Rewriting, a Literary Concept for the Study of Cultural Memory: Towards a Transhistorical Approach to Cultural Remembrance

Abstract

This article explores rewriting as a concept for cultural memory studies, examining the transformation of the technology of ''writing again'' in different historical periods. Its aim is to elucidate in what ways rewriting functions as an act of remembrance, and how this function differs in the manuscript age, the age of print and the digital age. The article discusses differences and similarities in the stability or fluidity of texts as a medium for memory, presenting rewriting as a helpful tool to see through presumed distinctions between these periods and their characteristic methods of text transmission. In particular, the article presents findings with respect to its utility to a broad range of historical source evidence, from the early medieval literature on saints' lives to contemporary post-colonial and feminist literature. In this article, rewriting is recognized as a transformative technology of memory, carrying and transmitting memories but not without change and adaptation. Dealing explicitly with the variety and the diversity of the media that transmit cultural memory in the different historical periods, including visual media, the article shows rewriting to be a productive concept for understanding cultural memory as an act of transfer. Keywords Cultural memory Á Rewriting Á Literacy Á Orality Á Visual literacy Cultural memory studies have recently emerged as a broad interdisciplinary field, encompassing a wide range of perspectives and addressing an extensive list of

Euri̇pi̇des Tragedyasinda Meti̇nlerarasilik Bağlaminda İki̇ Yeni̇den Yazma Örneği̇: İphi̇geni̇a Tauri̇s’te–helena

“…"Bir yazarın bir ana-metni, bir başka yazara ait olan bir alt-metni yeni bir bağlamda, yeni işlevlerle ve yeni bir okur kitlesi için yeniden yazarak dönüştürmesidir" (Gören, 2013, s.65). L. Plate ve E. Rose (2013), "Rewriting, a Literary Concept for the Study of Cultural Memory: Towards a Transhistorical Approach to Cultural Remembrance" adlı makalelerinde yeniden yazmadan, anıları taşıyan ve ileten dönüştürücü bir bellek teknolojisi olarak bahsederler.…”

Edmund Spenser and Transhistorical Memory in Ireland

“…Its interest, then, is not so much in preserving culture as it is in transforming it, directing its look at what might be, rather than to what is or was. 3 The 'rewriting' of Spenser might, in some contexts, amount to a cultural preservation; in an Irish context, however, this rewriting seems to have a more radical intent of reevaluating the relationship to the colonial occupation and not simply preserving difficult historical moments. Spenser, I suggest, comes to function as a 'coming to terms' with aspects of the Irish historical past.…”