On memory and cultural trauma in Japan with guest speaker Prof Akiko Hashimoto (Portland State University)

The guest speaker for this episode is Prof Ruramisai Charumbira (Western University). Prof Charumbira presents a talk entitled ‘Towards Ecologies of Memory and Ecological Memories’. In her talk and in the discussion that follows, she identifies the relational ontology of the more-than-human in Southern African Praise Poetry, and traces a genealogy of misrecognition of African and other indigenous ecologies of relation in Western intellectual history.

The guest speaker for this episode is Prof Jenny Wüstenberg (Nottingham Trent University). Prof Wüstenberg presents a talk entitled ‘Slow Memory: Remembering Gradual Change in an Accelerating World’. In her talk and in the discussion that follows, she presents her concept of ‘slow memory’ and explores how we might better register and remember slow-moving developments, given that our existing tools for remembering are overwhelmingly designed for remembering eventful history.

The guest speaker for this episode is Prof Helen Finch (University of Leeds). Prof Finch presents a talk entitled ‘Queer Memory, Queer Poetics’. In her talk and in the discussion that follows, she explores queer memory as a means to serve queer history and queer mnemic techniques as a kind of fugitive practice conducive to breaking down normative modes of time and escaping oppressive logics.

The guest speaker for this episode is Prof Mihaela Mihai (University of Edinburgh). Prof Mihai presents a talk entitled ‘Critique as Political Care: Democracy, Memory, Theory’. In her talk and in the discussion that follows, she explores how particular interpretations of the past become accepted as 'self-evident truths' and how critical interventions within the mnemonic field can be understood as a form of political care for a society's democracy.

The guest speaker for this episode is Prof Peter Davies (University of Edinburgh).