Metaphors of Memory, Comparative Literature and Heritage

An online conference, part of a collaboration between the International Comparative Literature Association and the UNESCO Memory of the World programme, hosted by the CCL

Different metaphors have been used to represent, describe or conceptualise memory and its processes, from blank slate or wax tablet receiving impressions, to book where events are recorded and organised in narrative form, to canvas of images; from spatial loci or architectural structures – rooms, palaces, theatres – that organise and facilitate the retrieval of existing memories, to depths, sometimes traumatic, hidden in our unconscious, shaping our behaviour without us fully realising their force. Episodes, images or words are “etched” in one’s memory, suggesting unchangeability, but our memory can be “like a sieve”, unable to retain certain information. Memory needs help (aide-mémoire) but helps us know who we are. Monuments stand for and aim to preserve collective memories, asserting national, ethnic or historical identities, although those memories can be contested, as we witness when statues are pulled down. Mnemosyne, mother of the Muses, embodies the myth of the generative power of art and literature to encode and transmit – transfer, carry across – cultural identity. But amnesia is inextricable from memory, and heritage remains a contested field of preservation, transformation, misrepresentation, oblivion and active erasure.

Metaphor implies analogy, indirect comparison; it signals both connection and needing interpretation to identify the connection; it carries within it, in its etymology (Greek metapherein), the concept of transfer, travel, carrying over across a boundary; etymologically, it is mirrored by the Latin translatio, carrying or transferring words and meanings across languages.

Both metaphors and memories imply distance and bridging distances, movement across and connection across boundaries, spatial and temporal.

This online conference, part of collaboration between the International Comparative Literature Association and the UNESCO Memory of the World programme, will reflect on metaphors of memory from the perspective of, or to explore, relationships between comparative literature (broadly understood, including interdisciplinary approaches) and heritage.

Conference programme and further information

Dates & times

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