The masks of Mnēmosynē: modulations of memory from ancient Greece to modern Paris

Abstract

This thesis traces some of the modulations in the figuration, role and functioning of memory from the Mycenaean civilisation to the Hellenistic period of ancient Greece before taking up a reading of the modern continental philosophical engagements with this inheritance and the question concerning the irreducible mediations which lie between us and this Greek heritage. The works of Plato, Jean-Pierre Vernant, Marcel Detienne, Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida are read, among others, within this study.