research of relevant problems in the modern conditions in Ukraine and in the globalized world. The scientific research based on the phenomenological, hermeneutic methodology, as well as elements of psychoanalysis. The author analyzes the concept of memory and oblivion in detail. The comparison based on the basic concepts of Western scholars regarding memory problems, particularly: M. Halbwachs, J. Assmann, P. Nora, P. Konnerton and others. Most of them use the term “collective memory”, which was introduced into scientific circulation by M. Halbwachs. At the same time, significant attention is paid to structural and functional analysis of collective memory as a social phenomenon, distinguishing different types of memory, which, to some extent, influence the formation of societal culture. The author identifies two main trends to address issues of national memory policy in Ukrainian society: excessive and insufficient. In the context of the second trend the author analyzes specific “victim memory” as a kind of collective mechanism which leads to forgetting the past events that are experienced by society as traumatic. But modern society should be sure to discuss these issues in the public discourse. So now it is very important to work on the elaboration of a societal culture, which can consolidate nation

Memory programmes: the industrial retention of collective life

This is a postprint of an article published in Cultural Geographies © 2015 copyright SAGE Publications. Cultural Geographies is available online at: http://cgj.sagepub.com/This article argues that in software, we have created quasi-autonomous systems of memory that influence how we think about and experience life as such. The role of mediated memory in collective life is addressed as a geographical concern through the lens of ‘programmes’. Programming can mean ordering, and thus making discrete, and scheduling, making actions routine. This article addresses how programming mediates the experience of memory via networked technologies. Materially recording knowledge, even as electronic data, renders thought mentally and spatially discrete and demands systems to order it. Recorded knowledge also enables the ordering of spatiotemporal experience both as forms of history, thus the sharing of culture, and as the means of imagining futures. We increasingly retain information about ourselves and others using digital media. We volunteer further information recorded by electronic service providers, search engines and social media. Many aspects of our collective lives are now gathered in cities (via closed-circuit television, cellphone networks and so on) and retained in databases, constituting a growing system of memory of parts of life otherwise forgotten or unthought. Using examples, this article argues that in software, we have created industrialised systems of memory that influence how we think about living together

Linking unlearning with innovation through organizational memory and technology

While the information technologies provide organizational members with explicit concepts, such as writing instruction manuals, the ‘organizational memory’ provides individuals with tacit knowledge, such as systematic sets, routines and shared visions. This means that individuals within an organization learn by using both the organizational memory and the information technologies. They interact to reduce organizational information needs contributing to improve organizational innovativeness. However, the utilization of the organization memory or the technology infrastructure does not guarantee that appropriate information is used in appropriate circumstances or that information is appropriately updated. In other words, previous memories reflect a world that is only partially understood and assimilated, which might lead individuals to doing the wrong things right or the right things wrong. This paper examines the relative importance and significance of the existence of unlearning to the presence and nature of ‘organizational memory and technology’. We further examine the effect of the existence of organizational memory and information technology on conditions that promote organizational innovativeness. These relationships are examined through an empirical investigation of 291 large Spanish companies. Our analysis found that if the organization considers the establishment of an unlearning culture as a prior step in the utilization of organization memory or the technology infrastructure through organizational innovativeness, then organization memory and technology have a positive influence on the conditions that stimulate organizational innovativeness