Mahfoud, M. e Massimi, M. (2005). Editorial: Memory and history: disquietudes of all times. Memorandum, 9, 1-8. Retrieved  /   /   , from World Wide Web: http://www.fafich.ufmg.br/~memorandum/artigos08/ed09en.htm

Editorial

 Memorandum: memory and history in psychology
Number 9

Memory and history: disquietudes of all times

1) Methodological contributions towards the studies on social and collective memory in the fields of social and community psychology and popular culture. These contributions are made in the following studies: 1.a) Boy’s pranks: the longing memory of childhood in Brazilian popular songs by Adriano Roberto Afonso do Nascimento and Paulo Rogério Meira Menandro who, through three analytical procedures (lexical analysis, content analysis and net of contents), tries to apprehend the relationships between nostalgic remembrances of childhood present in Brazilian popular music and social memory; 1.b) Memory and identity in afro-descendants: considerations based on a university extra-mural project by Marcos Vieira Silva, Danielle Laísa Oliveira Paiva and Sheila Ferreira Miranda who, from the report of a work of intervention, poses questions and presents considerations of theoretic and metholodological nature that are related to the concepts of production of afro-descendant identity and collective memory; 1.c) Psychoanalysis and religion: reflecting about afro-Brazilian studies with Ernesto La Porta by Alexandre Mantovani and José Francisco Miguel Henriques Bairrão which analyzes and discusses the application of psychoanalysis as a method of research for the studies of afro-Brazilian religions based on the work of psychoanalyst E. La Porta; 1.d) A methodological approach for studying the social historical domain by Marília Novais da Mata Machado which discusses the notion of discursive formation and the methodological tool of discourse analysis in investigations made according to a social-historical approach. 

It is interesting to note that, in this block, the diversity of methodologies opens possibilities of approaching new contents of research in psychology. 
 
2) A second group of contributions consists of works based on historical approach – in the diverse perspectives of history of psychological knowledge, of the history of scientific psychology and historical psychology. The studies that make up this group are: 2.a) On the level of complexity of the human soul: translation and comments of a text of Thomas Aquinas by Mauro Martins Amatuzzi which presents a translation of the first article of a Disputed Question by Thomas Aquinas where the problem discussed is related to a possible conciliation between human soul as subsistent and a concept of soul as just a structure of physical organism; 2.b) Historical and contemporary aspects of self investigation by Mariane L. de Souza and William B. Gomes proposes an investigation about the reflexive process of conscience, treated in international scientific literature as the study of the self; 2.c) Édouard Claparède (1873-1940): interest, affectivity and intelligence in the conception of Functional Psychology by Lílian Erichsen Nassif and Regina Helena de Freitas Campos relates an investigation about the concepts of interest, affectivity and intelligence in a set of texts of that author; 2.d) The Sacri Monti and the religous and artistic culture of Counter-Reformation by Danilo Zardin studies the importance of the “Sacri Monti” (Sacred Mounts) in the ambit of religious and artistic culture of Counter-Reformation, underscoring the resource of affective dramatization as being able of connecting theoretical and doctrinal contents to modalities that are subjectively and concretely experienceable, such as visibility; 2.e) Dissimulation as a virtue among the counter reformation Jesuits by Edmir Míssio brings forth three significant jesuitical elaborations of the end of 16th century and first half of 17th century that deal with philosophical subjects of the relationship between being and similitude; 2.f) The Ignace Meyerson’s bibliography by Maria Fernanda Costa Waeny, through a study of the bilbliography of Ignace Meyerson, provides a general view regarding the thematic diversity of psychology proposed by the author; 2.g) Edith Stein and Nazism by Michele D´Ambra discusses the polemic relationship of the Jewish-Christian phenomenologist with Nazism based on a letter sent to Pope Pius XII.

In this block, we have some themes and questions that are near to each other, although this occurs in temporal and methodological contributions that are very distinct: the concepts of subjectivity (in Thomas Aquinas as well as in the modern theories of self); the relationships between affective dynamism and cognitive processes (in Claparède as well as in Baroque tradition); the subject of relationships between being and similitude. These convergences point to one of the most interesting characteristics of historical knowledge: a possibility of contextualizing historically the positionings and, the same time, allows for dialogue among them. This does not configure relativism, but the recognition that similar problems had, in time, diverse possibilities of formulation, approach and solution, occorring in contexts and domains that are sometimes extremely diverse. In fact, as F. Dosse (2004) affirms, “history is the previleged place where the gaze turnss disquiet” (p. 212) because the historian, while proceeding in his march towards comprehension of the other, knows that his enigma will never be totally resolved. 
 
3) Closing Memorandum 9 there is a set of reviews of recent books in the area of phenomenological studies and the history of their protagonists: 3.a) a review of the book by A. Ales Bello Phenomenology and Human Sciences: psychology, history and religion – written by Creusa Capalbo; 3.b) a review of Edith Stein and Nazism (organized by Ales Bello and Chenaux) written by Patrizia Manganaro and the review of The experience of truth in word written by Miguel Mahfoud.

Miguel Mahfoud
Marina Massimi
Editors
October of 2005.

Reference

Dosse, F. (2004) História e ciências sociais. (F. Abreu, Trad.). Bauru: Edusc. (Original published in 2004).