Putting metaphor centre-stage: A case study of Alison Landsberg’s ‘Prosthetic Memory’

Abstract

Alison Landsberg’s concept of ‘prosthetic memory’ is one in a series of metaphors adopted by Memory Studies. In this article Landsberg’s tropic concept serves not only as a case study in relation to Memory Studies, but also as a prompt to scholars to engage critically with the use of metaphor in cultural/literary studies. Metaphors matter. Poorly used figurative language can hamper communication and restrict how a given topic is both circumscribed and analysed. According to conceptual metaphor theorists, metaphors influence how we think as well as how we speak, and thus, potentially, how we live. To this end the term ‘prosthetic memory’ is analysed in the context of the relationship between the literal and the figurative as manifested at various levels in Prosthetic Memory, from Landsberg’s use of a key film – The Thieving Hand – in her theory-building, to her stylistic tics and sleights of hand, to her probably unconscious use of verbal metaphors (considered by some as ‘dead’).

Virtual reality as a technology of memory: Immersive presence in Polish politics of memory

“…Mediated narratives of past events, which users have no lived experience of, become a personal memory in VR, enabling users to assert, ‘It felt as if I was there; as if it happened to me; as if I witnessed it in person,’ as opposed to, ‘I watched a video about it.’ Alison Landsberg's (2004) term of ‘prosthetic memory’ seems to be an apt metaphor for memories produced through and acquired in VR, with one caveat (cf. Berger 2007; Hutton 2022; Tybjerg 2016). Landsberg (2004, 2) defines the concept as ‘a new form of memory’, which ‘emerges at the interface between a person and a historical narrative about the past, at an experiential site such as a movie theater or museum,’ where ‘the person does not simply apprehend a historical narrative but takes on a more personal, deeply felt memory of a past through which he or she did not live.’ Landsberg envisioned prosthetic memory as a politically progressive form of cultural memory.…”

“…Alison Landsberg's (2004) term of 'prosthetic memory' seems to be an apt metaphor for memories produced through and acquired in VR, with one caveat (cf. Berger 2007;Hutton 2022;Tybjerg 2016). Landsberg (2004, 2) defines the concept as 'a new form of memory', which 'emerges at the interface between a person and a historical narrative about the past, at an experiential site such as a movie theater or museum,' where 'the person does not simply apprehend a historical narrative but takes on a more personal, deeply felt memory of a past through which he or she did not live.'…”