On Memory and Forgetting

In the final event in the Art | Memory | Place programme, David Rieff, author of In Praise of Forgetting: Historical Memory and its Ironies (2016) and John Banville, award-winning author and critic discuss the role of historical memory and forgetting, taking as a starting point David's proposition that sometimes it may be better to forget? Introduced by Maurice Earls, joint editor of Dublin Review of Books.

Further Information
David Rieff (born 1952, in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American nonfiction writer and policy analyst, journalist with the Guardian and was a former war correspondent. His books have focused on issues of immigration, international conflict, and humanitarianism. He has published numerous articles in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Le Monde, El Pais, The New Republic, World Affairs, Harper's, The Atlantic Monthly, Foreign Affairs, The Nation, and other publications. His latest book is titled In Praise of Forgetting: Historical Memory and its Ironies, published by Yale University Press 2016.

William John Banville (born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1945) is an award-winning author and critic. He joined The Irish Press as a sub-editor in 1969 and continued with journalism for over thirty years and was Literary Editor at The Irish Times from 1988 to 1999. Banville’s first book, Long Lankin, a collection of short stories and a novella, was published in 1970. His first novel, Nightspawn, came out in 1971, followed byBirchwood (1973), Doctor Copernicus (1976), Kepler (1981), The Newton Letter(1982), Mefisto (1986), The Book of Evidence (1989), Ghosts (1993), Athena(1995), The Untouchable (1997), Eclipse (2000), Shroud (2002), The Sea (2005),The Infinities (2009) and Ancient Light (2012). His non-fiction book, Prague Pictures: Portraits of a City, was published in 2003 as part of Bloomsbury’s ‘The Writer and the City’ series. In 2012, an anthology comprising extracts from John’s fifteen novels to date, together with selections drawn from his dramatic works and various reviews, was published under the title, Possessed of a Past: A John Banville Reader.In 2005, John won the Man Booker Prize for The Sea.

Maurice Earls holds a doctorate degree from University College Dublin awarded for research into Dublin’s newspaper and periodical press in the early nineteenth century. Maurice Earls was one of the founders of Books Upstairs Bookshop in 1978 and has worked as a bookseller since then. Maurice Earls has been Joint editor since 2006 of the Dublin Review of Books to which he regularly contributes. Dublin Review of Books . The Dublin Review of Books publishes essays chiefly in the fields of literature, history, arts, culture and the human sciences on a quarterly basis since Spring 2007. Since Autumn 2012 it publishes fortnightly with additional material added between issues and works with the ambition to promote analysis and ideas by reflecting on international and Irish themes and, where appropriate, on their interaction.

Art | Memory | Place is a year-long programme of talks and events taking place over the course of 2015-16 in the context of the ‘decade of centenaries.’ Focusing on artists whose work addresses themes relating to memory and place, the purpose of this programme is to broaden and deepen the current discussion about the subject of remembrance and commemoration and to take account of such work. For further information visit www.imma.ie

Art Memory Place

Art Memory Place: On Memory and Forgetting, Closing Discussion with David Rieff and John Banville

IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art) is Ireland's leading national institution for the collection and presentation of modern and contemporary art. IMMA TALKS is an activated live programme of talks and events that opens up conversations around the core themes of our exhibition programme, and permanent IMMA Collection, bringing you deeper into the thinking and making of contemporary art.

For further information on IMMA TALKS please contact Sophie Byrne, Assistant Curator, Talks & Public Programmes, IMMA. Email sophie.byrne@imma.ie

Art Memory Place: On Memory and Forgetting, Closing Discussion with David Rieff and John Banville

IMMA Ireland