Public Forgetting

The Rhetoric and Politics of Beginning Again

Häftad, Engelska, 2011

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Beskrivning

Forgetting is usually juxtaposed with memory as its opposite in a negative way: it is seen as the loss of the ability to remember, or, ironically, as the inevitable process of distortion or dissolution that accompanies attempts to commemorate the past. The civic emphasis on the crucial importance of preserving lessons from the past to prevent us from repeating mistakes that led to violence and injustice, invoked most poignantly in the call of “Never again” from Holocaust survivors, tends to promote a view of forgetting as verging on sin or irresponsibility. In this book, Bradford Vivian hopes to put a much more positive spin on forgetting by elucidating its constitutive role in the formation and transformation of public memory. Using examples ranging from classical rhetoric to contemporary crises like 9/11, Public Forgetting demonstrates how, contrary to conventional wisdom, communities may adopt idioms of forgetting in order to create new and beneficial standards of public judgment concerning the lessons and responsibilities of their shared past.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2011-11-15
Mått:152 x 229 x 16 mm
Vikt:340 g
Format:Häftad
Språk:Engelska
Antal sidor:222
Förlag:Pennsylvania State University Press
ISBN:9780271036663
Utmärkelser:Winner of Book of the Year Award, Critical-Cultural Division, National Communication Association 2011

Utforska kategorier

Filosofiska discipliner inom Filosofi och religion

Mer om författaren

Bradford Vivian is Associate Professor of Communication and Rhetorical Studies in the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University.

Recensioner i media

“Public Forgetting offers readers a new conceptual approach, analytical vocabulary, and evaluative framework with which to recast forgetting in [a] more favorable light. . . . [The book] ably tackles more than two millennia of bias against forgetting. This study of a neglected and constitutive dimension of memory suggests new directions for research in the interdisciplinary field of memory studies. The signal contribution of Public Forgetting is its reminder of the intimate relationship of remembrance and forgetting. Appeals to remember are simultaneously, implicitly or explicitly, appeals to forget (and vice versa). By inviting readers to adopt this more complex appreciation of their interplay, Vivian sets a new critical standard for future scholarship in the field.”—Katherine E. Mack Rhetoric and Public Affairs

Innehållsförteckning

ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroductionPart 1. Forgetting in Public Life: An Idiomatic History of the Present1.The Two Rivers, Past and Present2.Forgetting Without OblivionPart 2. Public Forgetting: Alternate Histories, New Heuristics3.Hallowed Ground, Hollow Memory: Rhetorical Form and Commemorative Politics on September 11, 20024.Historical Forgetting: John W. Draper and the Rhetorical Dimensions of History5.Cultural Forgetting: The “Timeless Now” of Nomadic Memories6.Moral and Political Forgetting: Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and Second InauguralConclusionNotesReferencesIndex