MEMORY
This page is the index for a bibliography and resource list
on the
interdisciplinary study of memory. Most of the pages linked below
were set up in 2000 and 2001,
and updates since then have focussed on some but not all areas listed.
I would
of course be grateful
for suggestions: please email me. Please note
that these reference lists are not intended to be in any way exhaustive.
John Sutton,
Philosophy Department, Macquarie University, Sydney.
Back to my home
page.
Note (22 November
2007). Full-scale revision, relocation, updating, expansion of these
pages in the first
few months of 2008. Please look back then!
Meanwhile here's just another symptom of the difficulty
of doing all this stuff together, of following (say) Bartlett in
attending
with equal
sophistication to neural, cognitive, affective, social, and cultural
aspects of
memory: among the pile of 2007
books on memory, here are two at the extremes:
An
outstanding edited volume Science
of Memory: concepts (edited by H.L. Roediger, Y. Dudai, &
S.
Fitzpatrick, Oxford UP, 2007)
addresses ‘16
core concepts of the science of memory’ in the search for ‘a unified
science’. But nowhere in its 65 chapters is there
any real sign that human beings are often together
when they engage in the activities of remembering: a note in the
epilogue
by Fitzpatrick
acknowledges that it ‘focuses almost exclusively on
memory research using
individual subjects’, and that these results about
individual memory need to be
linked in some future project to an understanding of the ‘uses of
collective
memory’ ( pp. 394-5).
In contrast, a new 'comprehensive introduction to the rapidly expanding
field of memory studies', Theories
of Memory: a reader (edited by
M. Rossington & A. Whitehead, Johns Hopkins UP,
2007), covers ideas about memory in the history of philosophy and a
range of
contemporary discussions of collective memory,
trauma, gender, race/ nation, and diaspora, but notes that there was no
space to
include any psychological or neuroscientific
approaches to memory (p.2).
What's striking in this juxtaposition is not so much that there is such
a broad range (it's just the case that memory is studied at a
bewildering number of levels in a daunting range of
disciplines, from neurobiology to narrative theory, the computational
to the cross-
cultural, the developmental to the postcolonial, so
obviously a specific focus in distinct works is entirely sensible) as
the
lack of concern
shown in each volume about making any connections
with or links to approaches or disciplines outside the immediate
purview.
Maybe this is all fine - maybe there is and needn't be
very much in common at all here, maybe the word 'memory' is just fine
to use to cover
such an extraordinary range of disunified domains.
What do you reckon? Do please
email me.
Here are the current categories under which I've set up
some resources.
Do please email me
with queries or suggestions about the contents or structure, and with
broken links.
Here are details of our 2004
workshops on memory and embodied cognition.
And here are outlines of my own current memory-related
research.
New interdisciplinary journal Memory
Studies launching 2008.
Related resources:
1. Introductory
Reading on Memory
Philosophy:
I reckon the best single introductory book is Mary Warnock, Memory
(London: Faber, 1987)
For historical background, Douwe Draaisma, Metaphors
of Memory (Cambridge U.P., 2000).
Here's my short article 'Memory:
philosophical issues', for L. Nadel (ed), Encyclopedia
of Cognitive Science (Macmillan).
And (much longer and more laborious): 'Memory', in the
online Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Psychology
My own personal favourites:
Susan Engel, Context is Everything: the nature of memory
(Freeman, 1999)
Daniel Schacter, Searching for Memory (Harper Collins,
1996)
2. Online Resources
John Kihlstrom's pages on the Human
Ecology of Memory with links to courses and resources.
Pascal Boyer's Luce Program in Individual
and Collective Memory.
David Chalmers' references on memory in the philosophy of
psychology (very useful set of classic
references).
David Chalmers' references on consciousness and memory
(mainly psychology and neuropsychology).
Memory Exhibition at
the San Francisco Exploratorium.
This is a great site based on a 1999 exhibition. Various
online exhibits, plus some interesting lectures on
webcast (require Real Audio).
Center for Interdisciplinary
Memory Research in Essen
Cultural
Memory in Romance Studies in London
Elizabeth Johnston's Memory Links
for a 2002 course on the experimental
psychology of memory in historical context -
see also her home page for many other
courses and links on memory.
John William Schmidt's pages for a Historical
Approach to Memory (table of contents is here).
The Memory Project
at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
John Skowronski's 2004 class on self and
memory
Literature,
Cognition, and the Brain - Alan Richardson's site covers research
at the intersection of literary studies,
cognitive theory, and
neuroscience. Includes bibliography, abstracts, features, work in
progress, reviews.
Research on Place
and
Space by Bruce Janz
The Memory Debate archives -
info and news concerning recovered memories and 'false memories'
A list of recent acquisitions on memory in the Macquarie Uni Library.
For further information contact
John Sutton, Philosophy Department,
Macquarie University, Sydney.
Email me.
Back to my home
page.
Last updated 22 November 2007.