Cultural Memory and Identity in Ancient Societies (Cultural Memory and History in Antiquity) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1472508068 ISBN 13: 9781472508065

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013

Synopsis

In recent years memory has become a central concept in historical studies, following the definition of the term 'Cultural Memory' by the Egyptologist Jan Assmann in 1994. Thinking about memory, as both an individual and a social phenomenon, has led to a new way of conceptualizing history and has drawn historians into debate with scholars in other disciplines such as literary studies, cultural theory and philosophy. The aim of this volume is to explore memory and identity in ancient societies. 'We are what we remember' is the striking thesis of the Nobel laureate Eric R Kandel, and this holds equally true for ancient societies as modern ones. How did the societies of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Rome remember and commemorate the past? How were relationships to the past, both individual and collective, articulated? Exploring the balance between memory as survival and memory as reconstruction, and between memory and historically recorded fact, this volume unearths the way ancient societies formed their cultural identity.

About this title

About the Author:

Martin Bommas is senior lecturer in Egyptology at the Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity at the University of Birmingham, UK. He was a research associate of Professor Jan Assmann at the University of Heidelberg until 2000, and has published five monographs on ancient Egyptian rituals, religious texts, and memory.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1472508068
• ISBN 13: 9781472508065
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 168
• Editor: Bommas Martin