An interesting topic to look at this week is on Memorial Culture: The role of memory is the key ingredient often missing from our depictions of oral cultures. Mary Carruthers makes it quite clear that in the Mediterranean cultures of antiquity memory predominated over script up through the Middle Ages. Writing did not replace memory. It served memory, and in a variety of ways. Much work is being done in this area to understand the value of memory, the common capacities of memory, the uses of memory, the technologies of memory, the memory arts, collective memory and much more. Unless we see the first century as a memory culture, we will not understand reading, performance, composition, dictation, scribes, tradition, or social identity. We need to speak of the ethos of the early church both as a predominantly oral culture and as a predominantly memorial culture. What are your opinions?
Posted on: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 21:38:12 +0000
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