%0 Journal Article
%T When the Personal and the Collective Merge into Oneness: The Dynamics of Memory in Petina Gappah¡¯s <i>The Book of Memory</i>
%A Mamadou Abdou Babou Ngom
%J Advances in Literary Study
%P 38-65
%@ 2327-4050
%D 2022
%I Scientific Research Publishing
%R 10.4236/als.2022.101003
%X Using as a stepping-stone <em>The Book of Memory</em> by Zimbabwean lawyer and novelist Petinah Gappah, I set out in this research article to grapple with the dynamics of the vexed issue of memory. The paper argues that, when it comes to memory, the individual intertwines with the collective. Even though the act of remembering is purely individual, the fact remains that it is enacted in a social context with groups acting as cues. Remembering is not an isolated act. Instead, it is group-induced. The article also brings to light the crippling weaknesses that memory studies have long suffered from, namely the short shrift given to the collective dimension in favour of the personal. It follows from the research project, though, that this flaw began to be remedied with the seminal of work of the French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs who introduced the concept of ¡°collective memory¡± to foreground the communal nature of memory. What the French thinker calls ¡°social frameworks¡±, the paper explains, reflects the social contexts in which people remember. The politics of memory works at many levels, with forgetting being dubbed by Aleida Assman a ¡°social normality¡± and remembering the ¡°exception.¡± From a methodological perspective, I elected to adopt an approach based on the humanities, and the social sciences, not least sociology and history, in order the better to bring into sharp relief the dynamics of memory.
%K (Collective) Memory
%K Forgetting
%K Remembering
%K Caring
%K ¡°Othering
%K ¡± Difference
%K Identity
%U http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=113274