The Ethics of Remembering and the Consequences of Forgetting: Essays on Trauma, History, and Memory brings together scholars from a variety of disciplines that draw on multiple perspectives to address issues that arise at the intersection of trauma, history, and memory. Contributors include critical theorists, critical historians, psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, and a working artist. The authors use intergenerational trauma theory while also pushing and pulling at the edges of conventional understandings of how trauma is defined. This book respects the importance of the recuperation of memory and the creation of interstitial spaces where trauma might be voiced. The writers are consistent in showing a deep respect for the sociohistorical context of subjective formation and the political importance of recuperating dangerous memory—the kind of memory that some authorities go to great lengths to erase. The Ethics of Remembering and the Consequences of Forgetting is of interest to critical historians, critical social theorists, psychotherapists, psychosocial theorists, and to those exploring the possibilities of life as the practice of freedom.

This book analyzes different figurations of childhood in contemporary culture and politics with a particular focus on interdisciplinary methodologies of critical childhood studies. It argues that while the figure of the child has been traditionally located at the peripheries of academic disciplines, perhaps most notably in history, sociology and literature, the proposed critical discussions of the ideological, symbolic and affective roles that children play in contemporary societies suggest that they are often the locus of larger societal crises, collective psychic tensions, and unspoken prohibitions and taboos. As such, this book brings into focus the prejudices against childhood embedded in our standard approaches to organizing knowledge, and asks: is there a natural disciplinary home for the study of childhood? Or is this field fundamentally interdisciplinary, peripheral or problematic to notions of disciplinary identity? In this respect, does childhood force innovation in thinking about disciplinarity? For instance, how does the analysis of childhood affect how we think about methodology? What role do understandings of childhood play in delimiting how we conceive of our society, our future, and ourselves? How does thinking about childhood affect how we think about culture, history, and politics? This book brings together researchers working broadly in critical child studies, but from various disciplines in the humanities and social sciences (including philosophy, literary studies, sociology, cultural studies and history), in order to stage a conversation between these diverse perspectives on the disciplinary or (interdisciplinary) character of ‘the child’ as an object of research. Such conversation builds on the assumption that childhood, far from being marginal, is a topic that is hidden in plain sight. That is to say, while the child is always a presence in culture, history, literature and philosophy—and is often even a highly charged figure within those fields—its operation and effects are rarely theoretically scrutinized, but rather are more likely drawn upon, surreptitiously, for another purpose.

The first philosophical monograph on the ethics of memory manipulation (MM), "Forget Me Not: The Neuroethical Case Against Memory Manipulation" contends that any attempt to directly and intentionally erase episodic memories poses a grave threat to the human condition that cannot be justified within a normative moral calculus. Grounding its thesis in four evidential effects – namely, (i) MM disintegrates autobiographical memory, (ii) the disintegration of autobiographical memory degenerates emotional rationality, (iii) the degeneration of emotional rationality decays narrative identity, and (iv) the decay of narrative identity disables one to seek, identify, and act on the good – DePergola argues that MM cannot be justified as a morally licit practice insofar as it disables one to seek, identify, and act on the good. A landmark achievement in the field of neuroethics, this book is a welcome addition to both the scholarly and professional community in philosophical and clinical bioethics.

This book investigates the various meanings of forgetting and their ethical dimension in the Daoist classic Zhuangzi. It responds to recent scholarship in the study of the ethics of forgetting, which has only emerged within the past two decades in the wake of the widespread memory-studies of the late 20th century. This book accomplishes two goals: First, it assimilates insights from contemporary scholarship, and specifically applies Ricoeur’s three areas of ethical examinations of forgetting, to the study of the Zhuangzi. It addresses a wide range of ethical themes related to acts of forgetting, such as the meaning of well-being and healing, the issue of personal identity and relational autonomy, the norm of spontaneity, naturalness and suitability, the capacities for being empathic, altruistic and responsive to others, and the values of accommodation, receptivity and all-inclusive friendliness. Second, it places forgetfulness in the wider context of the Zhuangzi’s ethical inquiry, and offers a novel understanding of this age-old notion and its exegetic tradition, bringing them into dialogue with Western philosophy and contributing to contemporary discourse on the ethics of forgetting. The first book to present a comprehensive examination on the ethical dimension and meanings of forgetting or forgetfulness in the Daoist philosophy of the Zhuangzi, this monograph will be of interest to researchers in Asian philosophy, religion and culture, moral philosophy or ethics, the study of memory and forgetting, and comparative or cross-cultural philosophy and ethics.

