Memory in the Twenty-First Century ─ New Critical Perspectives from the Arts, Humanities, and Sciences

This book maps and analyses the changing state of memory at the start of the twenty-first century via short essays written by scientists, scholars and writers. An experimental, multidisciplinary volume, it presents new research whilst recontextualising memory by investigating the impact of new conditions such as the digital revolution, climate change and an ageing population. It contains contributions by researchers at the foreground of new thinking about the human mind, such as N. Katherine Hayles and Claire Colebrook, as well as by writers such as Will Self, Maggie Gee and Adam Roberts. The interlinking work shows that the multiplicity of revolutions force us to reconsider our thinking about what it means to be a human being in the twenty-first century. Memory is increasingly becoming a collective, globally shared networking activity, whilst the role of the human mind is increasingly marginal, and taken over by machines. Human nature is rapidly changing.

Sebastian Groes is Senior Lecturer in English Literature at Roehampton University, UK. He specializes in modernist and contemporary fiction, has written on authors including Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro, and published The Making of London. He is the Principal Investigator of the AHRC and Wellcome Trust-funded The Memory Network.