Forget Memory

We fear losing our memories. There are studies that tell us this is so, but we hardly need them. I started this blog to share some of my thoughts as I write (and read and write and read and write some more) about our obsession with memory and its loss. Is memory really the locus of self? Who are we when memory falters? Forget Memory: Imagining a better life for people with dementia is the working title of my book due out in 2009 from Johns Hopkins University Press.

Here’s a nutshell:
The cultural obsession with memory makes the experience of its loss much worse than it has to be. We’re a long way away from a cure for dementia, if cure is even possible. What cultural changes can we make to improve the lives of people with memory loss today?

Section one explores our misunderstanding of memory and how it works, and our fears of its loss.

Section two reads mainstream stories of memory loss - from bumps on the head to Alzheimer’s disease.

Section three looks at more nuanced stories of memory loss - stories that reveal full, emotional lives for those in the midst of the experience.

Section four outlines specific steps for what we have to do to move through our fears of memory loss and improve the lives of people with dementia.

ABOUT ME:

ANNE BASTING (Ph.D.) is the Director of the Center on Age & Community and an Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre at the Peck School of the Arts, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she teaches storytelling and playwriting. Basting has written extensively on issues of aging and representation, including her book The Stages of Age: Performing Age in Contemporary American Culture. Her numerous articles and essays have been published across multiple disciplines including journals such as The Drama Review, American Theatre, and Journal of Aging Studies, and anthologies Figuring Age, Mental Wellness in Aging, the Handbook for the Humanities and Aging, and Aging and the Meaning of Time. Basting is the recipient of a Rockefeller Fellowship, a Brookdale National Fellowship, and numerous major grants for her scholarly and creative endeavors. Her creative work includes nearly a dozen plays and public performances, including The Frida Kahlo Retrospective, All the Live Long Day, Persuasion (co-written with Ping Chong), the Last Dinosaur, and Time Slips. Basting received her Ph.D. in Theatre Arts and Dance from the University of Minnesota in 1995. Basting continues to direct the TimeSlips Creative Storytelling Project, which she founded in 1998. She is currently at work on a new book, Forget Memory: Imagining a Better Life for People with Dementia. Basting makes numerous presentations creativity and aging across the United States.

FROM ME:
I live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with hubby and documentary filmmaker Brad Lichtenstein, and our two boys Ben and Will. I drive a minivan and love it. I’m on the board of our local Alzheimer’s Association chapter. I adore mountains and the view of Lake Michigan from Atwater Park in Milwaukee. Somehow, that view makes everything okay. I have a sister who lives in Milwaukee, and a brother in Minneapolis. Both are lawyers. My dad is a lawyer too. Somehow, I escaped. My mom is a teacher with a manic love of learning…maybe that’s how.