Review of Blogs

Notes From Blogs

Why is memory so important to oral tradition?

Loci (Location) and image are the two important aspects of remembering.  The development of the memory is the LOCI

The problem with oral tradition is that it is too fleeting.

Test Material:

"Now that we have written it down, it is no longer ephemeral"  To capture language and make it concrete we must write it down

Primary Orality - denotes communication with the spoken word rather than with text and images (other than those we imagine)

What is the last thing you see before you go to bed?  What is it's importance to who you are and what you remember / dream?

First rule of memory - have a memory teacher like Prospero

Different cultures have similar techniques for memorizing

Nine Muses:

* Calliope / "beautiful of speech" / Chief of the muses / Muse of epic poetry

* Clio / "Glorious one" / Muse of history

* Erato / "Amorous one" / Muse of love poetry

* Euterpre / "Well-pleasing" / Muse of music 

* Melpomene / "Chanting one" / Muse of tragedy

* Polyhymnia / "Singer of many hymns" / Muse of sacred poetry

* Terpsichore / "Delights in dance" / Muse of dance

* Thalia / "Blossoming one" / Muse of comedy 

* Urania / "Celestial one" / Muse of astronomy  

Comments

Shannon - you probably remember all the NSync songs because you repeated them over and over and you probably had personal connections and images to go along with the lyrics.  You probably don't remember last semester because you didn't repeat it over and over and you didn't personalize what you were taught.

I feel impelled to respond and disagree to something Steve wrote on his blog about historian's lack of creativity and "All history is the regurgitation of what one's been told, even if it is interesting."

Writing history, I believe, concerns analytically creating different ways we can view and understand the past.  There is no one overall idea of history - there are histories; just like there is no one perspective of an event, there are perspectives.  History is the process of creating and understanding perspectives and I think there is an artistic component to this

Names - 

Collier:  My great-grandmother's maiden name and my and my mother's middle name.  It is French for necklace.  In 19th century Britain, it was the name for coal-miners.  In the early 16th century, it meant filthy wretch.

McGinty:  My father's surname.  Irish.  Descends from Gaelic, "son of the scholar"; or, it means white and snowy  Violence and strength seem to be associtated with this name in popular culture (I'm thinking of the movie "The Fighting McGinty's" and the character in the movie "The Jerk" named Iron-Balls McGinty) 

Skiles:  My mother's surname.  Westphalian-German.  Hereditary surname for a person who was either wild or clamorous.  Derived from the German word 'schel,' which means loud or noisy