Papers by Michael Pickering
Memory and the Management of Change, 2017
Terminus and TransiTion We have dealt thus far with definite social and spatial configurations an... more Terminus and TransiTion We have dealt thus far with definite social and spatial configurations and contexts. We have seen that changes within or between them can cause disruption in the pattern of our experience, which then places unusual demands on the practices of vernacular remembering and their role in the maintenance of coherent emplaced stories of specific groups and communities. At the same time, particular memories and congregations of memories of our relations with close others over the course of time, along with the places and spaces in which we belong, provide us with the material from which we can construct and sustain what seem, at least for certain periods of time, to be temporally stable imaginative architectures through which we are able to manage other shifts, changes and transformations. In this chapter our case study explores the very limits of our capacity to manage life transitions. With death being irrevocable and its resulting loss appearing absolute, we're faced with the most challenging of such transitions. As we consider what this entails, we find that memory and remembering are inextricably entangled in the experience of grief and mourning. In face of the finality of death, we can only turn to memory in addressing the yawning absence it creates. We turn inevitably to memory as we try to hold onto the abiding significance and lasting virtues of the person who has passed, and reflect on what was special and singularly meaningful in the story of her or his life. This chapter attempts to unravel the paradoxical dance between the painful task of CHAPTER 5
Memory and the Management of Change, 2017
Keightley and Pickering make a crucial intervention in debates about individual and collective me... more Keightley and Pickering make a crucial intervention in debates about individual and collective memory by providing an account of what is involved in the changes the human subject undergoes across the vicissitudes of time, and by exploring the complex relations between a subject’s sense of self-identity at various stages in the past and their contemporary sense of selfhood. Their focus is on how selfhood is achieved through the practices and processes of individual and vernacular remembering. The chapter tackles two interconnected questions: how are the differences between past, present and future selves reconciled and made part of the continuous story of a life, and how are these successive selves produced through relations with others? Keightley and Pickering also examine how transitions are handled in time and over time, and how lost opportunities are conceived and evaluated. They use their key concept of the mnemonic imagination in order to address these and related issues.
The Mnemonic Imagination
"Sometimes a light surprises the child of God who sings." This phrase, revised from Wil... more "Sometimes a light surprises the child of God who sings." This phrase, revised from William Cowper's 1779 original "Sometimes a light surprises the Christian while he sings," not only demonstrates the usefulness of updated language (when it is done artfully), but also describes the unpredictable and indiscriminate nature of human vulnerability to God within congregational song. The 2014 Hymn Society conference in Columbus provided me with several surprising experiences of providential light. It came from unexpected sources and in unexpected ways.On Wednesday I joined a sizable group in late night conversation and laughter in one of the dorm lobbies. Many of us, we discovered, held a common musical heritage rooted in the gospel music tradition. For various reasons theological, musical, and cultural, most had abandoned that heritage. We shared stories related to various songs-both of pain and frustration, and of connection to particular friends and communities. And we sang. We SANG. We belted out "I'll fly away," "Victory in Jesus," and "Have a little talk with Jesus." Our singing was tinged with irony, good humor, affection, and some pain. These are not songs that many of us could still sing with theological integrity, but they still speak to a deep part of us. And they are often a delight to sing-especially the raucous bass parts.Those songs and stories were still swirling in my head during the next morning's hymn festival, led by Amanda Powell and Jorge Lockward. They included music which I associate with more charismatic and evangelical expressions of Christianity, but with tweaks that allowed for broad and inclusive singing. I found myself surprised by my emotional vulnerability to musical styles I largely left behind with the conservative churches of my youth. Despite my carefully trained musical, theological, and poetic tastes, the light of God still sometimes surprises me.In this series of columns, I have examined particular texts in context. I have asked how the texts are understood in terms of sound, language, and experience. Each time a hymn is sung, it finds new life. It is embodied-even incarnated-by a particular group of people once and only once. The context of its singing will never again be replicated by exactly the same people in exactly the same space