Seminar Description

Memory is the fourth of five classical rhetorical canons (the other four: invention, arrangement, style, and delivery); as such it played a major role in education until the early Renaissance period. Yet the growing dominance of print increasingly relegated memory to lesser and lesser importance, so much so that by the twentieth century attention to the canons of rhetoric focused almost exclusively on invention, disposition, and style, leaving memory and delivery out almost completely. At the dawning of the twenty-first century, however, a new shift has clearly taken place: the blurring of media of communication brought about by the electronic revolution and the advent of what Walter Ong calls secondary orality (and what I think of as secondary literacy) have brought a renewed interest in the ancient canons of memory and delivery, an interest fueled by new studies of the complex neurobiological makeup of human memory and by increasingly sophisticated studies of media.

This seminar will begin with a brief exploration of the ancient art of memory as it was described and taught in texts from the Greek and Roman era and as it was condemned by Plato in his Phaedrus. Our study will set the stage for addressing the central question of our course: how do media interact with, extend, and shape human memory? We will consider the ways in which memory functions across a range of media, from oral storytelling, to various forms of writing, music, film, and visual arts, to the Web and Internet. In addition, we will sharpen our focus on memory and media by looking carefully at memorials--on campus and elsewhere in the Bay area--and asking what sorts of events/people get memorialized in this culture (and what sorts do not) and how memorials (sculptures, buildings or other architectural sites, music, Websites, gardens, and so on) shape individual, public, and institutional memories. Throughout our explorations, we will ask how the media for storing and transmitting memories affect our awareness of ourselves as individuals, as members of communities, and as participants in history.

Seminar Texts

McLuhan, Marshall. The Medium is the Massage. New York: Random House, 1967.
Alexie, Sherman. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. Harper, 1993.
____________. SmokeSignals.
Plato. Phaedrus, trans. Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff. Hacket, 1995.
Smith, Anna Deveare. Twilight Los Angeles, 1992. Doubleday, 1994.
_________________. Twilight Los Angeles, 1992. PBS Video, 1994.
Spiegelman, Art. Maus: A Survivor’s Tale -- My Father Bleeds History. Random House, 1973.
____________. Maus: A Survivor’s Tale – And Here My Troubles Begin. Random House, 1986.
Walker, Alice. “1955,” in You Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down. Harcourt, 1981.
Additional packet of readings/viewings/listenings.

Projects/Assignments

In addition to daily responses to readings (which may be presented in oral, written, visual, or multimedia form), participants will complete three projects:

1. Study of a campus memorial. Stanford University is itself a memorial—founded in the memory of Leland Stanford, Jr. In addition, the campus is home to a number of additional memorials. For this project, each participant will choose a campus memorial to study and observe. One goal of this project is for you to present the memorial to our class, providing full information about its history and analyzing the way in which the medium in which the memorial is cast affects your understanding and experience of it. Due September 6 in class.

2. An exploration of one particular memory. For this project, participants will select an instantiation of memory (various song lyrics describing or remembering a particular event or person; competing historical accounts of an event or person; one or more rememberings in the visual arts; the remembered portrayal of an event, person, or object in film/video and in print or another medium) and analyze just how the particular medium/media through which the memory is transmitted influences and shapes public and individual memory. This project may be presented in writing or in mixed media. Due September 11 in class.

3. Multimedia memoir. The seminar will culminate with presentation of your multimedia memoirs, in which you attempt to capture or render a vivid memory of an important event or person or scene in your life, using at least two media. You might, for example, begin by writing about a vividly-remembered event in your life; then recording the piece of writing in your own or multiple voices; then illustrating it with visual images; then adding a sound track and producing the entire piece in a CD. You will have 20 minutes during the last day/s of class to make a presentation based on this memoir. Due September 16/17 in class.

Seminar Schedule

September 4
Introductions and discussion of three seminar projects
Memoria: a brief lecture
Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage
Mary Carruthers, “Memory’s Room” – handout
“Memory,” entry from The Encyclopedia of Rhetoric -- handout
Robert Pattison, chapter 4 from On Literacy, “When Media Collide”-- handout
2:00 p.m.: Tour of campus memorials
5:00 p.m.: SoCo BBQ Wilbur / Stern Field
7:00 p.m.: Screening of The Diary of Anne Frank / Anne Frank Biography
(if these films are not here, we may have to reschedule this screening)

September 5 Mediated Constructions of Historical Memory
Spiegelman, Maus
Patricia Hampl, “Reviewing Anne Frank” – handout
Excerpts from The Diary of Anne Frank – handout
Night and Fog
2:00 p.m.: Multimedia Workshop. Place: Stanford Writing Center
7:00 p.m.: SoCo event: Estelle Freedman, “The Death of Feminism Reconsidered”

September 6
Presentations on campus memorials (each person has ten minutes)
Campus memorial project due in class
1:15 p.m.: URO Workshop. Place TBA
7:00 p.m.: Screening of Anna Deveare Smith’s Twilight Los Angeles

September 9
Print version of Twilight Los Angeles
David Bolter and Jay Grusin, Introduction to Re-mediation-- handout
News and other coverage of the LA riots – handouts
1:15 p.m.: Overseas Study Workshop. Place TBA
4:00 p.m.: Screening of Elvis 56: In the Beginning
7:00 p.m.: SoCo event: Faculty Night

September 10 Music and Memory
Alice Walker, “1955.” Print and audio versions
James Brown, “I’m Real.” CD
Elvis
Your musical memories . . .
12:30 p.m.: Memorials in San Francisco: field trip, including lunch and dinner out

September 11 Personal Memory
Sherman Alexie, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
Exploration of one particular memory project due in class.
12:00 noon: Commemoration Ceremony – Memorial Church
1:30 p.m.: Screening of Smoke Signals
4:15 p.m.: Stanford in Washington/Haas Center workshop. Place TBA
7:00 p.m. SoCo event: eptember 11: One Year Later

September 12 Literary Memory
Excerpts from Don Quixote – on our class Website. Read chapters 1 and 2 of The First Part
Clips from Nureyev’s Don Quixote
1:30 p.m.: Screening of Babette’s Feast
:30 on: Food Memories Seminar Dinner: El Toro Eating Club available for cooking;
dinner at my home (68 Peter Coutts Circle).
7:30: SoCo event: St. Lawrence String Quartet performance

September 13
Jorge Luis Borges, “Pierre Menard” -- handout
Kathy Acker, excerpts from Don Quixote, Which Was a Dream – handout
4:00 p.m.: Screening of Nureyev’s Don Quixote

September 16
Multimedia Memoirs (6 presentations—each person has 20 minutes)

September 17
Multimedia Memoirs (6 presentations—each person has 20 minutes)
6:00 p.m. Seminar Celebration and dinner