The 2011 Faculty of Humanities Seminar Series presents …

 Professor Jan Assmann

German Egyptologist and Honorary Professor of Cultural Studies and Theory of Religion, University of Konstanz, Germany

 “Globalisation and Memory
in the Ancient World”

 Date: Tuesday, 3 May 2011
Time: 17:30-19:00
Venue: Humanities Building, Room 3-14

 
Globalisation and memory are opposites, working in diametrically opposed directions. Memory is always and inseparably connected to an idea of ‘self’ or ‘identity’, and identity presupposes alterity, drawing borders and distinctions. Globalisation, on the other hand, blurs all distinctions and creates similarities. Periods of globalisation, therefore, mean a challenge to collective memories leading either to their vanishing or to their fortification in terms of elaboration, codification, or even canonization. Professor Assmann will reflect on how these processes may already be observed in the Ancient World, which knew several periods of globalisation.