Department

History

Document Type

Presentation

Publication Date

4-23-2008

Abstract

I first realized that I was aging when, in an American Civilization class in the mid-to-late 1970s, I was talking about incidents that we remember forever. My example, so fresh in my own memory, was Kennedy’s assassination. The class looked nonplussed, and I realized that they were all pre-schoolers when it occurred! My friends and colleagues Randy Smith and Randall Wight put a name and explanation to the concept I was presenting on that long-ago day. But such “flashbulb memories” are only an extreme example of the way that we all hear voices and see visions. Some of the voices and visions are shared, and of those we make institutional, regional, or even national mythology. Some of the voices and visions are highly idiosyncratic and belong to the dead, or the imaginary, those whose voices never were or have been stilled. I have heard those voices and seen those visions as long as I can remember.

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