Communication HistoryMIT 2000f

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Course ContentO http://faculty.fims.uwo.ca/robinson/mit2000f/defa

ult.aspx

O SyllabusO Lecture slidesO Assignments

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Memory/Writing

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Writing to Present/Future Self

O “Grown Ups Read Things They Wrote as Kids” (Dan Misener, CBC Radio)

O https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyvUR1dCBbk

O “Personal Time Capsules”

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MemoryO http://www.youtu

be.com/watch?v=TNr_MiqCahE

O USA Memory Championship

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Memory Palace

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O Simonides of Ceos, 5thcentury BCO Banquet-Hall Collapse

O Memory PalaceO Childhood homes, etc.O Architectural Digest

O Spatial/VisualO Peter of Ravenna

Memory: Spatial, Visual

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O TerrainO Personal SpacesO FacesO Joshua Foer:

Moonwalking with Einstein

Epic poems of Rajasthan, India

1. Oral Tradition2. Bhopas3. Epic Poems

1. Mahabharata2. Dev Narayan3. Thousands of

stanzas long

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Bhopas/Oral Tradition

Memory Endurance of Epic

Poems Bhopas Sacred works Healing powers

Challenge to Oral Tradition Literacy Other media

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Oral Society (W. Ong)

1. Words as evanescent “events”1. Hebrew: “dabar”

(“word” and “event”)2. Power of spoken word

1. Language as mode of action

3. Interlocutor1. Memory/knowledge

4. Cognitive structure/way of thinking

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Oral Society and Recall1. How do spoken words become

memorable thoughts?2. Mnemonics and Formulas

1. Rhyme, proverb, alliteration2. “To error is human, to forgive is divine”

3. Serious thought requires memory systems

4. Experience intellectualized mnemonically

5. “Know what you can recall”

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Oral Tradition

1. Rich in metaphor 1. multi-sensory

2. Homer 1. illiterate2. 9th century BCE3. Iliad/Odyssey

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Oral Society

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O Jongleur (Middle Ages -itinerant minstrel)O Memorize hundreds

of lines of poems/texts

O Aide-memoires/ Rhyme

O Trained Memory/Worldly Mind

Theory/Orality/Harold Innis

1. theorist of communication/culture

2. historical relationship between society & technologies of communication

3. Time/Space

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Innis: Time-Biased Media

1. Orality2. Stone, Clay (durable

media)3. Community, continuity4. Practical knowledge5. Geographically confined

Griot (West African storyteller)

1. Repository of oral tradition

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Innis: Time-biased Media

1. Hierarchical social order

1. Theocentric

2. Vulnerable to “light” media challenge

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Innis: Space-Biased Media

1. Papyrus, paper, printing press, TV

2. Large capacity/less enduring

3. Administration1. territorial control

4. Cultural homogenization

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Innis: Space-Biased Media

5. Secular6. Commodification7. Monopolies of

Knowledge8. Weaken Tradition

“spatialize time”

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Innis: Orality

1. “my bias with oral tradition”

2. spirit of Greek civilization

1. dialogue, Socratic method

2. intellectual exchange

3. Inhibit tyranny4. Balance of Time-

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Innis/ “Grown ups Read Things…”

O Private, Personal Writings

O Elapsed TimeO Child to Adult

O Public “Live” Spoken ReadingO Communal Setting

O Community/Continuity

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