Remembering Places: A Phenomenological Study of the Relationship between Memory and Place

This book is a phenomenological investigation of the interrelations of tradition, memory, place and the body. Drawing upon philosophers such as Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Gadamer, and Ricoeur, Janet Donohoe uses the idea of a palimpsest to argue that layers of the past are carried along as traditions through places and bodies such that we can speak of memory as being written upon place and place as being written upon memory. She engages in on-going discussions about the importance of place in dialogue with theorists such as Jeff Malpas and Ed Casey, and focuses on analysis of monuments and memorials to investigate how such deliberate places of collective memory can be ideological or can open us to the past and traditions in our experiences of them. Remembering Places: A Phenomenological Study of the Relationship between Memory and Place appeals to common experiences of returning to places of memory and discovering that those places as well as the memories have changed. Such concrete examples make it possible to discover how traditions can span generations while still allowing for openness to the new and how places of memory call us to take up traditions, but also to critique those traditions.