The Ghost of Remembrance

Abstract

ABSTRACT In a quest after the essence of memory, a crucial distinction is made between the notions of memory and remembrance, following Plato’s distinction between mneme (memory) and hypomnesis (archive). The article’s main argument is that memory has to do with the technical aspect of life, while remembrance has to do with what we live for. This is because the unwilled event of remembrance, which un-joins time, is always remembrance of one thing alone, i.e. the Thing. The notion of the Thing—addressed both by Heidegger and Freud—is analyzed in its psychoanalytic, theological and historical sense, as located in un-archiveable time, and as appearing in a spectral, violent fashion in our daily lives. Discussion is accompanied with examples taken from Proust’s novel In Search of Lost Time and François Ozon’s film “Frantz.”