Jan Assmann makes the connections between cultural memory and identity. According to him, cultural memory is “the faculty that allows us to build a narrative picture of the past and through this process develops an image and an identity for ourselves” Erll, A., Nünning, A., & Young, S. B. (2008). When I read this I think culture memories are the things that shaped and define. Not just your collective memories but something that when you talk about it someone understands and knows what you are talking about. Whether it was a movie, television show, music or even a catchphrase, the neighbor, town or country you grow up in links though the memory or experiencing the same thing. However even though you could have the same memories of an event you could have had different experience thereby being shaped and defining you as a person. Culture memory isn’t about remembering actual events correctly. It’s about what society remembers as a whole not what happen from an individual’s point of view. Take the riots that happened in LA riots in 1991. For me the riots were something on television it didn’t really touch me mentally and the memories that I have
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Some silly catchphrase “can’t we all just get along” that became some running joke and something that was not funny. These are the things that people remember as a whole not the experience of a small group or individual. On the social level, with respect to groups and societies, the role external symbols becomes even more important because groups which, of course, do not “have” a memory tend to “Make” themselves one by means of thing meant as reminders such a monument, museums, libraries…This is what we call cultural memory(A. Assman). Not what happened but what we remember happening. This is my understanding of what cultural memory
Some silly catchphrase “can’t we all just get along” that became some running joke and something that was not funny. These are the things that people remember as a whole not the experience of a small group or individual. On the social level, with respect to groups and societies, the role external symbols becomes even more important because groups which, of course, do not “have” a memory tend to “Make” themselves one by means of thing meant as reminders such a monument, museums, libraries…This is what we call cultural memory(A. Assman). Not what happened but what we remember happening. This is my understanding of what cultural memory