A main theme in our ASTU class that we have been discussing is memory and history and how they are related. Through reading Persepolis; the story of a childhood, Marjane Satrapi shows how memory is perceived through a child’s eyes, also in reading Micheal Ondaatje’s book; Running in the Family, we saw that memory can differ based on peoples perspectives. Most recently in the introduction to Tangled Memories, Sturken a communications scholar, introduces us to the idea of cultural memory, which will be the focus of my blog today.

Sturken argues that memory and history hold an equal amount of accountability and in fact go together, however some scholars, including Pierre Nora, believe that cultural memories are less accountable. Typically how we classify history is through physical evidence of an event, such as textbooks, media coverage, newspapers. However Sturken claims that history is more than the physical evidence it is about the culture of the time. She introduces the term “Technologies of Memory” (9) to help support her arguement. Technologies is not a term to be taken literally, how Sturken refers to the word is; objects which memory can be shared with others while offering additional meaning. An example which she uses is when people place objects at memorials, like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (5). These objects get collected and put into archives which do not fit into any of the traditional historical categories. She claims these objects which don’t fit into the traditional ways of classifying history is what makes cultural memory so important. The culture in which an event happens effects how history is recorded,  depending on the event people will remember certain parts, this is called “organized forgetting.” (7) Sturken reminds us that history can never be replicated exactly, because people do not remember everything. This is where cultural memory steps in. The ideals and values of a culture change as generations go on, what was once seen as bad in the past is now good and vice versa. This relates to the technologies of memory because depending on what the culture is and what the people remember helps to decide what objects hold a historical significance.

Sturken shows how memory and history aren’t just related but interwind with each other. This intertwined memory and history is relevant in Persepolis as well when the story is told through a child’s perspective because Marjane’s memories of the event are subjective to her own culture which she grew up in. Also in Ondaatje’s book when he is gathering information about his father he gets told many different versions of the same story simply because different people remember an event differently, it is all subjective. All together Sturken, Satrapi and Ondaatje’s books, all help to show how memory and history are not individual ideas they in fact work together.