Freshman Assembly: History, Collective Memory, and the Power of Images

On Sunday, September 11, Rachael DeLue, Associate Professor of Art and Archaeology, addressed the Class of 2015 for the annual freshman assembly on the topic of “History, Collective Memory, and the Power of Images.” Professor DeLue offered the following introduction to her lecture: “We commonly distinguish “history,” which entails the description of past events, from “memory,” defined as an individual’s recollection of those events. History, we assume, deals objectively with facts, while memory is personal and subjective, located in a murky middle ground between sensory perception and imagination. Yet memory plays a significant role in the telling of history and the formation of identity; how each of us remembers our past shapes how we see ourselves and how we perceive others today. Likewise, collective memory—the memory of events as shared by a large group, such as a culture or a nation—has a hand in determining how that group imagines itself and, importantly, the stories that group tells about its past, present, and future. The telling of history, thus, is often a matter of memory, a combination of fact and feeling, objective accounting and subjective storytelling. This lecture explores the entanglement of history and memory, beginning with a series of questions raised by the complex and controversial effort to memorialize the tragic events of September 11th. Through a consideration of the images and structures we create for the purposes of narrating collectively experienced and remembered events, from slavery in America to the terrorist attacks of 9/11, we can learn a great deal about how we envision and make use of our past. We also gain insight into how our picturing of the past in works of art or in public memorials can in turn have a hand in determining who we are and what we do.”