Memory with an Erotic Addition
Reflections on Cinema, Normativity and Identity
Keywords:
Bensusan’s Memory Assemblages, love and knowledge, standpoint epistemology, rule followingAbstract
In this paper, I follow Bensusan’s lead regarding the need of addition for the constitution of memory and explore in what sense love can in occasions provide the necessary addition while improving, rather than jeopardizing, the normative standing of memory. To illustrate the relationship between memory as a source of knowledge and love, I make use of a variety of examples taken from films by Buñuel, Bergmann and Kore-eda, from literature and history, and from personal experience. Likewise, I rely on ideas from traditions ranging from feminist and antiracist standpoint epistemology to Wittgenstein’s discussion of rule following.
References
Ashton, Natalie (2020), “Relativising epistemic advantage”, in Martin Kusch, The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Relativism, London: Routledge, pp. 329-338.
Baldwin, James & Richard Avendon (1964), Nothing Personal, Cologne: Taschen.
Bensusan, Hilan & Manuel de Pinedo (2007), “When my own beliefs are not first-personal enough”, Theoria 58: 35-41.
Bensusan, Hilan (Shajara) (2008), Excessos e exceções: Por uma ontologia sem cabimento, São Paulo: Ideias e Letras.
Bensusan, Hilan (Shajara) (2017), Being up for Grabs: On Speculative Anarcheology, London: Open Humanities Press.
Bensusan, Hilan (Shajara) (2021), Indexicalism: The Metaphysics of Paradox, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Bensusan, Hilan (Shajara) (2024), Memory Assemblages: Spectral Realism and the Logic of Addition, London: Bloomsbury.
Bergman, Ingmar (1957), Wild Strawberries.
Buñuel, Luis (1933), Las Hurdes: Tierra sin pan.
Chatwin, Bruce (1987), The Songlines, London: Penguin.
Code, Lorraine (1995), Rhetorical Spaces: Essays on Gendered Locations, London: Routledge.
Cohen, Leonard (1969), “Tonight will be fine”, in Songs from a Room.
Crary, Alice (2018), “The methodological is political: What’s the matter with ‘analytic feminism’?”, Radical Philosophy 202, June 2018: 47–60.
Dabhoiwala, Fara (2024), “A man of parts and learning”, London Review of Books 46:22, 21 November 2024.
Daston, Lorraine (1992), “Objectivity and the scape from perspective”, Social Studies of Science 22: 597-618.
DuBois, W.E.B. (1903), The Souls of Black Folk, New York: Bantam, 1989.
Field, Hartry (2009), “Epistemology without metaphysics”, Philosophical Studies 143: 249-290.
Fricker, Miranda (2007), Epistemic Injustice. Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Friel, Brian (1980), Translations, in Plays One, London: Faber and Faber, 1996.
Graeber, David & David Wengrow (2021), The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, London: Allen Lane.
Haraway, Donna (1988), “Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective”, Feminist Studies 14: 575-599.
Haslanger, Sally (2017), “Objectivity, epistemic objectification, and oppression”, in Ian James Kidd, José Medina & Gaile Pohlhaus (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Injustice, London: Routledge, pp. 279-290.
Hekman, Susan (1997), “Truth and method: Feminist Standpoint Theory revisited”, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 22(2): 341–65.
hooks, bell (2000), All About Love: New Visions, Nueva York: Harper & Row.
Kore-eda, Hirokazu (1996), Without Memory.
Kore-eda, Hirokazu (1998), After Life.
Kukla, Quill (Rebecca) (2006), “Objectivity and perspective in empirical knowledge”, Episteme: A Journal of Social Epistemology 3: 80-95.
McDowell, John (1982), “Criteria, defeasibility, and knowledge”, in Mind, Knowledge, and Reality, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998, pp. 369-394.
McDowell, John (1993), “Knowledge by hearsay”, in Mind, Knowledge, and Reality, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998, pp. 414-443.
McDowell, John (1994), Mind & World, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Murdoch, Iris (1959), “The sublime and the good”, Chicago Review 13 (3): 42-55.
Nussbaum, Martha (1990), Love’s Knowledge, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Oldham, Will (1994, as Palace Music), “New partner”, in Viva Last Blues.
Pinedo, Manolo (2021), “The other within: A second-personal paradox for self-knowledge”, Cosmos & History 17: 111-123.
Plato, Symposium, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994 (trans.: Robin Waterfield).
Robinson, Tim (1986), Stones of Aran, Dublin: Lilliput Press.
Robinson, Tim (2011), Connemara: A Little Gaelic Kingdom, Dublin: Penguin Ireland.
Romney, Jonathan (1999), “The memory game,” The Guardian, 28 September 1999.
Sánchez Romero, Marga (2022), Prehistorias de mujeres, Barcelona: Destino.
Singer, Isaac Bashevis (1978), “Nobel lecture”, https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1978/singer/lecture/
Stanley, Jason (2005), Knowledge and Practical Interest, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tóibín, Colm (2025), “Seagulls as playmates”, London Review of Books 47:3, 20 February 2025.
Toole, Briana (2022), “Objectivity in feminist epistemology”, Philosophy Compass 2022;17:e12885.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1953/2001), Philosophical Investigations Oxford: Blackwell.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 de Pinedo Manuel
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
