Clement and Linda McGillicuddy Humanities Center

Pederson writes:
“Think of an object that reminds you of someone in your life who has died, and how this object pulls you to them. Opening a door to a different time and place in your life, while still being able to remain partially grounded in the present. I am interested in how we travel via memory in such an experience, in how much we are truly looking at them through this form of remembrance; and, whether they can be said to be looking back at us to any extent. In this project, I will investigate the character and role of this act of memoriam, and how much we are reliant on it as beings who necessarily live through and with the death of others. I will work on articulating a unique concept capturing this embodied mode of interpersonal recounting and recollection—namely, what I will call “the epitaphic look,” and I will do so using philosophical insights from works such as Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception, Matthew Ratcliffe’s Grief Worlds: A Study of Emotional Experience, and Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. I will apply this working understanding of the “epitaphic look” to explore the significance of “grief objects” as shaping pieces of our lives.”

For more details, email mhc@maine.edu