2008-2009 University Theme

Memory

Submitted by Assistant Professor of Biology Alissa Packer and Assistant Professor of Philosophy Coleen Zoller, the 2008-2009 University Theme is "Memory."

During the 2008-2009 academic year, Susquehanna University will celebrate its Sesquicentennial. This occasion will afford us the opportunity to tell the story of Susquehanna University -- a story 150 years in the making. We are only able to tell this particular story because various people have preserved their memories of this institution’s past.

Individuals are able to preserve these stories because of the brain’s ability to process and store memories. Our capacity to remember is useful to us in an astounding variety of ways. Yet, this capacity is something we tend to take for granted. Furthermore, there are limits to what even experts in the field understand about the way memory works.

Fortunately scholars from a wide variety of fields have focused their interdisciplinary attention on the study of memory. This work varies from the scientific study of the brain by neuroscientists to the literary study of the role of narrative in keeping memory alive and sharing memories. It includes cognitive science questions about the similarities between the memory of computers and human minds, as well as questions about the role recovered memories play in the fields of psychology and law. An understanding of how memory works is also required in order to examine corporate messages in marketing and advertising.

Students use memory a lot, whether it's to remember information for tests or to assemble their photo albums, capturing the memories they have made in their four years at Susquehanna. This theme gives students, and every member of the Susquehanna community, an oppportunity to think more deeply about what memory is, what its limitations are, the mysteries surrounding our understanding of memory, and both the gifts and the burdens it places on those species able to recall the past.