Science, Society, and Senescence
Oct 29 – Nov 2, 2018
This is a week of events relating memory and forgetting from a variety of perspectives. It shows how memory is both an individual and a societal feature. The Week of Memory and Forgetting is a collaboration between The Initiative on Neurosciences (IONs), the Fine Art Center (FAC), the Institute for Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies (IHGMS), and faculty in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies.
Students are invited to build displays in the memory of an important person in their field of study who has passed on. Participants will receive a free Memory Stick. A $100 gift certificate will be awarded for the most evocative ofrenda. Read more…
Monday October 29
4:00 Welcome Reception This reception will feature organizers and UMass representatives reflecting on the meaning of memory and forgetting.
Light hors d’oeuvres will be served. Read more…
Tuesday October 30
2:30 Round Table Discussion: “Collective Memories and Forgetting”
Societal memory plays an important role especially after major changes such as war or revolution. This round table will discuss what collective memories are and how they affect society. Read more…
6:00 Film: “Who is Dayani Cristal?” tells the story of a migrant who found himself in the deadly 
stretch of desert known as “the corridor of death” and shows how one life becomes testimony to the tragic results of the U.S. war on immigration. As the real-life drama unfolds we see this John Doe, denied an identity at his point of death, become a living and breathing human being with an important life story. Read more…
Wednesday, October 31
4:00 Neuroscience and Behavior Seminar. Rosmary Cowell will give a scientific lecture entitled “Memory research in the 21st century: more than just pinning the tail on the donkey”. What are the brain mechanisms that allow you to recognize an old friend, or recall your sister’s wedding in vivid detail? In the twentieth century, researchers discovered that one brain region, the hippocampus, plays a pivotal role in “declarative memory” . Dr. Cowell will describe a novel approach to understanding how memory is organized in the brain. Read more…
Thursday, November 1
1:00 Psychological and Brains Sciences Clinical: Psychology Colloquia. Bruna Martins will present a scientific lecture entitled, “Cracking the age-related emotion-cognition paradox: Linking memory to late-life emotion regulation”. This talk will discuss how self-reflective memory is preserved in older adults, and enhanced connectivity of self-reflective and cognitive networks in the brain may promote better emotional outcomes in the elderly. Read more…
Friday, November 2
4:30 – 6:30 Open house: Psychological and Brain Sciences
Explore Tobin Hall, meet current faculty and students, and learn about research in Psychological Brain Science. You’ll see demonstrations using the latest technology in brain sciences while discovering how much the building has changed since its opening in 1972. Read more..
8:00 Peformance by Theater Re: “The Nature of Forgetting”
Followed by Q&A with Neuroscientists and Performers. “The Nature of Forgetting” offers a glimpse into the challenges of an individual suffering from early-onset dementia. Theatre Re recreates a theatrical experience that pulls the audience into a character’s struggles to recognize the present, which brings us into close contact with the heartbreaking struggle of people who with a disease that affects a quarter-million Americans today. Read more…