Reading Notes:
Sue
Campbell, "Chapter 2: Respecting Remembers," Relational
Remembering, 25-45.
25: Memory contests: Whose story is remembered, whose story
counts?
26: Repression, dissociation, and recovery from the unconscious
26: FMSF: False Memory Syndrome Foundation
27: Western culture's emphasis on memory as a key to selfhood
possible contrasts with self as body, or
forgetfulness and selfhood
asymmetry between calling into question women as
rememberers and women as deniers of the same memories being remembered
FMSF socio-economic bias
28: "The performance of a personal narrative is a fundamental means by
which people comprehend their own lives and present a 'self' to the
audience."
29: Memory, interpretation, and the authenticity of a story: Whose story
counts as real, and thus, whose self counts as real?
29-30: Example: Beatrice Hanson, her grandaughter Katherine Borland, and
Hanson's memory of her father:
Hanson bets on a race against her father's advice and
wins. Hanson's version of the story is one of proud accomplishment
witnessed by a father who is ultimately proud of his daughter. Borland's
account of Hanson is of a woman who defiantly stands against her
chauvinistic, patriarchal father.
32-34: How we come to see a person as a 'person': i) requires a
normative view of personhood (judgment about what a valid person is),
ii) that this normative view is established socially, iii) can
occur to varying degrees, and iv) is established through the conferring
of 'respect.'
Respecting that a person remembers
correctly, and can act on that intention appropriately, confers
personhood on that person. Likewise, disrespect devalues
that person's personhood.
35: Example: the difficulty that incest survivor has in establishing
appropriate intentions towards the future, in part due to the molester's
damaging the survivor's sense of memory, which becomes highly confused
(What really happened?!), and her ability to plan for the future
(appropriate intention).
39: (contra John Locke), memory is not just remembering past actions and
experiences with the same consciousness as when the action or experience
took place, but now to have a retrospective view with a different, and
possible more evolved sense of the significance of the event, and one's
sense of responsibility, awareness, and values with regard to it: "changed
consciousness [is a] part of normal experiential memory"
38: Example: Learning Remembering
41-42: William James' example of Thurlow Weed: The power of having
another listen to and hear your story. Converse example of
someone constantly questioning your version of past events.
In this sense, the self of story, of past memory, present intention, and
faith and hope in the future, is the story of a relational
self.
Robert Akeret, "Chapter 1: Naomi: The Dancer from the Dance," Tales
from a Travelling Couch, 19-57.
Background of Robert Akeret and his book, Tales from a
Travelling Couch.
The case of Naomi, one of his first patients.
Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder)
Does Naomi's case fit? Etiology - Infant sexual abuse
Akeret's role and 'treatment'
Parent-child relationship, memory, and self
Film: Return with Honor, presented by Tom Hanks
T. S. Eliot
Music heard so deeply
It is not heard at all
And you are the music
While the music lasts
Leona Lewis, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face