Event overview
A Methods Lab Event with the Constance Howard Resource and Research Centre in Textiles
This event will be delivered by Bridget Fowler, Professor of Sociology (University of Glasgow).
This paper explores the Western newspaper obituary as an aspect of "collective memory". Bridget Fowler adopts a Bourdieusian theoretical approach, arguing that these biographical mosaics are important for offering "eternal" remembrance for the chosen few. The literary form of the obituary is undergoing a transformation, although one less revolutionary than obituary editors fondly imagine. The contemporary obituaries sometimes now encompass individuals who are famous in popular memory and counter-memory (the memory of dissidents). They are no longer strictly limited to the dominant classes – the aristocracy and upper bourgeoisie – as they once were. Moreover, in terms of genre, obituaries have branched out beyond the mythically-idealised representations they were in 1900 into being documents of life about their subjects that reveal forms of social conflict, even profound contradictions. The paper concludes by asking whether the democratisation of the obituary might advance further whilst also retaining its character as a distinction.
Bridget Fowler is the author of The Obituary As Collective Memory (2009), Reading Bourdieu on Society & Culture (2000), Pierre Bourdieu and Cultural Theory (1997).
Dates & times
Date | Time | Add to calendar |
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10 Mar 2011 | 2:00pm - 4:00pm |
Accessibility
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