under exactly the same circumstances. Context shapes the experience of the hymn. Church musicians carefully attend to the musical, theological, and textual aspects of hymn singing. But the single largest contributor to meaning in congregational song is human experience. Most church musicians can recall the uncomfortable feeling of seeing a singer reduced to tears by a seemingly innocuous hymn selection, only to learn later that the hymn was sung at a family member's funeral. Or a certain congregation may have an irrational attachment to a particular piece (regardless of quality) because of its association with a particular person or event now in the distant past. Our late night singing of gospel hymns brought many such stories to the fore. I shared that "Victory in Jesus" was a beloved part of the repertoire at the church of my youth-one that I steadfastly refused to sing because of its triumphalistic language. But when an old saint of the church died and the song was named at the funeral as one of his favorites, my theological defense broke down-I not only could, but needed to sing about Lloyd Hess's victory in Jesus. But almost inevitably, another person in the late-night circle shared an extremely painful association with the same hymn. …
Dispositiva
A nostalgia tem sido vista como o oposto conceitual do progresso, contra o qual é vista negativam... more A nostalgia tem sido vista como o oposto conceitual do progresso, contra o qual é vista negativamente como reacionária, sentimental ou melancólica. Foi visto como um recuo derrotista do presente e evidência de perda de fé no futuro. A nostalgia é certamente uma resposta à experiência de perda endêmica na modernidade e na modernidade tardia, mas os autores argumentam que ela tem inúmeras manifestações e não pode ser reduzida a uma definição singular ou absoluta. Isso quer dizer que seus significados são múltiplos e, portanto, devem ser vistos como a acomodação de impulsos progressivos e até utópicos, bem como posturas regressivas e atitudes melancólicas. Suas contradições podem ser evidentes nas formas vernacular e midiática de lembrança e reconstrução histórica. Os autores argumentam que tais contradições devem ser vistas como mutuamente constitutivas, pois é nas suas inter-relações que surge o potencial para a crítica sociológica.
The Mnemonic Imagination
Memory studies is an intellectually vibrant, yet still emergent field. Many disciplines meet ther... more Memory studies is an intellectually vibrant, yet still emergent field. Many disciplines meet there, but hardly as yet converge. Effective interdisciplinary synthesis will no doubt take some time to develop, and will be the work of divers hands. While we hope to make some contribution to this, our aim in what lies ahead is relatively modest. It is directed at certain critical issues in the recent study of memory which have so far been largely ignored, and at certain aspects of current thinking and practice which we believe should be reconsidered. The main area of neglect which we deal with, and address throughout the book, is the relationship between memory and imagination. Imagination and imaginative engagement are of vital importance in acts and processes of remembering. In focusing on both particular and divergent past scenes and scenarios, they help us integrate memories into a relatively coherent pattern of meaning that informs our sense of a life as we have lived it. They enable us to establish continuities and shifts in the trajectories of our experience over time, and creatively transform memory into a resource for thinking about the transactions between past, present and future. Yet in seeking to explore the significance of imagination for memory, we have to a great extent found memory studies deficient. Their relationship is one from which the field has so far shied away.
Memory in a Mediated World, 2016
In this chapter we focus on the question of methodological procedure in the investigation of pers... more In this chapter we focus on the question of methodological procedure in the investigation of personal and public memory and the manifold relations between them. We do so because issues and concerns relating to methodology have been largely neglected in memory studies.1 There are various reasons for this neglect, but among them is the perceived need for an emergent field first and foremost to establish its theoretical credentials and develop its key conceptual tools. We agree that this is an important task, and over the years we have read with interest, and contributed to, the theoretical discussion and debate that has taken place over the relative merits of terms defining particular dimensions of memory as well as the alleged consequences for memory, in its different dimensions, of such developments as the commodification of memory artefacts or the globalized production and distribution of cultural goods and services.2 Such debate has proved useful in helping the field to come together and in refining our understanding of what is at stake in changing aspects of public remembering, but at some point we have to face the problem that without being empirically grounded in some way, any area of debate remains speculative, its claims not given any concerted demonstration, its assertions made without substantive evidential backing.
