Memory and Authority

Memory and Authority
Author: Jack M. Balkin
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 379
Release: 2024-02-27
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0300277121

From one of the nation’s preeminent constitutional scholars, a sweeping rethinking of the uses of history in constitutional interpretation Fights over history are at the heart of most important constitutional disputes in America. The Supreme Court’s current embrace of originalism is only the most recent example of how lawyers and judges try to use history to establish authority for their positions. Jack M. Balkin argues that fights over constitutional interpretation are often fights over collective memory. Lawyers and judges construct—and erase—memory to lend authority to their present-day views; they make the past speak their values so they can then claim to follow it. The seemingly opposed camps of originalism and living constitutionalism are actually mirror images of a single phenomenon: how lawyers use history to adapt an ancient constitution to a constantly changing world. Balkin shows how lawyers and judges channel history through standard forms of legal argument that shape how they use history and even what they see in history. He explains how lawyers and judges invoke history selectively to construct authority for their claims and undermine the authority of opposing views. And he elucidates the perpetual quarrel between historians and lawyers, showing how the two can best join issue in legal disputes. This book is a sweeping rethinking of the uses of history in constitutional interpretation.

Memory and Authority

Memory and Authority
Author: Jack M. Balkin
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 379
Release: 2024-02-27
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0300272227

From one of the nation's preeminent constitutional scholars, a sweeping rethinking of the uses of history in constitutional interpretation Fights over history are at the heart of most important constitutional disputes in America. The Supreme Court's current embrace of originalism is only the most recent example of how lawyers and judges try to use history to establish authority for their positions. Jack M. Balkin argues that fights over constitutional interpretation are often fights over collective memory. Lawyers and judges construct--and erase--memory to lend authority to their present-day views; they make the past speak their values so they can then claim to follow it. The seemingly opposed camps of originalism and living constitutionalism are actually mirror images of a single phenomenon: how lawyers use history to adapt an ancient constitution to a constantly changing world. Balkin shows how lawyers and judges channel history through standard forms of legal argument that shape how they use history and even what they see in history. He explains how lawyers and judges invoke history selectively to construct authority for their claims and undermine the authority of opposing views. And he elucidates the perpetual quarrel between historians and lawyers, showing how the two can best join issue in legal disputes. This book is a sweeping rethinking of the uses of history in constitutional interpretation.

The Book of Memory

The Book of Memory
Author: Petina Gappah
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2016-02-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0374714886

The story that you have asked me to tell you does not begin with the pitiful ugliness of Lloyd’s death. It begins on a long-ago day in August when the sun seared my blistered face and I was nine years old and my father and mother sold me to a strange man. Memory, the narrator of Petina Gappah’s The Book of Memory, is an albino woman languishing in Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison in Harare, Zimbabwe, after being sentenced for murder. As part of her appeal, her lawyer insists that she write down what happened as she remembers it. The death penalty is a mandatory sentence for murder, and Memory is, both literally and metaphorically, writing for her life. As her story unfolds, Memory reveals that she has been tried and convicted for the murder of Lloyd Hendricks, her adopted father. But who was Lloyd Hendricks? Why does Memory feel no remorse for his death? And did everything happen exactly as she remembers? Moving between the townships of the poor and the suburbs of the rich, and between past and present, the 2009 Guardian First Book Award–winning writer Petina Gappah weaves a compelling tale of love, obsession, the relentlessness of fate, and the treachery of memory.

Public Forgetting

Public Forgetting
Author: Bradford Vivian
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2015-10-13
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0271075007

Forgetting is usually juxtaposed with memory as its opposite in a negative way: it is seen as the loss of the ability to remember, or, ironically, as the inevitable process of distortion or dissolution that accompanies attempts to commemorate the past. The civic emphasis on the crucial importance of preserving lessons from the past to prevent us from repeating mistakes that led to violence and injustice, invoked most poignantly in the call of “Never again” from Holocaust survivors, tends to promote a view of forgetting as verging on sin or irresponsibility. In this book, Bradford Vivian hopes to put a much more positive spin on forgetting by elucidating its constitutive role in the formation and transformation of public memory. Using examples ranging from classical rhetoric to contemporary crises like 9/11, Public Forgetting demonstrates how, contrary to conventional wisdom, communities may adopt idioms of forgetting in order to create new and beneficial standards of public judgment concerning the lessons and responsibilities of their shared past.

The Book of Memory

The Book of Memory
Author: Mary Carruthers
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 875
Release: 2008-05-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1107652251

Mary Carruthers's classic study of the training and uses of memory for a variety of purposes in European cultures during the Middle Ages has fundamentally changed the way scholars understand medieval culture. This fully revised and updated second edition considers afresh all the material and conclusions of the first. While responding to new directions in research inspired by the original, this new edition devotes much more attention to the role of trained memory in composition, whether of literature, music, architecture, or manuscript books. The new edition will reignite the debate on memory in medieval studies and, like the first, will be essential reading for scholars of history, music, the arts and literature, as well as those interested in issues of orality and literacy (anthropology), in the working and design of memory (both neuropsychology and artificial memory), and in the disciplines of meditation (religion).

