passage, written by Anne Brewster, is taken from a longer collaboration
about memory (Brewster & Smith 2002). Here the author intercuts a nine-
teenth century text from Thoreau, which celebrates male achievement; a
text about hysteria and recovered memory syndrome by Marita Sturken;
and a text from Gertrude Stein. These are all from strikingly different
sources (two are literary but are from contrasting periods and perspec-
tives, while one is non-literary):
Example 4.2:Textual intercutting
Stein, Sturken and Thoreau: A collage
hysterics suffer mainly from reminiscences. naturally I would then
begin again. he is blessed over all mortals who loses no moment of
the passing life in remembering the past. I did not begin again I just
began. the object has not perhaps actually died, but has been lost as
an object of love. then I said to myself this time it will be different
and I began. above all we cannot afford not to live in the present. in
the case of women’s recovered memories, the question of belief is
crucially tied to the history of disbelief. then I said to myself this time
it will be different and I began. he is blessed over all mortals. the
victor can afford to forget. and after that what changes what changes
after that. can we have a theory of experience that allows for the
suggestibility of memory, but which does not label women as
hysterics? there was an inevitable beginning of beginning. preserving
the love or idealization of the object. I went on and on to almost a
thousand pages of it. naturally one does not know how it happened
until it is well over beginning. this trackless initial forgetting.From ‘ProseThetic Memories’ (Brewster & Smith 2002, p. 204)This piece shows how collage can rub different discourses together, that is,
alternative modes of speaking and writing, sometimes on the same theme
or themes. Different discourses convey divergent ideologies, and collages
often pit these contrasting perspectives against each other, creating
productive tensions. Collage can, therefore, create an interface between
conflicting political views, texts from different periods, different aspects of
a particular topic, and the personal and the political. In this passage the
more technical/theoretical psychoanalytic language of ‘the object has not
perhaps actually died, but has been lost as an object of love’ or ‘can we have
a theory of experience that allows for the suggestibility of memory, but
which does not label women as hysterics?’ is from Sturken. It is juxtaposed
with the poetic repetition of ‘I would then begin again’ and ‘I did not begin
again I just began’ from Stein, and Thoreau’s nineteenth-century and
70 The Writing Experiment