How Memory Counts as the Same

Abstract

Memory is one of the most common ways to count as the same. This sameness works over the historical flux of lived time, allowing us to feel that the present connects directly to the past through the unmediated linkage of memory. On the other hand, this chapter also discusses how real memories also create some instabilities—in time (because the present never really is a continuation of the past) and in social identity (because you do not share my memories). These instabilities create the possibility of new readings as mimesis or metaphor, and ultimately of a play among different ways of counting as the same.