From smartphones with unlimited storage to memorials scattered across cities to pseudo-scientific techniques for maintaining brain plasticity, memory is of central importance to our society. Author Lewis Hyde asks: has memory been over-valued? Under what conditions might it be preferable to forget? Considering philosophy, art, and mythology; working through autobiography and cultural criticism, citing writers from from Hesiod to Nietzsche to Borges, Hyde develops a spiritual, therapeutic, and political case for forgetting. Ultimately, he offers a manifesto for creativity: out of oblivion, Hyde proposes, comes the artistic capacity for the radically new. Join Hyde as he walks us through his own forgotten life and instructs us in forgetting our own. 

About the speaker:

Lewis Hyde is a poet, essayist and cultural critic with a particular interest in the public life of the imagination. Best known for The Gift, a defense of the non-commercial portion of artistic practice, Hyde recently published A Primer for Forgetting, an exploration of the many situations in which forgetfulness is more useful than memory. A MacArthur Fellow, Hyde taught creative writing and American literature for many years at Kenyon College. Now retired, he lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with his wife, the writer Patricia Vigderman.

Important information: This event is online. Attendees will receive a Zoom link upon registration. Participants will be able to pose questions through the Zoom chat function.

This event requires advance registration.