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The 18th Annual Alumni Symposium - April 27-28,
2007
Memory, Memoir and Madeleines:
Remembering Things Past |
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“Everyone blames his memory, no one
his judgment.”
— François La Rochefoucauld
“Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the
wish to forget it.”
— Michel de Montaigne
“Old-timers vacillate between the two states of
thoughtfulness and forgetfulness.”
— Anonymous
The study of memory has come a long way since 1909, when
Marcel Proust dipped a madeleine into his cup of tea and was
suddenly plunged into a vivid memory of his childhood in
Combray. That classic case of recapturing the past has come
to epitomize our fascination with the mysteries of memory,
which are—in one way or another—at the heart of all human
experience.
As part of Alumni Weekend 2007, the 18th annual Pomona
College Alumni Symposium will, over the course of two days,
offer participants an opportunity to test and plumb their
own memories while examining the topic of human memory from
a variety of perspectives, ranging from the scientific to
the artistic to the practical. In conversation with engaged
alumni and faculty, participants will explore topics with
great relevance to their own lives, including:
• The urge to record memory and create memoir
• How emotions impact and affect memory and consciousness
• The recovered memory/false memory debate
• Memory as power
• The impulse to memorialize
• Recapturing the past: a look at Ancient Egypt
• The roles of time and memory in modern fiction
• The power of smell as a trigger to memory
• Flashbacks, memory, and the movies
• A proliferation of passwords—recalling personal identity
amidst digital networks
• Pomona reminiscences—a stroll down Memory Lane
As ever, the Alumni Symposium is designed to provide
interesting and provocative educational opportunities to our
alumni while showcasing some of Pomona’s outstanding alumni
professionals in a range of disciplines—in this case, some
exceptional graduates who have pursued careers in a range of
fields that touch on the nature of memory—from psychology to
writing to filmmaking—as well as Pomona College faculty
engaged in important work in these and related areas.
Symposium Book and Movie List
A comprehensive list of books and movies related to this
year’s symposium on memory and memoir was compiled by Pomona
alumni, faculty, and friends for your consideration.
Alumni Weekend 2007
We invite you to join us for a weekend of activities that
will reconnect you with the academic life on campus and
provide opportunities to renew acquaintances and make new
friends. If you haven’t already made lunch reservations for
Friday or Saturday, and you wish to do so, please contact
the Alumni Office toll-free at 1-888-SAGEHEN. We’ll also be
happy to answer any questions you may have.
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The Program |
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Friday, April 27 |
9:15 a.m.
10:30 a.m.
Noon
1:30 p.m.
2:30 p.m.
3:30 p.m.
4:30 p.m. |
Emotion and Cognition: How Feelings Affect Attention,
Memory and Language
Deborah Burke
Recalling the Humanities:
• Time and Memory in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs.
Dalloway and Toni Morrison’s Beloved
Jean Murdy Wyatt ’61
• Scents of Memory — Memory of Scents (What are we
talking about when we talk about smells?)
Hans Rindisbacher
Lunch in the Edmunds Ballroom, Smith Campus Center
($15/person, reservations required, space is limited, call
1-888-SAGEHEN)
Memory as Power: Lessons from the Recovered Memory
Controversy
John Beahrs ’62 with William Banks
Ancient Egyptians and Early French Photographers: Views
of Time and Memory
A conversation with Kathleen Stewart Howe and Christine
Lilyquist ’62
The Practical Memoirist: Notes on Taking Notes on Your
Own Life
Verlyn Klinkenborg ’74
Remembering Pomona: Strolling Down College Avenue by Way
of Memory Lane
Verne Orr ’37 will lead a session recalling college
memories and traditions
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Saturday, April 28 |
10:30 a.m.
Noon
1:30 p.m. |
Memory and the Movies
David Ward ’67, Academy Award-winning
screenwriter, will lead the discussion and present
movie clips
Lunch on the Quad
($15/person, reservations required, space is limited, call
1-888-SAGEHEN)
You MUST Remember This!: Passwords in Contemporary
Computer Culture
Jeremy Douglass ’99
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The Presenters |
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William Banks, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology, Pomona College
William Banks earned his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins
University. The cofounder and editor-in-chief of the
journal, Consciousness and Cognition, he is also a
consulting editor for a number of scholarly publications and
author of a range of articles related to his research in the
areas of cognitive psychology, attention, perception and
implicit memory. He is a two-time winner of the Wig Award
for Distinguished Teaching and a fellow of the American
Psychological Association.
John Beahrs ’62, M.D.
Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry, The Oregon Health and
Science University
A graduate of Stanford University School of Medicine, John
Beahrs is a retired psychiatrist. He served on the Board of
Directors of the American Board of Medical Hypnosis from
1978 to 1988, and also as chair of the Committee on Adult
Delayed Recall of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the
Law from 1994 to 2000. He is the author of three books and
many articles.
Deborah Burke, Ph.D.
W.M. Keck Distinguished Service Professor and Professor
of Linguistics and Cognitive Science and Psychology
Deborah Burke received her Ph.D. from Columbia University.
Her research on the effects of aging on memory and language
has received continuous funding from the National Institute
on Aging since 1980. A visiting research fellow at the MRC
Cognitive Brain Unit in Cambridge England and at the Max
Planck Institute in Nijmegen, she has served on editorial
boards of such journals as Consciousness and Cognition,
Psychology and Aging, Developmental Psychology,
and Memory. The author a many scholarly papers, she
is a four-time winner of the Wig Award for Distinguished
Teaching.
