Memories: To Trust or Not

Prosthetic Memory by Alison Landsberg had an interesting concept of being able to transplant historic memories or experiences into people, in a way that cuts across class, race, or gender. While I'm intrigued by this idea, I'm not convinced of her argument or at least not in terms of its use in history or even public history. I did enjoy her discussion of memory and her use of sources after I stepped away from looking at it in a historical context. But from a historical perspective, its too theoretical and her evidence, while using an interesting interpretation of literature and cinema, is too subjective, less based on 'solid' evidence. I'm skeptical that memories that cut across social lines as cleanly as she suggests, that there can be a unique, solitary public memory that anyone can access. Even though she admits on the last couple of pages that this is her Utopian view of the future, I wish she had addressed the negative and potential problems her argument. A whole idealize theory is great until someone tries it in reality without considering the consequences.

Jay Winter's "The Generation of Memory" made more of a connection for me than Landsberg's piece. Blurred lines between truth and fiction in storytelling are not inherently bad rather the voice (spirit, maybe) of the memory is sometimes more important. His skepticism and distrust of publicly funded memorials which usually shows a sacrifice and redemption theme) is well argued. He does a very nice job of showing how the political context of why something is memorialized makes it a product of its contemporary time rather than of the time it commemorates.

Both pieces challenge the notion of memory and how memory can be influence- for better or worse. While Landsberg focuses on the optimistic notions of memory, Winter has a more realistic (at time cynical) position. While I'm not I agree fully with either of them, their arguments do force me to look closure at the value and use of memories, much like Rosenzweig and Thelen did.