italian-studies: Scholarly discussions in any field of Italian studies
hi Liz
A couple of suggestions. Other list members might be able to amplify either or both.
A. Wendell's question what is meant by 'shown to be' must be a key one, because it leads on to another question about how 'false memory' comes to our or anybody's attention. My (very impressionistic, since I've never really concentrated) impression is that the words 'false memory' are typically followed by a third, viz. 'syndrome', and that it's a phenomenon that has only recently been - uhm - constituted, in some quite specific contexts of medical / psychiatric / social work / legal / anthropological etc practice. So it would be worth following up a question of empirical fact about where the term starts life and how it - ie the term rather than / as well as the phenomenon - travels, including when, whether, how fast etc it travelled / was translated to Italy / Italian culture (if at all, otherwise than as a pure Americanism, in which form it must surely have been), from wherever it began.
B. *On the other hand*, if you wanted to run to the opposite extreme, and just use the term 'false memory' as a peg to hang stuff on, the most conspicuous Italian case responding to your initial description would presumably be good ol' Dante Alighieri, although there might be some other more manageable ones somewhere in the middle ground between A and B.
I hope this helps, one way or the other.
j
________________________________
From: Scholarly discussions in any field of Italian studies on behalf of Wendell Ricketts
Sent: Wed 02/04/2008 11:05
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [I-S] False memory in Italian writing
italian-studies: Scholarly discussions in any field of Italian studies
I'm not quite sure what you mean by "shown to be" (in the sense of a public
expose` or scandal?) fictional, but two things come to mind: Ginzburg's
_Lessico Famigliare_, which quite intentionally combines and blurs fictional
and "real" elements; and then, descending into (much lower) culture, _100
Colpi di Spazzola Prima di Andare a Dormire_, where (at least for publicity
purposes) the fact that the book is a novel and not a memoir was somewhat,
um, obscured at first. (Though I doubt whether anyone still thinks it was a
"true" story.)
W.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Scholarly discussions in any field of Italian studies
[mailto:ITALIAN-
> [log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Elizabeth Wren-Owens
> Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2008 2:47 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [I-S] False memory in Italian writing
>
> Dear Colleagues,
>
> I am about to take part in an interdisciplinary study of the notion of
false memory,
> where memoirs are posited as autobiographical but are later shown to be
fictional.
> Examples would include Benjamin Wilkomirsky's 'Fragments' and (very
recently)
> Misha Defonseca's 'To survive among wolves'. I would be grateful if
colleagues
> could point me towards any examples of the phenomenon of false memory in
> Italian literature.
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