Instructor: Dr.

Will Kurlinkus
English 3143 MWF Zoom: 3:45- -5:00PM
E-Mail: William.kurlinkus@ou.edu
Introduction to Memory Studies Office Hours: On Zoom by request

Overview Materials
From OU campus statues to Confederate Civil memorials to hip-hop’s old § All Materials Provided on
school to Facebook’s On This Day, in this course students will learn to study Canvas
cultures of memory by asking, who wants whom to remember what, why,
and to which ends. We’ll be paying particularly close attention to how
Assignments
shared memories structure communities (e.g. slow food activists, Garth
Brook’s country music fandom, and online conspiracy groups), how
1. 12 Weekly Write-Ups: 20%
memory and nostalgia structure popular media (e.g, film and TV reboots
and nostalgia shows like Stranger Things and The Goldberg’s) and what 2. Critical Narration: 20%
role technologies of memory (e.g. photos, social media, and museums) 3. Midterm Community Analysis: 30%
play in all of this.
4. Final Trend Analysis: 30%

Goals Projects Note

§ Learn about the field of memory studies from a rhetorical perspective
We have 3 major projects in this
§ Learn to write critical essays in memory studies
course. The first, due at midterm, is a
§ Learn the basics of academic presentations (including a multimodal
rhetorical analysis of a community of
project)
memory. The final project, due on
finals day, is longer analysis of a
Attendance, Participation, Late Work memory trend. Finally, sometime
before Thanksgiving break
Online Attendance this course, as you know, has been moved online to. There (whenever you’d like!) you will turn in
will be a zoom class at the regularly scheduled time 3 times a week. I will also a narrated PowerPoint video on a
record the lecture portions of the class (though not the discussion) and place theory you’ve read about.
them online whenever possible. I’d like you to participate as much as you can
in our zoom meetings, but you don’t need to be constantly visually present.
You can listen and watch me without me watching you. I’d also like you to Email Policy
stay muted unless you are speaking/responding.
Weekly Writings: Once a week I’d like you to respond to the readings
you’ve read that week in a 1-page single-spaced rhetorical response. In I will check and respond to emails
doing so, you’re expected to quote the readings and use the once a day at 1PM. You can expect
theories/concepts on memory discussed to analyze your own memory feedback around that time. So,
object, idea, and or culture, ultimately asking: who wants whom to please do not worry if you don’t
remember what and why? receive a response quickly if you
Late submission of any assignment will result in the deduction of 5% per day. send an email at 5pm—I will respond
the next day at noon.
Access
Students requiring academic accommodation should contact the Disability
Resource Center for assistance at http://www.ou.edu/drc/home.html Any
student who has a disability that may prevent him or her from fully
demonstrating his or her abilities should contact me personally ASAP so we
can discuss accommodations to ensure full educational opportunities.

Introduction to Memory Studies 1



Week 1. Introduction to Memory Studies1

M 8.24 Intro to Class

W 8.26 What is Memory?
1. “Why Memory?” Astrid Erll. pp. 1-12*
2. Forget Me Not, This American Life, 18 minutes

F 8.28 What is Memory Studies?
1. “The Invention of Cultural Memory” Astrid Erll, pp 13-37*
2. “Introduction: The Re-Decade” Simon Reynolds, pp. ix-xxiii

Week 2. Familial Memory and Origins
M 8.31 Collective Memory
1. From “The Collective Memory” Maurice Halbwachs, pp. 139-149*
2. .”Us and Them” David Sedaris, pp. 3-12

W 9.2 Remembering Family
1. ”Let it Snow” David Sedaris, pp. 13-16
2. “Our Perfect Summer” David Sedaris, pp 1-9

F 9.4 Inventing Tradition
1. “American origins: Political and religious divides in US collective memory” Jeremy Yamashiro, pp. 1-
16*

Week 3. Materializing Memory
M 9.7 No Class Labor Day

W. 9.9 Memory Things
1. “The Most Cherished Objects in the Home” Czikszentmihalyi and Halton, pp. 55-75*

F 9.11 Family Memory Things
1. “Family memory, ‘things’ and counterfactual thinking” Green and Luscombe, pp. 646-659*

Week 4. Museums
M 9.14 Museums
1. “The objects that lived: The 9/11 Museum and material transformation” Marita Sturken, pp. 13-26*

W 9.16 Museums
1. “The Master Naturalist Imagined” Aoki et al., pp. 238-261*
2. “History is Not A Toy” This American Life, 14 minutes

F 9.18 More Museums
1. “Reasons for the Memory Upsurge” Pierre Nora, pp. 1-9*
2. “Past Imperfect” This American Life, 12 minutes

Week 5. Regional and Geographic Memory
M 9.21 Critical Regional Studies
1. “The Practice of Critical Regionalism” Douglas Reichert Powell. pp. 1-26*
2. ”Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt's remarks on the 25th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing”


1 Note: The moral academic critical essays are marked with an asterisk. Though I would like you to read them completely, because
there is a lot of reading in this course you may stop after 20 pages if you’d like. If the reading is less than 20 pages, read the entire
piece. Everything not marked with an asterisk is a popular essay or work of fiction from a book, newspaper, magazine, or NPR
podcast—you’re expected to finish all popular readings.

