Memory And Erasure On Willamette's Campus Analysis

Events in the past are preserved through photographs, writings and libraries. Can memories conserve the historical occurrence to the present? The theory of memory transmission states that a “massive trauma experienced by a group in the historical past can be experienced by an individual living centuries later who shares a similar attribute of the historical group” (Balaev 151). In the story “Cattle Car Complex” by Thane Rosenbaum, Adam Posner is a second generation survivor of the Holocaust. He displays symptoms of post-trauma when stuck in an elevator. Mr. Posner’s parents were prisoners of concentration camps and their memories transmit to him “so deeply as to seem to constitute memories” of his own (Hirsch 1). The Holocaust is a “Nazi Judeocide”

Blight’s argument presents numerous examples of how memories can alter history in favor of a particular point of view. In examining his first vision of

History is something that we all have knowledge of. It may be family history, or even your own but we all know of an experience that happened in the past. These experiences make us who we are, and they determine how we think. Not only that but they determine our emotions towards certain topics. Through characters in the book, "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, " written by Jamie Ford, we learn that American identity is based on ones history and if we want America to become a stronger more united place everyone’s history must be accepted.

“Postmemory” describes the relationship that the “generation after” bears to the personal, collective, and cultural trauma of those who came before-to experiences they “remember” only by means of the stories, images, and behaviors among which they grew up. But these experiences were transmitted to them so deeply and affectively as to seem to constitute memories in their own right. (Hirsch 2016)

Both of these texts establish that the importance of remembering history is to avoid it from repeating itself In the article, the author says that “the history of humanity is replete with major atrocities as a result of the gross violation of human rights and believing that lessons can be learned through remembering history to avert future tragedies” (“The Accord On Racism”). He says that the past is filled with important crime, abuse, and violation. He suggests that the only way to avoid the repetition of the past tragedies is by remembering the event. The violation of human rights sets an example for the present. He claims that they are aware of the past and understands the horrific aftermath and how it to avoid it. The fear of tragic events give people makes it resistible and make people desire change. Similar to “The Accord on Racism”, the narrator of “Sonny Blues” observes that everything is the same as when he was young, children are constant reminders that the community needs change. While describing his students, the

Memories are important, they are a personal record of our past experiences, and could be called the history book for our life. In the poem "The Heroes You Had as a Girl", author Bronwen Wallace tells the story of a woman who meets her high school hero later in her life, reflects on her memories of him, and ultimately decides not to talk to him. The effect that this topic has on everyone is the knowledge that we can be captivated and let our memories control us, and by knowing that our memories hold that much power, it may make it more mentally efficient to make accurate, and personal decisions in a fraction of the time. The topic and overall meaning that this idea holds convey a message that resonates with the idea that memories are in fact the central hub of our decision making. People remembering memories can affect their perspective on their lives to such an extent, that they prefer to immerse their mind in their past memories rather than the current reality.

The passage of time continues its long journey as present becomes the past. We, as humans, have always viewed the past as a valuable asset capable of assisting us towards greater heights. We, therefore, strive to preserve our history in order pass it to the next generation, without alterations. To accomplish such a task, our society created monuments—structures that would last for long periods of time and would be able to preserve our memories, understandings and perception of an event and/or a significant personality. Consequently, our country harbors countless monuments and memorials which allow us to understand own history, and comprehend the numerous achievements and sacrifices of those who served the country.

Memories can in a way define who we are and how we progress through life. Memories can be a pathway to either follow the straight and narrow or to have us decide which fork of the road to take. Past memories can help to identify a person and can effect the future that follows. Through the journy of self discovery, Marshall’s Praisesong for the Widow and Danticat’s Breath, Eyes, Memory suggest one must relive past and present memories to find their true identity in the future.

The book Silencing The Past is about how people “silence” the past through selective memories to benefit us in the present. We pick out certain events and either dramatize them or play them down to the point of no importance. This paper is about both our played up dramas and our forgotten realities.

Most events and places of historical value nowadays holds little value in our lives. We confine ourselves to our interstates and highways, following the long line of motel chains stopping for maybe two minutes to take a picture just to say we were there. We take nothing away from these sites that is of real value. We barely scratch at the surface of information and true meaning of what happened at these historical sites. Rinker Buck explains his own experience with removing himself from this cultural norm

Memory – what it is, how it works, and how it might be manipulated – has long been a subject of curious fascination. Remembering, the mind-boggling ability in which the human brain can conjure up very specific, very lucid, long-gone episodes from any given point on the timeline of our lives, is an astounding feat. Yet, along with our brain’s ability of remembrance comes also the concept of forgetting: interruptions of memory or “an inability of consciousness to make present to itself what it wants” (Honold, 1994, p. 2). There is a very close relationship between remembering and forgetting; in fact, the two come hand-in-hand. A close reading of Joshua Foer’s essay, “The End of Remembering”, and Susan Griffin’s piece, “Our Secret”, directs us

The purpose of my memory artifact is to argue that epic poetry is a form of memory representation used to portray the collective memory of a nation and a civilization. An Epic poem is a long narrative poem that deals with an event significant or important to a culture or nation. I believe my presentation was quite successful since I was able to get my message across and make a connection with the audience. However, my presentation only incorporated the visual and oral components of WOVEN and failed to stand alone by itself. My presentation could be enhanced by fully utilizing the Prezi’s features by highlighting key ideas, adding colored fonts and by elaborating on definitions and historical contexts.

I started my undergraduate career as a psychology major at UC Davis, where I was interested in understanding human behavior and identity formation. As I progressed in my studies, I became increasingly focused on collective memory--specifically, how we construct narratives to make meaning from our experiences. This trajectory led me to obtain bachelor’s degrees with both Film Studies and History.

Our human condition is defined by mortality, contingency, and discontentment. This reality combined with the new outlooks of relationships between our lives and the objects that surround us in our world, have caused authors in the twentieth century to question traditional Western thought. In Remembrance of Things Past, Marcel Proust extends these comparisons to include one's use of memory and

Memory is defined as "the persistence of learning over time through the storage and retrieval of information." Our memory can be compared to a computer's information processing system. To remember an event we need to get information into our brain which is encoding, store the information and then be able to retrieve it. The three-stage processing model of Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin suggests that we record information that we want to remember first as a fleeting sensory memory and then it is processed into a short term memory bin where we encode it ( pay attention to encode important or novel stimuli) for long-term memory and later retrieval. The premise for the three step process is that we are unable to focus on too much