On Memory...many thanks to my students this semester

I've been thinking about memory a lot these past six months. Last semester, in my class on the Global South, we read texts that triggered memories I needed to face. Or rather, these texts made me realize that I needed to face certain memories in a different way. And it has been hard. Memories can't be swept under the rug; unfortunately, that's the way I've dealt with the most troubling ones. I feel a need to forget. But if I believe that the past is always present, and that my past is the foundation for the construction of my subjectivity--a glimpse into the question, "who am I?"--then perhaps there must also be a need to confront the past. I'm working on it.

I gave my students a writing prompt early in the semester: You have suddenly been given enhanced brain power and you can remember everything that's ever happened to you nearly at the same time. What do you remember that causes you to change how you behave currently? What are some lessons you learned that you promptly forgot?

They have phenomenal responses. Their writing has meaning and resonance in my life. It reminds me that no matter how much we focus on race, class, gender, and other categories that continually separate and/or demarcate us, we share humanity. For me, memory is perhaps the most salient thread about and for humanity. With that, here are some things my students shared:

"Though I may wish to promptly forget them [bad memories], I resolve to build upon them."

"The power of memory is vastly underestimated. Although some believe the past is the past for a reason and it should not be brought up in the present. I believe that the past is where our greatest adventures and lessons lay."

"I may never forget the bad memories of the past but I can overshadow them with good."

"Memories are more fickle than snowflakes...It is through clarity of the past that we strive for a better future."

"My behavior and disposition is a product of what I was taught by the people in my life."

"Being able to remember everything is a frightening thought."