| Abstract | Sociological investigations into collective and/or public memory have revealed that memory is treated as a resource for the construction of a collective identity. While this idea is generally accepted, some critics believe that this sociological analysis itself can be ironically utilized as a resource for collective identity construction. If this criticism is correct, we need to examine the basic assumptions of this form of analyzing memory. In the context of this problem, the purpose of this paper is to explore the historical process in which sociology has made itself what it is through the reconceptualization of memory. In particular, the construction of William I. Thomas' "social theory" and its relation to the problems of immigrants in those days will be the major focus areas of the paper. The central point of this discussion is the shift of the concept of memory from the one coincides with the concept "heredity" in Neo-Lamarckian framework to another that is distinctively human which cannot be attributable to biological traits. In addition, Thomas focuses mainly on the memory of the immigrants, considering their assimilation into the United States. Furthermore, he and his followers suggest apparatuses that operate on the memories of immigrants to promote this assimilation. In this sense, sociology in its early days can be regarded as not only as a science of memory but also as a technology of memory.
|