Memory occupies a fundamental place in philosophy, playing a central role not only in the history of philosophy but also in philosophy of mind, epistemology, and ethics. Yet the philosophy of memory has only recently emerged as an area of study and research in its own right. The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Memory is an outstanding reference source on the key topics, problems, and debates in this exciting area, and is the first philosophical collection of its kind. The forty-eight chapters are written by an international team of contributors, and divided into nine parts: The nature of memory The metaphysics of memory Memory, mind, and meaning Memory and the self Memory and time The social dimension of memory The epistemology of memory Memory and morality History of philosophy of memory. Within these sections, central topics and problems are examined, including: truth, consciousness, imagination, emotion, self-knowledge, narrative, personal identity, time, collective and social memory, internalism and externalism, and the ethics of memory. The final part examines figures in the history of philosophy, including Aristotle, Augustine, Freud, Bergson, Wittgenstein, and Heidegger, as well as perspectives on memory in Indian and Chinese philosophy. Essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy, particularly philosophy of mind and psychology, the Handbook will also be of interest to those in related fields, such as psychology and anthropology.

This book is an in-depth reflection and analysis on why and how unsettling empathy is a crucial component in reconciliatory processes. Located at the intersection of memory studies, reconciliation studies, and trauma studies, the book is at its core transdisciplinary, presenting a fresh perspective on how to conceive of concepts and practices when working with groups in conflict. The book Unsettling Empathy has come into being during a period of increasing cultural pessimism, where we witness the spread of populism and the rise of illiberal democracies that hark back to nationalist and ethnocentric narratives of the past. Because of this changed landscape, this book makes an important contribution to seeking fresh pathways toward an ethical practice of living together in light of past agonies and current conflicts. Within the specific context of working with groups in conflict, this book urges for an (ethical) posture of unsettling empathy. Empathy, which plays a vital role in these processes, is a complex and complicated phenomenon that is not without its critics who occasionally alert us to its dark side. The term empathy needs a qualifier to distinguish it from related phenomena such as pity, compassion, sympathy, benign paternalism, idealized identification, or voyeuristic appropriation. The word “unsettling” is just this crucial ingredient without which I would hesitate to bring empathy into our conversation.

Remembering the Holocaust in Educational Settings brings together a group of international experts to investigate the relationship between Holocaust remembrance and different types of educational activity through consideration of how education has become charged with preserving and perpetuating Holocaust memory and an examination of the challenges and opportunities this presents. The book is divided into two key parts. The first part considers the issues of and approaches to the remembrance of the Holocaust within an educational setting, with essays covering topics such as historical culture, genocide education, familial narratives, the survivor generation, and memory spaces in the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany. In the second part, contributors explore a wide range of case studies within which education and Holocaust remembrance interact, including young people’s understanding of the Holocaust in Germany, Polish identity narratives, Shoah remembrance and education in Israel, the Holocaust and Genocide Centre of Education and Memory in South Africa, and teaching at Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. An international and interdisciplinary exploration of how and why the Holocaust is remembered through educational activity, Remembering the Holocaust in Educational Settings is the ideal book for all students, scholars, and researchers of the history and memory of the Holocaust as well as those studying and working within Holocaust education.

The Persistence of Memory is a history of the public memory of transatlantic slavery in the largest slave-trading port city in Europe, from the end of the 18th century into the 21st century; from history to memory. Mapping this public memory over more than two centuries reveals the ways in which dissonant pasts, rather than being 'forgotten histories', persist over time as a contested public debate. This public memory, intimately intertwined with constructions of 'place' and 'identity', has been shaped by legacies of transatlantic slavery itself, as well as other events, contexts and phenomena along its trajectory, revealing the ways in which current narratives and debate around difficult histories have histories of their own. By the 21st century, Liverpool, once the 'slaving capital of the world', had more permanent and long-lasting memory work relating to transatlantic slavery than any other British city. The long history of how Liverpool, home to Britain's oldest continuous black presence, has publicly 'remembered' its own slaving past, how this has changed over time and why, is of central significance and relevance to current and ongoing efforts to face contested histories, particularly those surrounding race, slavery and empire.

A book that offers new directions in the study of memory in Spain, written by one of the world's leading scholars of contemporary Spanish culture.

This book is the first comprehensive treatment in recent decades of silence and silencing in psychoanalysis from clinical and research perspectives, as well as in philosophy, theology, linguistics, and musicology. The book approaches silence and silencing on three levels. First, it provides context for psychoanalytic approaches to silence through chapters about silence in phenomenology, theology, linguistics, musicology, and contemporary Western society. Its central part is devoted to the position of silence in psychoanalysis: its types and possible meanings (a form of resistance, in countertransference, the foundation for listening and further growth), based on both the work of the pioneers of psychoanalysis and on clinical case presentations. Finally, the book includes reports of conversation analytic research of silence in psychotherapeutic sessions and everyday communication. Not only are original techniques reported here for the first time, but research and clinical approaches fit together in significant ways. This book will be of interest to all psychologists, psychoanalysts, and social scientists, as well as applied researchers, program designers and evaluators, educators, leaders, and students. It will also provide valuable insight to anyone interested in the social practices of silence and silencing, and the roles these play in everyday social interactions.