Photography, Music and Memory, 2015
Before we examine in detail, later in the book, how photography and recorded music facilitate rem... more Before we examine in detail, later in the book, how photography and recorded music facilitate remembering and are drawn upon as mnemonic resources, we need to consider more fully their characteristic features as both communications technologies and cultural forms. As ways of recording, storing, retrieving and replaying certain events and sequences of events from the past, they have, of course, not remained static over time. Their various means of production, reception and use have changed a great deal since the key moments of their invention and early development.1 Change and modification mark the history of these two technologies and have to be part of the story we tell about them, yet running through them is one relatively constant factor, which is the actual mechanical recording of images and performances. It is this which they always have in common, and it is this which provides us with our starting point: their convergence in recording and evoking the past. Beyond that convergence, how they record assorted events in the past and transmit them into an assortment of futures has always been divergent, in a number of significant ways, so we need also to delve into what most obviously differentiate photography and recorded music as ways of capturing and returning to what has happened in the past.
The Mnemonic Imagination, 2012
During the final period of his life, Michel de Montaigne produced a series of essays which have b... more During the final period of his life, Michel de Montaigne produced a series of essays which have become famous for their shrewd insight, practical wisdom and digressive, conversational style. They covered a wide range of topics, but their key underlying topic was Montaigne himself. In writing them, what he was studying most of all was his own self, his own formation and development as an individual subject: ‘I am myself the matter of my book’. His reading and thinking were assessed against his own experience, but never egocentrically, never as a means of burnishing his own opinions or stoking his pride. As he reflected on his experiences and the contingent, unpredictable ways in which he understood himself through them, he drew on past events and his own memory, defective though he felt it to be, at one point citing Terence: I am full of cracks and leaking everywhere.1 ‘On Experience’, the last essay of the third volume of the essays, begins with the acknowledgement that experience and the memory by which it is recalled are both finite and fragmentary, and this has to be the basis for how we proceed, with the mind always stretching out and trying to exceed its capacities.
Beyond a Joke, 2005
The British comedy circuit has traditionally been the preserve of white men telling jokes primari... more The British comedy circuit has traditionally been the preserve of white men telling jokes primarily about sex and alcohol. However, in recent years, thanks to comics such as Omid Djalili and Shazia Mirza, jokes not only about acts of terrorism, holy pilgrimages and Orientalist stereotypes, but also humour from an ethnic minority perspective, have been firmly placed on the comedy landscape. Both Omid and Shazia have been described as original and groundbreaking comics, helping to move British comedy forward in innovative and progressive ways.
History, Experience and Cultural Studies, 1997
An obvious step from a discussion of the concept of structure of feeling is to a consideration of... more An obvious step from a discussion of the concept of structure of feeling is to a consideration of the category of experience. Williams continually referred to experience, across the diverse range of his writing, but it was also crucially linked to ‘structure of feeling’ itself. As we have seen, it is through the attempt to make sense and meaning of social and historical experience, in ways which challenge existing ideological positions and discourses, that structures of feeling are generated. Summarising what has been said somewhat over-schematically, in the movement from the ‘lived’ experience to the articulation of emergent expressive form, consciousness becomes crystallised in a particular social semantic figure or set of historically defined thematics which then come to stand as a collective response to a collective experience. Experience in its manifold sense is then in this movement a site of emergence, and in this respect it grounds the structured process of crystallisation from ‘lived’ solution to precipitate forms. We need therefore to go on from what I have described as the ‘experience’ of experiences to deal with the relatively indeterminate category of experience itself. There is perhaps a somewhat less obvious reason for doing this in immediate connection with Williams’s concept, and this is that in thinking about both ‘structures of feeling’ and ‘experience’, we cannot have recourse to any easy, off-the-peg forms of explanation.
