Memory
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Book chapter › Research › peer-review
Standard
Memory. / Wagoner, Brady Darrah; Glaveanu, Vlad Petre.
Creativity: A New Vocabulary. ed. / Vlad Petre Glåveaunu; Lene Tanggaard; Charlotte Wegener. 2. ed. Palgrave Macmillan, 2023. p. 121-130.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Book chapter › Research › peer-review
Harvard
APA
Vancouver
Author
Bibtex
}
RIS
TY - CHAP
T1 - Memory
AU - Wagoner, Brady Darrah
AU - Glaveanu, Vlad Petre
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - When we think of memory, some kind of container for storing things or surface for inscribing information usually comes to mind. It is thought that experiences are put into or written on these surfaces as memories and then taken out when remembered in roughly the same form as they were put in. This conception dates back to Plato, who first described memory as a wax tablet in the mind, on which experiences were inscribed. In Plato’s time, literacy was becoming a more widespread social practice and the wax tablet was one new technology that helped sustain it. The dominance of literacy since this time has contributed to the persistence of this metaphor of memory (Danziger, 2008), such that, today, we talk of memories metaphorically as being inscribed on a computer hard disk (rather than wax tablet), or inscribed in the brain as an ‘engram’ (literally ‘that which is converted into writing’). If we follow this metaphor closely, then, creativity and memory have little to say to one another, because memories are understood in terms of their fixity and fidelity to the past, whereas creativity is conceptualised as just the opposite. In fact, only those that are able to ‘forget’ or stand outside tradition are seen to be truly creative, as the solitary genius image has it (Montuori & Purser, 1995).
AB - When we think of memory, some kind of container for storing things or surface for inscribing information usually comes to mind. It is thought that experiences are put into or written on these surfaces as memories and then taken out when remembered in roughly the same form as they were put in. This conception dates back to Plato, who first described memory as a wax tablet in the mind, on which experiences were inscribed. In Plato’s time, literacy was becoming a more widespread social practice and the wax tablet was one new technology that helped sustain it. The dominance of literacy since this time has contributed to the persistence of this metaphor of memory (Danziger, 2008), such that, today, we talk of memories metaphorically as being inscribed on a computer hard disk (rather than wax tablet), or inscribed in the brain as an ‘engram’ (literally ‘that which is converted into writing’). If we follow this metaphor closely, then, creativity and memory have little to say to one another, because memories are understood in terms of their fixity and fidelity to the past, whereas creativity is conceptualised as just the opposite. In fact, only those that are able to ‘forget’ or stand outside tradition are seen to be truly creative, as the solitary genius image has it (Montuori & Purser, 1995).
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-031-41907-2_11
DO - 10.1007/978-3-031-41907-2_11
M3 - Book chapter
SN - 9783031419065
SP - 121
EP - 130
BT - Creativity
A2 - Glåveaunu, Vlad Petre
A2 - Tanggaard, Lene
A2 - Wegener, Charlotte
PB - Palgrave Macmillan
ER -
ID: 381235012