Memory and Narrative: Ruins, Nostalgia, and Ghosts

  • Susan Signe Morrison

Abstract

I have kept a journal since the age of 15. Every night I write in it the activities of the day. “It’s cheaper than a therapist,” I joke. Occasionally, my husband and I will dispute about an event from the past, perhaps about an argument that had transpired over some piddling issue. When we try to reconstruct this past quibble, I proudly declare I can prove my point by whipping out my diary dating from the period the dispute took place. Then my spouse rolls his eyes, suggesting that my scribbles are no more reliable than our memories. After all, I only wrote my point of view of the quarrel in the first place; I never included his take on the row. My authoritative writing on the past event is, in his view, hardly a trustworthy source since I was subjective in my initial transcription. Our mutual history, then, is doomed to incongruity.

Keywords

Body Politic Trustworthy Source Mutual History Dung Heap Garbage Heap 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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Notes

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© Susan Signe Morrison 2015

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  • Susan Signe Morrison

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