Memory in the Construction of Cultural Traditions: Serious Fiction in African Epics

Pascal Boyer (Washington University in St. Louis)

The department is pleased to announce the fourth lecture in the HAA Lecture Series 2016-2017, Memory, will be by Dr. Pascal Boyer, Henry Luce Professor of Individual and Collective Memory, teaches in the departments of Psychology and Anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis. The lecture will begin at 5:30 in Arts 1332 with a reception to follow.

Traditions may be short or long-lived, intimate or widespread - but it seems they always depend on memory. Drawing on the example of the Fang mvet epic of Gabon, I will present a way of explaining the emergence or persistence of traditions that is independent from individual memory.