The Art of Memory in Medieval and Early Modern Europe - Detailseite

Do you know your own telephone number? Your father’s birthday? Can you recite one passage from your favorite book? A single poem? In our time, memory is swiftly losing its importance as information is increasingly stored “off-site,” that is, outside the human brain, usually in electronic files and devices. In medieval and early modern Europe, however, memorization techniques were part of basic education. Any decent student could and did commit a selection of texts to memory. What is more, memorization was considered fundamental for the development of mature human beings. Indeed, many thinkers identified memory with individual personality. In other words, you are what you remember. In this course, we shall read a selection of primary sources and scholarship treating the nature, functioning, and uses of the art of memory. Throughout the course we shall constantly return to the same underlying question: can our lives be enriched by the premodern notion of memory? The focus will be on close reading of texts and discussion. The language of instruction and participation will be English. Sources will be read in English translation, but a working knowledge of Latin would be helpful.