Mnemones

2019

City Administration in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 53e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale

Mnemosyne, 2015

Throughout antiquity memory played a central role in the production, publication, and transmission of texts. Greek mnemotechnics started developing as early as the 6th century bc and by the 2nd century bc memory established itself as a formal division of rhetoric. Techniques of memorization are described at length in ancient rhetorical or scientific works (such as Aristotle’s De memoria), or alluded to in literary works. The theory of mnemotechnics was concerned with how to learn virtually any text by heart, but there is no systematic discussion of what makes a text intrinsically easy to memorize, nor of how to compose in a memory-friendly manner. However, passing remarks scattered throughout ancient Greek texts show that some awareness existed that certain stylistic and structural features improve the memorability of texts. A systematic study of these primary sources reveals that (a) memorization was not regarded as specifically functional to oral performance alone, and (b) the Greek literary and technical writers consciously looked at the mnemonic advantage of stylistic and structural features only when they wanted to favour the memory of the audience, not that of the performer.

We know not what comes next, or what follows after.

American Behavioral Scientist, 2005

How did human memory activity, conceived of as an activity that helped bring a person closer to God, become affiliated with early sociological conceptualizations of a social construction of reality? This article explores one way of answering this question by considering some social conceptions of human memory from medieval times to modernity. In the Middle Ages, a good memory was an important characteristic of the most esteemed scholars. Rhetoric was enhanced through mnemotechniques. Memory as practiced activity complemented early theological concepts of self-consciousness, or "being" closer to God, and morality and complemented early interpretations of contract law, casuistry, and jurisprudence. These concepts changed when religious belief, educational, and legal systems changed to meet the needs of a modern, capitalistic, and secular society. Capitalism facilitated the development of memory in commodity form, and human memory was claimed from metaphysical discourse as an object of scientific study by sociologists Emile Durkheim and Maurice Halbwachs.

Verfassungsblog , 2018

Yesterday’s essay by Ionna Tourkochoriti about recent memory politics in Greece marks the conclusion of our first online symposium on memory laws, jointly conducted by the T.M.C. Asser Institute (The Hague) and Verfassungsblog. Twelve scholars from eight countries have offered their critical perspectives on the legal governance of historical memory, categorised under the common heading of “memory laws”. One aspect crystalized by this symposium is that despite their multiple forms (punitive and declarative, constitutional and administrative, legislative and judicial, etc.), the adoption of such memory regulations has been on a tremendous rise in Europe. Furthermore, their mushrooming in Central and Eastern Europe, as vividly demonstrated by several of our authors (Bán, Belavusau, Gliszczyńska-Grabias, Halmai, Koncewicz, Koposov, Přibáň), has been intertwined with a certain decline of rule of law in the region. “Illiberal democracies” seem to be particularly eager to revert to populist identity-formation under the guise of memory politics, mainstreaming nationalist historiography while marginalizing and, at times, supressing alternative historical memories of minorities. Likewise, the controversial decision of the European Court of Human Rights in Perinçek (2015), an impressively voluminous judgement challenging the prohibition to deny Armenian genocide, has in recent years sparked an unprecedented attention to invoking law in the context of historical memory.

MNHMH, Proceedings of the 17th International Conference of Aegean Prehistory, University of Udine; Ca' Foscari University of Venice, 17-21 April 2018, E. Borgna, I. Caloi, F. Carinci, & R. Laffineur, eds. Aegaeum 43, Liege, pp. 3-14., 2019

An essay on how memory works and the application of concepts of memory to the archaeology of prehistory Greece. Considered are aspects of memory for Place, in Movement, in Labor, and for Power, with a final note on the Ethics of Memory in archaeological practice

Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics

sehepunkte (http://www.sehepunkte.de/2019/02/31978.html, 2019

The annual Mnemonics summer school brings together junior and senior scholars in the interdisciplinary field of memory studies, affording PhD students from around the world the opportunity to receive extensive feedback on their ongoing projects and to catch up with methodological and theoretical debates in memory studies. Each edition features three keynotes and 24 PhD student presentations. Each PhD student will be assigned a senior respondent from a partner institution who will provide an in-depth commentary on their paper. Mnemonics is a unique platform for learning, mentoring, and networking specifically designed to meet the needs and interests of the next generation of memory scholars.