American Anthropologist, 2014
As every other social construct, democracy is under constant pressure to adapt to societal change... more As every other social construct, democracy is under constant pressure to adapt to societal change. The increasing complexity of economic, social and political problems and their solutions, or the growth of critical citizens with different expectations and demands from 'their' governments are important challenges that established democracies have to face. Many politicians as well as scientists fear that established democracies are not apt to handle these challenges. Based on empirical findings concerning the loss of confidence in political elites and the citizens' declining support for democracy (Dalton, 2005), democratic nations are believed to experience veritable crises of legitimacy (Pharr & Putnam, 2000). Usually, globalization is identified as the culprit in the story of the crisis of democracy. Globalization-understood as the economic and financial integration of market societies,
Taylor & Francis, Oct 1, 2008
An ambitious study about mayoral politics in American metropolises, Zoltan Hajnal’s Changing Whit... more An ambitious study about mayoral politics in American metropolises, Zoltan Hajnal’s Changing White Attitudes toward Black Political Leadership offers a glimpse into the racialized political rapport between white voters and black leaders in urban areas. Hajnal maintains that ‘white fears’ about black political leadership will transform into ‘white support’ for black leaders after blacks in office prove to white voters that black officeholders do not ‘inflict harm on the white community’ (p. 3). Hajnal’s study is a solid contribution to contemporary urban politics, but it lacks a critical analysis of race in politics. Drawing from various literatures and data sources, Hajnal documents the election of black leaders by white voters in ‘fifty-two elections in twenty-six cities’ (p. 42), focusing on the re-election of black incumbent mayors. Hajnal ensconces the data in three ‘different accounts of black-white relations’ (p. 14), which effect some attitudinal change in white voters. He designates these the ‘information model’, the ‘prejudice model’ and the ‘white backlash model’. While exploring each model, Hajnal aims to validate the ‘information model’. The author’s information model is largely a political communication model in which important retroactive information is conveyed to white voters that ‘greatly reduces uncertainty and dispels white fears about blacks and black leadership’ (p. 15) during their political tenure. When elected black mayors prove to white voters that no intentional harm comes to the white community as a result of black leadership, white voters are more likely to consider voting for black office seekers in the future. What Hajnal calls the ‘prejudice model’ is an attitudinal model of discrimination, which presupposes that, even though black leaders are harmless to the ‘white community’, white voters will discriminate against black candidates and incumbents, withholding votes because of racial prejudices. Finally, the ‘white backlash model’ is a stratification model. This model posits that whites are invested in a caste-like social structure in which whites dominate while all non-whites are somewhere below them. As a result, whites will lash back against black political gains by collectively subverting any political attempt to alter the racial hierarchy. Hajnal concludes that the information model best fits the empirical data, even though the latter do not necessarily fit the former. Though circular, Hajnal’s point is well taken: ‘white racial learning’ has occurred to some degree in the past, does occur in the present and can occur in the future. Hajnal suggests that once blacks hold office white fears can be allayed because the ‘white community’ will not experience any detrimental effects of black leadership. Further, whites can rest assured that the racial status quo will be maintained, and they will discover through some amorphous, osmotic process of ‘white racial learning’ that since black leaders are not detrimental to white interests, they may be vote-worthy in the future. Near the conclusion of the study, Hajnal claims that his work is ‘ostensibly about race’ (p. 141), yet his discussion of race remains limited. Instead, the author tends to reify the ‘essentially contested concept’ of race (see W. B. Gallie, ‘Essentially contested concepts’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, vol. 56, pp. 167 98, 1956), assuming that categories like ‘white community’, ‘black community’, ‘white voters’, ‘black leaders’, ‘white support’ and ‘white racial learning’ are real, aggregate monoliths. The study would have benefited significantly from a critical discussion of race as a social construction and, by extension, of Ethnic and Racial Studies Vol. 31 No. 7 October 2008 pp. 134
Beyond a Joke, 2005
Impersonation is an ambiguous term. It can be viewed positively, as for instance when we say of a... more Impersonation is an ambiguous term. It can be viewed positively, as for instance when we say of a certain act that it is a good impersonation or when we regard a certain comedian as an effective impersonator. It can also be viewed negatively, so drawing on other meanings of the word. This happens when we use it in its associations with imposture, duplicity, fabrication and fraudulent practice. The word impersonator is then more or less equivalent to the old-fashioned, but still effective description of someone as a mountebank or quack. The description makes us think of falseness, trickery and manipulation. By implication it carries the accusation of cheating or being a cheat. The accused stands indicted of having usurped someone else’s role or identity for an underhand purpose. The negative connotations attached to the term do not usually apply to the profession of acting or comedy, for then impersonation generally has a positive sense, with the label of impersonator as comic entertainer being regarded as wholly legitimate, but it would certainly carry at least some of these connotations if we regard a particular comic impersonator as trading on a demeaning or derogatory stereotype, whether of gender, ethnicity or some other social category. The term would then be one of ethical criticism, involving a negative evaluation of the impersonation.
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Papers by Michael Pickering