Re-Writing Memory/Part 2

We give great meaning and weight to memory, eye witness accounts, childhood stories, and traumas, and yet, everything we experience passes through multiple filters within us. Is it important to know whether something is true or not? Should storytelling be concerned with ‘the’ truth or with ‘a’ truth?

Last semester we invited you to join us discussing the intersection of memory and storytelling. We opened questions such as: How do we approach memories? How do we remake a memory while re-telling and re-imagining? Do we see them as fiction or nonfiction? Does collective memory begin where the individual memory ends or is it possible for them to co-exist…?

This semester we continue on our path to approaching memory by creating the space to discuss forgetting, false memories, and the act of remembering itself in the context of both individual and collective memory.

The aim of the seminar is to create a space where everyone can work on their own projects but within a collective, constantly receiving feedback, so that our works can be improved. Having a writing collective in the space will also help us to develop our skills in giving and receiving feedback. Within the seminar, there will be reading sessions each month and participants are encouraged to share their writing with us, whether literary or as part of an artistic project that encompasses other artistic mediums.

Although, the seminar will be held in English; our hope is to reach as many people as possible so that there is at least one other person who speaks the language you write, but if not please don’t be shy to share your writings in English even if it’s not your first language. Guests in the seminar will include people involved in publishing, editing, writing (both literary and script), and translators. With these guests we want to be able to examine both our own writings and the industry itself. In the end of the seminar there will be a reading event which will be organized in a more public setting; so that the participants can share what has been worked on throughout the semester with people from outside of the seminar.