Many religions and cultures have rituals structured around remembrance, a fact that suggests how central the ability to remember is to our sense of self, both as individuals and as communities. But how accurate are our memories, and in what ways do they truly shape us? And why does some of what we remember come to us easily, while other things remain maddeningly just out of reach? Charan Ranganath, our core book author and a leading memory researcher, writes: “The mechanisms of memory were not cobbled together to help us remember the name of that guy we met at that thing.”
Rather than viewing forgetting as a failure, we come to understand it as an essential function that helps us prioritize relevant information and adapt to new situations. We learn that forgetting can even facilitate learning by clearing out irrelevant details.
We will study and discuss the science behind memory formation, the interplay between remembering and forgetting, and practical applications for improving memory function.
Finally, in the last two weeks, armed with all we have learned, we will read and discuss insightful essays dealing with memory.
Week 1: Chapter1 - Where is My Mind?; and Chapter 2 - Travelers of Time and Space
Week 2: Chapter 3 - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle; and Chapter 4 - Just My Imagination
Week 3: Chapter 5 - More Than a Feeling; and Chapter 6 - All Around Me Are Familiar Faces
Week 4: Chapter 7 - Turn and Face the Strange; and Chapter 8 - Press Play and Record
Week 5: Chapter 9 - Some Pain, More Gain; and Chapter 10 - When We Remember Together; and Coda
Week 6: Patricia Hempl, Memories and Imagination; and Elizabeth Loftus, Ted Talk, How Reliable is your Memory?
Week 7: Sven Birkerts, Thirty-Seven Theses on Time and Memory
Charan Ranganath, Why We Remember: Unlocking Memory's Power To Hold On To What Matters, Doubleday 2024
Elizabeth Loftus Ted Talk: https://www.ted.com/speakers/elizabeth_loftus
Patricia Hempl, Memories and Imagination, from I Could Tell You Stories, W.W, Norton & Co 2000 (essay to be provided by coordinator)
Sven Birkerts, Thirty-Seven Theses on Time and Memory, The Common, April 22, 2024 (essay to be provided by coordinator)
Charan Ranganath, "Why We Remember", interview at Google talks
Jerome Groopman, "Can Forgetting Help You Remember?", The New Yorker May 20, 2024