Memory in Art: A BIT of The Memory Process

by Suzanne Nalbantian

The humanities can add valuable insights to the study of memory. In this BIT, David Freedberg, an art historian investigating the neural bases of empathy, draws on recent neuroscientific research to explore one of the great masterpieces of fifteenth-century Flemish painting, Rogier van der Weyden's Descent from the Cross. Freedberg connects memory to the direct and indirect bodily responses to a work of art.

29 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 10, 2014

About the author

Suzanne Nalbantian is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Long Island University and an interdisciplinary scholar in the humanities and neuroscience. She holds the BA from Barnard College (’71) and the PhD from Columbia University (’75), and she is a permanent member of Columbia University’s Society of Fellows in the Humanities. At LIU, she has been the winner of the TASA Award for Lifetime Scholarly Achievement and the David Newton Award for Excellence in Teaching. Dr. Nalbantian is the author of four scholarly books and two edited volumes. She is the principal editor of The Memory Process: Neuroscientific and Humanistic Perspectives (MIT Press 2010). Her pioneering book Memory in Literature: From Rousseau to Neuroscience (Palgrave 2003) forged new pathways linking literary memory studies to neuroscience. She has lectured nationally and internationally on the interdisciplinary study of memory and has directed several conferences on that topic. Since 2012, she has been the Chair of the International Comparative Literature Association Research Committee on Literature and Neuroscience.