Memory: Ethics and Rhythmanalysis

by Mark White

This chapter will introduce the thesis’s themes, key terms, and theoretical underpinnings. While ostensibly a thesis on good remembering, this study combines a methodology for analysing remembering practices and a commentary on the projected course of memory as a cultural practice, both of which, it is argued, assist in good remembering. The methodology is inspired by broadly sympathetic accounts of cognition, mind, and memory.1 These accounts resist describing memory as occurring solely in the brain; rather they posit cognitive systems constituted by agents’ brains, bodies, their activities, and those activities’ environments. These accounts are also drawn from a number of disciplines. Consequentially, the sorts of memory that will be discussed are as much concerned with ‘social reproduction’ as ‘mental reflection’. The memory before us is varyingly referred to as ‘collective memory’, ‘re-membering’, or as a form of ‘distributed cognition’. A consequence of the distributed or collective approach is that as the supports change, then so too do practices of remembering. Consequentially, a context-sensitive approach to the ethics of memory and its practices is taken. Furthermore, it is on this basis that the thesis indicates an evolving relationship between agents and practices of memory, an evolving relationship that appears increasingly sensitive to the relationship between the future and memory.

189 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 4, 2023

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