Re-Positioning Social Memory Through Twentieth-Century Post-Apocalyptic Literature and Film

260 Pages·2017·2.77 MB·English

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LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School
2014
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Amanda Ashleigh Wicks
Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College
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THE IMAGINED AFTER:
RE-POSITIONING SOCIAL MEMORY THROUGH
TWENTIETH-CENTURY POST-APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE AND FILM

A Dissertation

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the
Louisiana State University and
Agricultural and Mechanical College
in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy

in

The Department of English

by
Amanda Ashleigh Wicks
B.A. University of Florida, 2005
M.A. Florida State University, 2009
May 2014
For Mom and Dad, who gave me the words

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Five years ago, I nabbed the last open seat in Lauren Coats’ popular spatial theory course,
“American Geographies: Spatial Theory and Cultural Criticism,” which introduced me to the
possibilities bound up in new and exciting methods of critical theory. In that class, I began de-
veloping the kernel that would go on to form the basis for this project. For that exposure, as well
as for her time, consideration, conversations, and thoughtful close readings of my work, I thank
Lauren. Without her guidance, this project would not be what it is today. I’m also indebted to
Carl Freedman, whose generous feedback and thought-provoking discussions aided me in sharp-
ening my theoretical work. Both of my co-chairs pushed me to think about this subject matter in
theoretically rigorous and intellectually challenging ways; their direction prompted me to think
bigger, write better, and fulfill this project’s potential.
I would also like to thank my other committee members, Rick Moreland and Rosemary
Peters, who helped me clarify the project’s scope and purpose during the earlier phases of its ex-
istence. Their insight into the larger questions I hoped to raise and the questions they themselves
asked were imperative. In addition to my immediate committee members, I would like to thank
Elsie Michie, who served as a significant scholarly role model; her support and encouragement
always came at just the right time. Additionally, Dan Novak’s feedback during my early attempts
at job market materials helped me better hone this project and articulate my vision.
My peers also provided their own form of encouragement, and for their input, advice, and
company, I would like to thank Jaime Cantrell, Andrew Banecker, Kris Mecholsky, and “Petey
Pete” Kunze. To my friends, Sarah Varnado and Drew Varnado, who knew the rigors of such a
project and always managed to see the light on my behalf. Thank you also to Meghan Hardy,
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Melissa Legg, Lauren Fusilier, Sarah Ocmand, Jake Johansen, great friends all. And to Ben, who
came along at the last and made me smile.
Finally, I would like to thank my family. My mother and father provided the most im-
mense support a young scholar could ever need; their excitement kept me going, while their love
and encouragement helped me finish this project. And to my brother and oldest friend, Bobby,
who serves as a consistent reminder that hard work, kindness, and laughter go a long way.
These “social frameworks” have been instrumental in my finishing this project. Thank
you, one and all.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………………………iii

