Memory, Cultural Systems, and Anticipation

The past, the present, and the future are different tonalities of temporality, and in order to study their interaction, a processual look at the analytic and concrete level is a much required move for memory studies. The chapter argues that the future is a real territory for memory studies, which can be approached most effectively in terms of a semiotic, cultural sociology. The framework proposed here is grounded on a network-based formalization of cultural systems to depict an autonomous role of cultural encyclopedias and scripts in the micro-level orientation to future action. As it is framed in the chapter, memory work is a building block for a theory of cultural mechanisms (that link the macro level of culture and the micro level of situations), which elucidates how different aspects of culture at the cognitive and pragmatic level are translated mutually within cultural systems and how they transfer into consideration of possible courses of action. The chapter contributes to a theory of memory that is less concerned with the remembrance of the past and more with the working logic of culture and its pragmatic implications.