How Modernity Forgets

Bibliographic Data

ID23397397
AuthorsPaul Connerton (0000-0001-9025-2946, University of Cambridge, corresponding author)
Year2009
Publication date2009-07-30
Open AccessYes
TypeBOOK
VenueHow Modernity Forgets (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherCambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1017/cbo9780511627187
OpenAlexW583707001
Open LibraryOL34481771M
ISBN9780511627187
LanguageEN
Citations received244

Why are we sometimes unable to remember events, places and objects? This concise overview explores the concept of 'forgetting', and how modern society affects our ability to remember things. It takes ideas from Francis Yates classic work, The Art of Memory, which viewed memory as being dependent on stability, and argues that today's world is full of change, making 'forgetting' characteristic of contemporary society. We live our lives at great speed; cities have become so enormous that they are unmemorable; consumerism has become disconnected from the labour process; urban architecture has a short life-span; and social relationships are less clearly defined - all of which has eroded the foundations on which we build and share our memories. Providing a profound insight into the effects of modern society, this book is a must-read for anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists and philosophers, as well as anyone interested in social theory and the contemporary western world.

Aesthetics · Art · Cognitive psychology · Consumerism · Contemporary society · Epistemology · Forgetting · Modernity · Political science · Process (computing) · Social science · Sociology · Visual arts · Architecture · Computer Science · Law · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Philosophy · Psychology · Memory · Social psychology

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