Chapter 1 - Introduction: What is Cultural Memory?

Summary

Cultural memory theory is a framework which elucidates the relationship between the past and the present. At its most basic level, it explains why, how, and with what results certain pieces of information are remembered. Despite its origins in historiographical scholarship, however, in recent years cultural memory has been applied with increasing frequency to the study of the Classics, most notably in Gowing’s (2005) and Gallia’s (2012) exploration of memory under the Principate as well as the edited volumes by Galinsky (2014), (2016a), and (2016b). As the organisers of the ‘Roman Cultural Memory’ project, we are glad to count ourselves part of this emerging wave. We held three conferences to promote intersections between memory theory and Classics research, the first in November 2016 at King’s College London, the second in June 2017 at the Université Paris-Est Créteil, and the third in March 2018 at the University of São Paulo.