The Memory Place seminar with Prof. David Morris (Philosophy, Concordia) 2009-2011 is seeded by VPRGS to explore how human memory works in tandem with how bodies move or comport themselves in a physical space, making places and persons as they do.
In this research project, which is funded by a seed grant from Concordia, we are going to be exploring the interrelation between memory, identity and place, including things in the places around us. We want to get a sense for how our experience of identity and memory is sedimented in places/things around us, rather than being ‘onboard’ us, such that places and things are interwoven with and buoy our memory and identity and conversely memory and identity are woven into and buoy experienced things and places. To give an image: we might think of the snail as ‘carrying its home on its back’; we could think here of our identity and memory of ourselves our sense of self and being at home in the world not as being coiled into something that we carry along with us, but infiltrating places and things in our built and lived environment, and thence tying us up in tendrils with things and places. Hence phenomena such as homelessness, displacement and so on, of being lost, not ourselves phenomena in which we can be disturbed as it were from the ‘outside’, which show that the outside is not quite outside. That is, much as we ‘come back to ourselves’ when reviving from a faint, we ‘come back to ourselves’ and are reminded of ourselves when we come home, or come back to our workspace, or finally become oriented in the ways and places of a new city. To get a sense for this connection between memory, identity and place, we are going to be developing experiments that vary and play on this connection. We want to do this to get results relevant for philosophy, comprehending human experience, and making art (for example, seeing how to make new sorts of things, perhaps textured, rhythmed, lit environments that call up new senses of memory, identity, or thinghood).
The development of these experiments involves two axes of exploration: a substantive one, concerned with place, memory, identity, especially in relation to the body, movement and things; a methodological one, concerned with how to go about doing phenomenological experiments. Here we might note two things about phenomenological experiments: first, they would be more focused on enabling precise descriptions of experiences, from a first person point of view and tracking the dynamics of the individual experience, rather than quantifying over populations according to variables already specified by the experimenter; second, they would be more focused on arriving at the conceptual framework proper to the experience generated in the experiment, vs. constructing an experiment to fit an already given conceptual framework or at least they would keep open this arrival. To prepare for these explorations, we are going to be holding an orienting seminar. Initially we had planned to this over several weeks in the summer 2009, but given scheduling matters, we think it better to have a compressed seminar in the beginning of fall 2009. What we give below are sets of reading that we think appropriate to getting the conceptual juices flowing. The idea is that participants would read these in few phases beginning in the summer, taking notes, or writing up small observations, and posting them to a blog. Participants could decide to meet based on the blog postings during the summer. The readings, though, are fnally geared to gathering over one or two days, say some Friday and/or Saturday, in the earlier part of the fall term, for intensive discussion of the texts, especially the Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger. We’ve divided the series readings into phases, and the texts into key texts, and complementary/supplemental texts which are given in []. They range from easily accessible texts that would make for fun summer reading, to more dense philosophical texts that might be better taken up via the seminar, but could be read ahead of time too. Most of the text focus on the substantive axis of exploration. We think we’re going to be inventing a lot on the second one. Thoughts for readings here are welcome. We’re initially going to be using experiments suggested by DM’s paper about mirrors as a test bed for the methodological axis. We’ll be getting you details on making the texts available.
Theory and Publications
Phase 1: Introductory readings for independent reading in the summer
These are accessible texts that are not very technical. The idea is for participants to read these independently in the summer, say in the next two months by the end of June, to get oriented to some issues. Post questions/observations to the blog, which might lead to ad hoc coffee discussions.
1 Introduction to phenomenological method and phenomenological interrelation of body memory, things and places:
Russon, John. Human Experience: Philosophy, Neurosis, and the Elements of Everyday Life. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. Introduction and Part 1, “The form of human experience”, chapters on interpretation, embodiment, memory, pp 1-47 [This is a very accessible introduction to some of the relevant issues about phenomenological method, embodiment and memory, giving key ideas about our memory being in things, and the importance of movement.]
Casey, Edward S. Remembering: A Phenomenological Study. 2nd ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000. chapters on “Body Memory” and “Place Memory,” pp 146-215 [An accessible, rich and perceptive study of the various ways that memory is embedded in the body and place.]
[Casey, Edward S. Getting Back into Place: Toward a Renewed Understanding of the Place-World. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1993. A superb and substantial account of the importance of place in relation to our bodies and movement. While a somewhat large book, it is fairly accessible to a wide audience and selectively readable.]
2 Studies of the importance of place and our moving interaction with them to our making sense of where and who we are
Ellard, Colin. Where Am I? Why We Can Find Our Way to the Moon but Get Lost in the Mall. Toronto: HarperCollins, 2009. [DM is just starting to read this but it looks promising in talking about how we orient by moving amidst things that serve as anchors for meaningful narratives. Easily accessible, for a wide audience.]
[Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. Translated by Maria Jolas. New York: Orion Press, 1964. A classic account of how we relate to spaces around us as meaningful. Another longish book, but one that you could read on your own.]
Phase 2: Phenomenological accounts of space and our relation to things:
These are denser and more difficult texts. The idea here is to read these toward the end of the summer or in the run up to the seminar, as they might require supplementation by discussion in the seminar.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Phenomenology of Perception. Translated by Colin Smith. Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: The Humanities Press, 1962. “Space”, about 60 pages. [Intricate but rich and insightful reading that shows how our sense of space depends on habitual bodily attitudes and interactions with things that establish a spatial “level” that orients us. Includes a study of dream spaces.] [The following commentary/synopsis can be helpful with the above: Kockelmans, Joseph J.
“Merleau-Ponty on Space Perception and Space.” In Phenomenology and the Natural Sciences: Essays and Translations, edited by Joseph J. Kockelmans and Theodore J. Kisiel. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1976.]
Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper and Row, 1962. Chapter I.III, “The Worldhood of the World” [About 45 pages, SKIPPING OVER SECTION B. This is a crucial phenomenological study of what it means to be in the world, and how our being in it is not a matter of an abstract/geometrical spatial locatedness, but our meaningful relation and connection to things around us. This is more difficult than the Merleau-Ponty and may require supplementation from the seminar. But see if you can navigate it.]