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| author | Wade A. Mitchell |
| title | Remembering Religion: Traces of a Mnemonic Nature |
| abstract | Although memory is universally recognized as a fundamental, perhaps even the fundamental, capacity of an active and healthy
brain, philosophers, artists, scientists, and theologians alike are still coming to appreciate exactly what it is, what it does, and how and why it ultimately
matters. Accounting for some of the reasons behind this uncertainty establishes the general preoccupation of this entire project. With a focus on episodic, or
autobiographical, memory in particular the middle chapters offer a top-to-bottom rendition of episodic memory with recourse to scientific investigations and
analyses at different levels of inquiry from Endel Tulving's neuropsychology to Eric Kandel's neurobiology. In the chapters before and after this cognitive
neuroscientific account of episodic memory there are engagements with several notable philosophers of memory from the philosophical theologian of antiquity,
Augustine of Hippo, to the emergent proponent of religious naturalism today, Loyal Rue. Working at the intersection between brain science and the academic
study of religion, this project serves as one contemporary response to the longstanding intellectual and religious preoccupation with all things mnemonic,
an interest that extends through the socratic philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, to the modern philosophers, James and Bergson and beyond. While many mnemonic
mysteries still remain, new insights arise when philosophers and theologians duly consider the findings of memory scientists. Episodic memory's religious
significance, this project concludes, is pronounced as it impacts the crafting of one's self-identity through time as selves simultaneously join with others
to create, maintain, and even reimagine their communal contexts. |
| school | The Theological School, Drew University |
| degree | Ph.D. (2017) |
| advisor | Robert S Corrington |
| committee | Catherine Keller
Wesley J Wildman |
| full text |
WAMitchell.pdf
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