Jeremy Douglass ’99
Graduate student, University of California, Santa Barbara
Jeremy Douglass is a Ph.D candidate in English literature
whose research focuses on interactive fiction and reader
response to textual new media. His work on poetry software,
“Slidewords: Towards Livecomposing Animated Poetry” is
forthcoming at Cultural Arts and Culture 2007. A web
developer for various projects, including the academic
search engine Voice of the Shuttle, he writes for the
art blog Writer Response Theory.
Kathleen Howe, Ph.D.
Sarah Rempel and Herbert S. Rempel ’23 Director of the
Pomona College Art Museum and Professor of Art History
Kathleen Howe received her Ph.D. in the history of
photography from the University of New Mexico. She is the
author of three books, including the award-winning
Excursions Along the Nile: The Photographic Discovery of
Ancient Egypt. She is the curator of, and catalogue
author for, “First Seen: Portraits of the World’s Peoples,”
an exhibition of 19th century photographs of human types. In
addition she has contributed to or edited a number of other
scholarly books on photography.
Verlyn Klinkenborg ’74, Ph.D.
Visiting Writer in Residence, Pomona College
Verlyn Klinkenborg is the author of Making Hay
(1986), The Last Fine Time (1991), The Rural Life
(2003), and Timothy: Or, Notes of an Abject Reptile
(2006). His work has appeared in many magazines. He received
a Ph.D. in English literature from Princeton University and
has taught literature and creative writing at Fordham
University and Harvard University. The recipient of a 2007
Guggenheim Fellowship, he has been a member of the editorial
board of The New York Times since 1997.
Christine Lilyquist ’62, Ph.D.
Lila Acheson Wallace Research Curator in Egyptology, The
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Christine Lilyquist received her Ph.D. at New York
University studying ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern art
and archaeology. As head of the Egyptian Department at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, she directed the
re-installation of its Egyptian collection and the
installation of the Temple of Dendur. She was Curator for
the Tutankhamun exhibition in America. Her publications
include four books and 25 articles.
Verne Orr ’37, Ph.D.
Former Secretary of the Air Force, retired businessman
Verne Orr, widely respected in the fields of business,
public service and education, earned his M.B.A. from
Stanford University in 1939 and saw military service aboard
a Navy destroyer during WWII, receiving a Purple Heart.
After a career in business and five terms as California’s
director of finance, he was appointed in 1981 as the
nation’s 14th secretary of the Air Force, serving in that
capacity until 1985. He later served as dean of the
University of La Verne’s School of Business and
International Studies. In 2005, he received his Ph.D. in
politics and public policy from Claremont Graduate
University.
Hans Rindisbacher, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of German, Pomona College
Hans Rindisbacher received his Ph.D. from Stanford
University. He is the author of The Smell of Books: A
Cultural-Historical Study of Olfactory Perception in
Literature, as well as a range of articles in scholarly
journals and has taught an interdisciplinary freshman
seminar based on his research titled “Fragrant Ecstasies.”
David Ward ’67
Screenwriter
David S. Ward received his MFA from the UCLA Film School in
1970. In 1973, he won the Academy Award for Best Original
Screenplay for The Sting. He was also nominated for
Best Original Screenplay in 1993 for Sleepless in Seattle.
While continuing to write and direct, he is also professor
of cinema at Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and
Media Arts, and a member of the Pomona College Board of
Trustees.
Jean Wyatt ’61, Ph.D.
Professor of English and Comparative Literary Studies,
Occidental College
Jean Wyatt received her Ph.D. from Harvard University. The
author of two books—most recently, Risking Difference:
Identification, Race and Community in Contemporary Fiction
and Feminism (2004)—she has written many articles
exploring the intersections of gender, race and
psychoanalysis. In 2003, she received Occidental College’s
Sterling Award for outstanding teaching and scholarship.
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Alumni Symposium Planning Committee |
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Rosemary Oelrich Choate '63, Symposium Coordinator
Tamara Warhurst Achauer '64
Julie McRoberts Armstrong '63
Bill Banks
Kris Fossum '76
Russel Heskin
Kathleen Howe
Daniel Krause '99
Verne Orr '37
Claire Oxtoby
Don Pattison
Alice Piatt
Nancy Treser-Osgood '80
Carol Wilson Van Citters '86
Mark Wood
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Past Alumni Symposium Topics |
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1990 - The Curtain
Rises: The New Drama in Eastern Europe
1991 - The Turmoil of
the Middle East
1992 - Arts in the 90s:
Assailed from Left and Right
1993 - Science Where You
Least Expect It
1994 - Music of the Late
20th Century: A Tribute to Karl Kohn
1995 - And All the Men
and Women Are Merely Players: Theatre at Pomona College
and Beyond the Gates
1996 - Politics in Asia:
Fire-Breathing Dragon or Lotus Blossom?
1997 - Studying Politics
– Doing Politics
1998 - Is There
Intelligent Life on Earth (or Anywhere Else)?
1999 - Asia’s New
Century and Ours: The Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College
2000 - Fin de Millenaire: Millennium Truths and Myths
2001 - Focus on a
Generation: Pomona College and the WWII Years
2002 - “Clash of
Civilizations?”: Perspectives from a New Century
2003 - Trust Betrayed:
Exploring Contemporary Ethical Issues
2004 - The 'Aha!'
Moment: Discovery, Breakthrough, Epiphany
2005 - Headlines and
Deadlines: A Conversation with Pomona's Alumni Journalists
2006 - Bio-Feedback:
Science and Society in Dialogue
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