Remembering Places: A Phenomenological Study of the Relationship between Memory and Place

by Janet Donohoe

This book is a phenomenological investigation of the interrelations of tradition, memory, place and the body. Drawing upon philosophers such as Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Gadamer, and Ricoeur, Janet Donohoe uses the idea of a palimpsest to argue that layers of the past are carried along as traditions, through places and bodies, such that we can speak of memory as being written upon place and place as being written upon memory. In dialogue with theorists such as Jeff Malpas and Ed Casey, Donohoe focuses on analysis of monuments and memorials to investigate how such deliberate places of collective memory can be ideological, or can open us to the past and different traditions. The insights in this book will be of particular value to place theorists and phenomenologists in disciplines such as philosophy, geography, memory studies, public history, and environmental studies.

Genres: Architecture, Philosophy

194 pages, Hardcover

First published June 18, 2014

Reviews

[Golriz Nafisi · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was interesting 🤔easy to read, comprehensible and well structured though it added more questions to my prior ones as most of its focus was on monuments and monumentalplaces which even without three chapters of phenomenological analysis one can have a slight idea what connects memory to place in those particular subjects ( it may sound know-it -all but it was the truth for me as I was looking for something else and was faced with something entirely different which did not covered a lot of grounds in the subject the title indicated). I mean the subject of monuments could be wrapped up sooner in the book without so many reapititive examples and explanations.