| Abstract | Matthew C. Baldwin is Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Mars Hill University, where he teaches ancient history, Biblical literature and classical Biblical languages, and method and theory for religious studies. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina. Read his earlier post on cultural memory here.He lives in Asheville, North Carolina.Instead, Leonard navigates the world by following traces of his recent but completely forgotten past in the form of a complex tangle of notes, tattoos on his skin, and polaroid photographs.And so, even in the absence of memory, Leonard pursues a single-minded mission of revenge.But he accepts them as traces of his forgotten prior self; especially he regards the tattoos — which are hard to ignore, lose, erase or change — as presenting “facts” that identify him and compel him forward towards his goal.He regards the record of “facts” tattooed on his arm as superior to memory.While the memories of individuals are constantly passing away into oblivion—after all, memories are just unstable electrical configurations set in fragile grey matter, housed in bone, nourished by blood, and ended by death—the collective has no organismal substrate for memory.Instead, in the struggle against oblivion, we (the plural is significant here) collect, compile, archive, and record.Yet the category “memory” is extraordinarily popular in the field of religious studies.But the parable of Leonard has a further, darker lesson to teach.We know…
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