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W 9.23 Region and Memory
1. “Coal Keeps the Lights On” Will Kurlinkus pp. 87-109*

F 9.24 Oklahoma Regional Memories
1. “Most American” Rilla Askew, pp. 3-8, 95-105
2. “Queens of the Pioneer Outback” Susan Kates, pp. 81-92

Week 6. Digital Memory
M 9.28 How Social Media Has Changed Remembering
1. “How Facebook, fake news and friends are warping your memory” Laura Spinney pp. 168-170
2. “Redesigning Social Media Platforms to Reduce FOMO?” Raian Ali & John McAlaney

W 9.30 Fiction + Digital Memory
1. Ken Liu, “Thoughts and Prayers.” pp. 77-95

F 10.2 Virtual Mourning
“Virtual Mourning and Memory Construction on Facebook” Rhonda Mcewen & Kathleen Scheaffer, pp. 64-
75*

Week 7. Slow Culture + Craft
M 10.5 What is Slow Culture?
1. “The Case for Nothing” Jenny Odell, pp 1-29
2. “Slow Food Manifesto” + “The Slow Design Principles”

W 10.7 Craft + Slow + Work
1 “Digital Artisan’s Manifesto” Barbrook & Schultz
2. “Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Culture” Jodi Canto + David Streitfeld.

F 10.9 Slow Social Capital
1. “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital” Robert Putnam, pp. 1-5*

Week 8. Music, Pop Culture and Memory
M 10.12 Retro Music
1. “You Say You Want a Devolution?” Kurt Andersen, Vanity Fair

W. 10.14 Music, Memory, America
1. “The Greatest RockStar Who Never Was: Garth Brooks, Chris Gaines, and Modern America” Heather
Maclachlan pp. 196-222*

F 10.16 Dolly Parton’s America
1.. Dolly Parton’s America. “Dixie Disappearance.” 40 minutes

Midterm Due By Class Time
Week 10. Nostalgia
M 10.19 Intro to Nostalgia
1. ‘’Nostalgia and Its Discontents” Svetlana Boym.*
2. “Play Freely at Your Own Risk” Amy Fusselman

W 10.21 Cultures of Nostalgia
1. “Old Schooling: Why Hip-Hop Nostalgia Is on the Rise” David Turner
2. “Trump’s Beautiful Proposal for Federal Architecture” Andrew Ferguson

F 10.23 Generations of Nostalgia
1. “OKBoomer Marks the End of Friendly Generational Relation” Taylor Lorenz
2. “14 Things '00s Kids Haven't Thought About In, Like, 7 Years”
‘

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Week 11. Resistant, Counter, and Forgetful Memories
M 10.26 Counter Memory
1. “Questioning the canon: Colonial history, counter-memory and youth activism”Joanna Kidman &
Vincent O’Malley, pp. 1-14 *

W 10.28 Breather
Brief Midterm Presentations

F 10.30 Inventing Traditions + Forgetting
1. “Crafting Grand Cru Chocolate in Contemporary France” Susan Terrio, pp. 67-79*
2. “Everything You Need to Know About the Right to Be Forgotten”

Week 12. Controversies
M 11.2 Resisting Memorials
1. “The Flag and the Fury” Radiolab, 85 minutes
2. “Onate’s Foot” 99% Invisible, 47 minutes

W. 11.4 Remembering Celebrities Who Failed Us
1. “What Do We Do When the Art We Love Was Created by a Monster?” Constance Grady
2. “How to Think About the Cosby Show” Wesley Morris
3. “How To Decide If You'll Continue To Watch The Hundreds Of Movies Produced By Harvey Weinstein”
Kelsea Stahler

F 11.13 At the University of Oklahoma
1. “Confronting History” OU Daily, Dana Banham

2. “OU students explain implications of 'boomer,' 'sooner’” Jacinda Hemeon
3. “Committee hopes for 89er Day Parade next year” Caleb Slinkard

Week 12. Trauma + Memory
M 11.16 Should We Remember or Forget?
1. “Everywhere You Go, It’s There.” Rosa Eberly. pp. 65-82*

W 11.18 Social Media and Memorials
1. “ Youth, trauma and memorialisation: The selfie as witnessing” Kate Douglas, pp. 1-16*

F 11.20 Memory and Trauma
2. “Why We Reach for Nostalgia in Times of Crisis” Danielle Campoamor
3. ”An Epidemic Created by Doctors” This American Life, 52 minutes

Week 13. Food and Memory
M 11.23
1. “Cookbooks as Collective Memory and Identity” Janet Theophano, pp. 49-68.*
2. “Episode 715: Tasting the Nation with Padma Lakshmi” 49 minutes

Theory Narration Due On Or Before This Date

W 11.25 Thanksgiving Holiday

F 11.27 Thanksgiving Holiday

Week 14. Writing Wrap Up

M. 11.30 Individual Meetings
W 12.2 Individual Meetings
F 12.4 Individual Meetings

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Week 15. Final Presentations
M 12.7 Presentations
W 12.9 Presentations
F 12.11 Presentations

Final Project Due December 18 Noon