The book explores the evolving ideas and themes of the Frankfurt School's key figures across two generations, highlighting both the persistent concerns and the shifts in their intellectual focus. It delves into the complexities of their philosophical and sociological inquiries, providing insights into how their thoughts have developed and adapted over time.
Discusses how the memory of traumatic events, such as genocide and torture, is inscribed within human bodies.
Exploring the impact of modern society on memory, this book delves into how contemporary living influences our cognitive abilities. It examines the challenges posed by technology, fast-paced lifestyles, and information overload, offering insights into the implications for memory retention and recall. The author presents a thought-provoking analysis of how these factors shape our everyday experiences and suggests ways to enhance our memory in a rapidly changing world.
In treating memory as a cultural rather than an individual faculty, this book provides an account of how bodily practices are transmitted in, and as, traditions. Most studies of memory as a cultural faculty focus on written, or inscribed transmissions of memories. Paul Connerton, on the other hand, concentrates on bodily (or incorporated) practices, and so questions the currently dominant idea that literary texts may be taken as a metaphor for social practices generally. The author argues that images of the past and recollected knowledge of the past are conveyed and sustained by ritual performances and that performative memory is bodily. Bodily social memory is an essential aspect of social memory, but it is an aspect which has until now been badly neglected. An innovative study, this work should be of interest to researchers into social, political and anthropological thought as well as to graduate and undergraduate students.