This panel explores our relationship with our sometimes traumatic past, and asks why we should remember and what happens when we can’t remember. The discussion considers the importance of place and landscape in memory, as well as the nature of collective memory and memorialisation, particularly in the context of war.
Lisa Appignanesi (@LisaAppignanesi) is a writer, novelist and broadcaster. She is the former Chair of the Freud Museum London, the former President of English PEN and former Deputy Director of London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts. Her non-fiction includes Mad, Bad and Sad: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors (which won the BMA Award for the Public Understanding of Science amongst other prizes), the acclaimed family memoir Losing the Dead, the classic study Freud’s Women (with John Forrester) and Simone de Beauvoir, and most recently Trials of Passion: Crimes in the Name of Love and Madness. Her novels include Paris Requiem, The Memory Man and The Dead of Winter. Lisa Appignanesi was awarded the OBE in 2013.
Darian Leader is a psychoanalyst working in London and a founder member of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research. He is President of the College of Psychoanalysts-UK and Visiting Professor at the School of Human and Life Sciences, Roehampton University. He is the author of several books including: Introducing Lacan, Why do women write more letters than they post?; Freud's Footnotes; Stealing the Mona Lisa: What Art Stops Us From Seeing, Why do people get ill?' (with David Corfield), The New Black: Mourning, Melancholia and Depression and What is Madness? His most recent book, Strictly Bipolar was published by Hamish Hamilton in 2013.
Owen Sheers (@owensheers) has written two collections of poetry, The Blue Book and Skirrid Hill, which won a Somerset Maugham award. His verse drama Pink Mist won Wales Book of the Year and the Hay Festival Poetry Medal. His non-fiction includes The Dust Diaries and Calon: A Journey to the Heart of Welsh Rugby. His first novel Resistance has been translated into ten languages and was made into a film in 2011. His plays include The Passion, The Two Worlds of Charlie F. and Mametz. Owen wrote and presented BBC Four's A Poet's Guide to Britain. He has been a NYPL Cullman Fellow, Writer in Residence for the Wordsworth Trust and Artist in Residence for the Welsh Rugby Union. His second novel I Saw A Man will be published by Faber in 2015.
Sandra Jovchelovitch is a Professor in the Department of Social Psychology at LSE.
The Department of Social Psychology (@PsychologyLSE) is a leading international centre dedicated to consolidating and expanding the contribution of social psychology to the understanding and knowledge of key social, economic, political and cultural issues.
This event forms part of the LSE Space for Thought Literary Festival 2015, taking place from Monday 23 - Saturday 28 February 2015, with the theme 'Foundations'.
Suggested hashtag for this event for Twitter users: #LSElitfest
Podcast
A podcast of this event is available to download from Why Remember?
Podcasts and videos of many LSE events can be found at the LSE Public Lectures and Events: podcasts and videos channel.