In: International journal of the classical tradition: IJCT; the official journal of the International Society for the Classical Tradition, 2 (1996), Nr. 3. pp. 414-442. ISSN 1073-0508

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Abstract

Memory and forgetting are key subjects of current historical and sociological research. Their meaning embraces passive as well as active forms of collective recollection and oblivion, activities of retention as well as of dynamic shifting in the broad field of symbolic representation. Applied to Rezeptionsgeschichte and Wirkungsgeschichte in the perspective of the Classical Tradition, those key terms signify the complex interplay between change and continuity. The materials discussed under this assumption mainly range from theories and practices of memory in Antiquity and the Middle Ages to Renaissance systems of architecture and art, from the early emergence of advanced civilizations to a modern conceptualized history of cultural change. The connecting element is the theoretically defined concept of “cultural memory” not only comprising textuality and literary techniques of memory but also image production and ritual activities in non-literate societies. At the end the question will be asked, whether there are any alternative ways of culture-investigation lying hidden within cultural memory itself.