A Shared Authority

A Shared Authority
Author: Michael Frisch
Publisher: SUNY Press
Total Pages: 308
Release: 1990-01-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780791401330

A collection of 13 previously published essays by Frisch (American studies, SUNY). Among them are general reflections on oral history, collective memory, and American culture and history; detailed studies of specific issues in documentary work; and considerations of public history and programming. Examples used include the unemployed, Chinese students, and the television history of the Vietnam War. No index. Paper edition (unseen), $17.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The Seven Sins of Memory

The Seven Sins of Memory
Author: Daniel L. Schacter
Publisher: HMH
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2002-05-07
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0547347456

A New York Times Notable Book: A psychologist’s “gripping and thought-provoking” look at how and why our brains sometimes fail us (Steven Pinker, author of How the Mind Works). In this intriguing study, Harvard psychologist Daniel L. Schacter explores the memory miscues that occur in everyday life, placing them into seven categories: absent-mindedness, transience, blocking, misattribution, suggestibility, bias, and persistence. Illustrating these concepts with vivid examples—case studies, literary excerpts, experimental evidence, and accounts of highly visible news events such as the O. J. Simpson verdict, Bill Clinton’s grand jury testimony, and the search for the Oklahoma City bomber—he also delves into striking new scientific research, giving us a glimpse of the fascinating neurology of memory and offering “insight into common malfunctions of the mind” (USA Today). “Though memory failure can amount to little more than a mild annoyance, the consequences of misattribution in eyewitness testimony can be devastating, as can the consequences of suggestibility among pre-school children and among adults with ‘false memory syndrome’ . . . Drawing upon recent neuroimaging research that allows a glimpse of the brain as it learns and remembers, Schacter guides his readers on a fascinating journey of the human mind.” —Library Journal “Clear, entertaining and provocative . . . Encourages a new appreciation of the complexity and fragility of memory.” —The Seattle Times “Should be required reading for police, lawyers, psychologists, and anyone else who wants to understand how memory can go terribly wrong.” —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution “A fascinating journey through paths of memory, its open avenues and blind alleys . . . Lucid, engaging, and enjoyable.” —Jerome Groopman, MD “Compelling in its science and its probing examination of everyday life, The Seven Sins of Memory is also a delightful book, lively and clear.” —Chicago Tribune Winner of the William James Book Award

Why We Remember

Why We Remember
Author: Charan Ranganath
Publisher: Doubleday Canada
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2024-02-20
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0385675682

Memory is far more than a record of the past—in this groundbreaking tour of the mind and brain, one of the world's top memory researchers reveals the powerful role memory plays in nearly every aspect of our lives, from learning and decision-making to trauma and healing, and helps us take control of our unconscious mind to live happier, more deliberate lives. A new understanding of memory is emerging from the latest scientific research. In short, the memory is not what we think it is—a repository of the past that we tap into as we wish. It is actually a highly transformative power, active at all times, that shapes our present in often secretive and sometimes destructive ways. We are in many ways creatures of memory and only when we understand the mechanisms of memory can we truly understand ourselves and our motivations, and use our knowledge of those mechanisms to our advantage while avoiding their pitfalls. Why We Remember teaches the principles behind memory storage and retrieval and explains how our memories are always changing. It reveals how these processes affect what we think we know about ourselves and how we make decisions. It shows that the real power of psychotherapy isn't to remember what happened, but to change our interpretations of those events, so we can heal and grow. Memory is designed to be selective, meaningful and malleable. When we understand how memory works, we can cut through the clutter and remember the things we want to remember. We can not only remember more—we can remember better.

The Memory Program

The Memory Program
Author: D.P. Devanand, M.D.
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2007-08-15
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 0470251174

We all have concerns about our memories about becoming forgetful, about how to preserve our memories especially as we age. Now, Dr. D. P. Devanand answers your questions about memory loss due to aging and offers a revolutionary, medically sound practical program to keep your mind in shape and stave off memory loss. The Memory Program is a complete promemory plan for everyone over 40 learn how memory works in the brain and how aging affects your memory evaluate your memory using simple tests follow the right diet and exercise plan to help your memory * Use special memory-training techniques to keep your mind sharp * Tackle the major reversible causes of memory loss including stress and depression, alcohol, medications, and hormonal and nutritional problems * Discover exciting new preventive strategies and treatments, including herbal and other alternative medications, antioxidants and nutritional supplements, and useful over-the-counter and prescription medicines. Personalized by gender, age group, and whether you currently have a normal memory or suffer from mild memory loss, The Memory Program is a comprehensive, simple-to-follow plan to enhance your memory. Its the only memory book youll ever need.

Plenitude of Power

Plenitude of Power
Author: Professor Robert C Figueira
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Total Pages: 366
Release: 2013-06-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 1409479471

'I study power' – so Robert Louis Benson described his work as a scholar of medieval history. This volume unites papers by a number of his students dealing with matters central to Benson's historical interests – ecclesiastical institutions and administration, emperorship and papacy, canon law, political ideology, and historiography. The justification and exercise of political power is considered in two chapters that look at how the hagiography of a late Roman military saint, Maurice, was harnessed in the 11th century to the discussion of the power exercised by both emperor and pope, and how both pious purpose and political pretext animated the Hohenstaufen emperors' suppression of heresy. Three subsequent chapters focus on the Church: a study of the legal commentaries that taught that the 'authority to bind and loose' in a specific ecclesiastical matter could be determined by the opinions of 'the elders of the province'; an argument that Innocent III's administration of the Roman church represented a model for the ordering of all Christian society; and an inquiry into the doctrinal formation of the 'territorial principle' in the exercise of jurisdiction by papal legates. The late Middle Ages provides the focus for two additional studies, namely an exploration of the issues of power and authority in the charitable institutions of Cologne in the 13th–14th centuries, and the argument that the current desire for universal standards of governmental conduct in the area of basic human rights hearkens back to natural law theory as outlined in the 15th century by Nicholas of Cusa. Two historiographical studies round out the volume: an estimation of modern research regarding the political theology of late antiquity, and a reflection on Benson's own contribution to historical scholarship. Together, these papers both epitomize and further develop Benson's distinctive approach to the study of the Middle Ages, while themselves making their own important contribution.