LIST OF FIGURES..…………………………………………………………….…………….....vi

ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………………..vii

INTRODUCTION……………….………………………………………………………………..1

CHAPTERS
ONE The Imagined After: Post-Apocalyptic Spaces……………….…………………...38

TWO From Sociality to Externality: The Changing Nature of Memory.……………….72

THREE New Forms of External Memory: The Dangers of Digital Memory.………....111

FOUR Future Social Spaces: Children as Living Memory-Narratives……...…………153

FIVE Forgettable Endings: Traumatic Memory as Destructive Memory……………...191

CONCLUSION…….…………………………………………………………………………...236

REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………………242

APPENDIX
1 Letter of Permission…………………………………………………………………..251

VITA…….………………………………………………………………………………….......252

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LIST OF FIGURES

1. Figure 3.1 from The Walking Dead: Book One…………………………………...…………135

2. Figure 3.2 from The Walking Dead: Book One……………………………………...………138

3. Figure 3.3. from The Walking Dead: Book One………………………………….……...…..139

4. Figure 4.1 from the film Children of Men (2006)………………………………………..….187

5. Figure 4.2 from the film Children of Men (2006)…………………………………………...188

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ABSTRACT

Maurice Halbwachs first proposed a collective approach to memory in the early twentieth centu-
ry, but the vast majority of subsequent scholarship investigates memory’s social properties from
a theoretical point of view. This project instead proposes that memory functions as a social phe-
nomenon in significant and real ways, primarily understood through the social relations that arise
within social frameworks, which provide a structure against which people’s memories come to-
gether to form important memory-narratives that configure individual and social consciousness.
Once people transform memory from individual thought-image into socially structured language,
memory takes on social properties. Memory relies upon social frameworks to form and maintain
memory-narratives, but also on sites and objects to create a more tangible connection to the past
through such narratives. With the growth in such external memory in recent years, i.e. museums,
memorials, etc., people cannot remember the past to the degree they once could. In other words,
people have come to rely more on things than on people to reconstruct the past in the late twenti-
eth and early twenty-first centuries. Consequently, people cannot remember the past to the extent
they once did. Post-apocalyptic literature and film intervene by addressing the heightened anxie-
ty people feel regarding the changing experience of memory. This project examines how such
unique narrative provide the necessary spaces through which to better understand the social na-
ture of memory, as well as the threat external memory imposes upon acts of remembering and
forgetting. They utilize the imagined future space, one often devoid of people (social frame-
works) and places (geographical signifiers) to show memory’s underlying social characteristics
and how changes to social frameworks occasion changes to people’s mnemonic capability.

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INTRODUCTION

“What you have discovered is a recipe not for memory, but for reminder.”
– Plato, Phaedrus

Where once theory reigned supreme in understanding memory, neurological research can
now pinpoint the distinct parts of the brain involved in the numerous memory systems that com-
prise a person’s overall memory.1 Given that neuroscientists, psychologists, and others involved
in cognitive research understand the biological process behind memory, they use that knowledge
to assert how the act of remembering signifies a subjective experience.2 Such a claim makes
sense considering how deeply memory is involved in constructing and sustaining a person’s
identity.3 Without memories of the past, people would not possess any sense of their develop-
ment over time, let alone their place in the world; as important as any initial experience may be,
equally important is a person’s ability to remember that experience so they can maintain a time-
line. Without an understanding of what happened yesterday, the present would be a continually
confusing and even frightening experience. In light of the integral nature of memory and identity,
as well as the brain’s role in that relationship, it comes as no surprise, then, that cognitive studies
concentrates on the line of reasoning that memory occurs as an output of a single mind as op-
posed to an assemblage of minds. For, even if two people share an experience, a simple verbal
exchange reveals how their memories of the event will differ based on their individual perspec-

1
 Daniel Gilbert explains, “In the nineteenth century, knowledge of brain function was based largely on
observation of people…who were the unfortunate subjects of one of nature’s occasional and inexact neu-
rological experiments.” Stumbling on Happiness (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 12.

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Memory Process, ed. Susan Nalbantian (MIT Press, 2012).

3
 According to Maurice Halbwachs, “We preserve memories of each epoch in our lives, and these are
continually reproduced; through them, as by a continual relationship, a sense of our identity is perpetuat-
ed. On Collective Memory, trans. Lewis Coser (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 47.

1
tives. Memory appears to be such an intensely subjective action, because people cannot access
another’s memories without first doing so through the social means of language. According to
the scientific research that comprises cognitive studies, memory can be theoretically social, but it
is first and foremost practically individual.
Yet, the act of remembering entails greater social involvement than has heretofore been
fully explored. Since the 1980’s, collective memory (which also goes by the designations cultur-
al memory and public memory) has formed an important humanities-based branch of cognitive
studies, one that explores either the cultural manifestations of memory, or how people who share
a group identity collectively remember the past. Despite Maurice Halbwachs’ renowned work on
collective memory, which posits that remembering emanates from social rather than individual
forces, cognitive science tends to view this argument in a theoretical light, as opposed to an actu-
al possibility. Working from a sociological perspective, Halbwachs contended that social frame-
works (what he termed les cadres sociaux) form a mnemonic background against which memo-
ries reemerge. So, while individuals can certainly recollect the past of their own volition, this act
becomes augmented with company and in many ways even depends upon the presence of other
people since, according to Halbwachs, people didn’t store memory individually. Even “autobio-
graphical memory is…rooted in other people.”4 In many ways his claims worked against the tra-
ditional psychoanalytic model at the time, which posited people as a storehouse for memory, an
argument that continues to this day within neuroscience. It wasn’t until the 1980’s, however, that
cognitive studies scholars began expanding upon Halbwachs’ claims, investigating the ways in
which small or large groups remember the past. In discussing collective memory, though, such
scholars continue presuming a theoretical model, which contends that subjective memories make

4
 Lewis Coser, “Introduction,” On Collective Memory, 24.

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