An Absent Presence: The Curricular and Pedagogical Construction of Memory

• In Event: 25.085 - Sheraton Roundtable One - Osgoode Ballroom
  In Roundtable Session: 25.085-3 - Mapping Self-Other Relations in Curricular Spaces

Abstract

Memory studies show how memories are activity shaped by societies and malleable across time and space. Although memory has been studied by social scientists as a collective phenomenon (see Connerton, 1989; Halbwachs, 1992), little research has been conducted on the social production of and relationship to emotions in public spaces. This qualitative inquiry examines offers the curriculum and pedagogy of memory and its complex association with place, specifically the NS11MM. Our research suggests the need for educators to develop a critical sensibility to the often easily accepted authority of such institutions. We argue the need to examine the NS11MM’s pedagogical purposes and to question how educators can critique the often unchallenged considerations of learning in such a pedagogically significant institution.

Authors

• Brenda M. Trofanenko, University of Illinois

• Avner Segall, Michigan State University