At first glance, memory seems one thing inert, stuck in the past - a memory of one thing that has occurred and stopped in time. However a more in-depth look reveals that memory is dynamic and connects the three temporal dimensions: evoked at the current, it refers to the previous, however always views the longer term. Throughout their conference entitled ‘Communicative and Cultural Memory’, researchers Jan Assmann and Aleida Assmann, each professors at the University of Konstanz, addressed this dynamic character of memory. Jan spoke on the sturdiness and symbolic elements of cultural memory, emphasizing their function in the development of identities, while Aleida prioritized contemporary historical narrative, focusing on mnemonic processes related to the formation of recent nation-states. The event, held on Might 15 at IEA, focus and concentration booster opened the convention cycle ‘Spaces of Remembrance’, which the researchers uttered within the nation from Could 15 to 21 as a part of the Yr of Germany in Brazil.
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The cycle has been a realization of the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR) and the Institute for Advanced Research on Social and Cultural Mobility, with the help of IEA and different institutions. Jan made a distinction between two kinds of memory: the communicative one, related to the diffuse transmission of memories in on a regular basis life through orality, and cultural memory - during which the speech was centered - referring to objectified and institutionalized memories, that can be saved, transferred and reincorporated all through generations. Cultural memory is formed by symbolic heritage embodied in texts, rites, monuments, celebrations, objects, sacred scriptures and other media that serve as mnemonic triggers to initiate meanings associated with what has occurred. Also, it brings back the time of the mythical origins, crystallizes collective experiences of the past and can last for millennia. Therefore it presupposes a data restricted to initiates. Communicative memory, on the other hand, is restricted to the latest previous, evokes private and autobiographical recollections, and is characterized by a brief term (80 to a hundred and ten years), from three to 4 generations.

Because of its informal character, it doesn't require expertise on the part of those who transmit it. Jan identified the connections between cultural memory and identification. In accordance with him, cultural memory is ‘the college that allows us to build a narrative picture of the previous and by means of this process develop an image focus and concentration booster an identification for ourselves’. Therefore, cultural memory preserves the symbolic institutionalized heritage to which individuals resort to construct their very own identities and to affirm themselves as a part of a gaggle. This is feasible as a result of the act of remembering entails normative facets, so that ‘if you want to belong to a group, you need to observe the rules of how and what to remember’, as acknowledged by the researcher. He also highlighted that, by working as a collective unifying pressure, cultural memory is considered a hazard by totalitarian regimes. For instance, he mentioned the case of the Bosnian battle, when Serbian artillery destroyed the Library of Sarajevo in an attempt to undermine the memory of the Bosnians and minorities within the area.

The purpose, he mentioned, was to make tradition a clean slate in order that it might be doable to start a brand new Serbian id from scratch: ‘This was the technique of the totalitarian regime to destroy the past, because if one controls the current, the past also gets under control, and if one controls the previous, the future also gets below control’. Aleida opened her conference calling attention to a characteristic phenomenon of the latest a long time: a disbelief in the concept of the longer term and the emergence of the past as fundamental concern. In accordance with the researcher, from the 1980s, confidence sooner or later as a promise of higher days lost energy and gave rise to the restlessness earlier than the past: ‘the idea of progress is more and more obsolete, and the previous has invaded our consciousness’. This phenomenon, she mentioned, is the effect of the period of excessive violence of the twentieth century and new problems faced by contemporary society, such because the environmental disaster, for example.

But she cautioned that it's not mere nostalgia or rejection of modern occasions, since cultural memory is at all times directed to the long run, ‘remembering ahead, so to speak’. Thus, memory appears as a device to guard the past against the corrosive action of time and to give subsidies for Memory Wave individuals to understand the world and know what to expect, ‘so they don't need to reinvent the wheel and start every era from scratch’, as the researcher defined. Primarily based on the idea of ‘les lieux de mémoire’ (places of Memory Wave) ready by the French historian Pierre Nora, Aleida talked concerning the changes that have taken place in the construction of national memory within the publish- World Battle II and put up-Berlin Wall. Thinking from the case of France - a country that can be defined by the triumphant character of its folks -, the concept of locations of memory refers to concrete symbolic objects comparable to monuments, museums and archives, linked to a self-picture of heroism and pleasure by the nations.