October 19, 2017

Forgetfulness: Making the Modern Culture of Amnesia

This looks like a very interesting book, and I know this feeling well:

O’Gorman’s interest in the deconstruction of historical memory was stirred when he visited Mycenae with his girlfriend and looked at what was advertised as the grave of Agamemnon. He tells us that no one in his West Midlands comprehensive had taught him classical Greek, let alone anything of Mycenaean culture, but the experience of standing “among graves of almost-forgotten origin, and with stories that no one can recollect any longer whether they are true”, started a process of reflection about how the memory culture of the ancient world differed from the modern regime of mandatory forgetting.'

Posted by Dr. Frank at October 19, 2017 01:19 PM