<Articles>Image, Memory and History Fraught with Multiple Difficulties : In Response to Paul Standish's Lecture (The 7th International Symposium between the Institute of Education, University of London (UK), and the Graduate School of Education, Kyoto University (Japan))

Abstract

In September 2013 at Kyoto University, we had a series of lectures entitled 'Education and the retrieval of the past: remembering and forgetting' by Dr. Standish. He posed the following questions: 'The relation to the past is problematic. What is there to remember? What forms of selection are involved? How far do our recollections distort? And what role is there for forgetting?' P. Ricoeur (2000) also argued that memory is fundamentally the matrix of history but, therefore, it is often blocked, manipulated, abusively controlled or obligated by history. Also, the work of remembering is almost impossible. This is because he calls the success of the work a slight miracle or happiness. His argument can be thought to help us answer Standish's questions. Thus, this essay has two purposes. One is to separate key concepts we discussed in class into three groups and explain why the concepts in each group can be considered to belong to that group on the criteria of the difference between time and space. The first group comprises image and perspective, the second memory and representation, and the third history and narrative. The other purpose is to demonstrate that each group assumes certain essential challenges that are transmitted among the groups, resulting in the problem that the groups experience multiple difficulties.