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University conference to examine the role of forgetting in cultural memory

A conference at the University of Kent aims to address the question of whether forgetting is a necessary process which societies must undergo in order to progress.

The conference, titled Cultural Memory: Forgetting to Remember/Remembering to Forget, will take place at the University's Canterbury campus 10-13 September. The keynote speakers are Joseph Massad, Associate Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History, Columbia University, USA; Mary Anne Doane, Professor of Modern Culture and Media, Brown University, USA; and Jay Winter, Professor of History, Yale University, USA.

A further 160 speakers will represent disciplines such as anthropology, architecture, art history, English, European and world literature, film, fine art, history, philosophy, politics, sociology and theology.

Themes will include: Empire and Memory; Fiction of Memory/Memory's Fictions; Myth and Memory; Performance and Memory; Place and Memory; Religion and Collective Memory; Terror and Memory; Testimony and Memory; and War and Memory.

The conference will also consider whether forgetting is a necessary part of functioning under the demands of contemporary modern life, how architects, film makers, video artists, fine artists, photographers, musicians and writers contribute to the process of inventing, forgetting and reinventing elements of national and cultural identity, and whether the social order is allowed to veil memories in order that society may survive by forgetting. Two exhibitions (photography and painting) will open on the first day of the conference and remain open to the public throughout September.

Dr Ana de Medeiros, Senior Lecturer in French at the University's School of European Culture and Languages and the conference organiser, said: 'This conference brings together specialists from over 20 countries with a rich diversity of approaches. It will provide ample opportunity for discussion and debate, leading no doubt to exciting new directions in the study of cultural memory.'

The conference has been organised by the University's Kent Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (KIASH) .For the conference programme and further details go to the Cultural Memory website.

Contact: mediaoffice@kent.ac.uk

Story published at 10:21am 22 August 2008