The Work of Forgetting

Abstract Chapter 5, on the work of forgetting, explores how memory has a certain need for forgetting. Especially cognizant of forgetfulness of self, the chapter engages forgetting forward (extension) and backward (distention) through images of Paul the runner, Lot’s wife, and the eagle of forgetting. As in chapter 4 on the work of remembering, the “self” reemerges as constituted in the whole, uncovering its Christological identity in the practice of forgetting together. Forgetting complements remembering at the heart of the work of memory, or participation in the life of Christ through the pushes and pulls of distended temporal life. Chapter 5 is the second of a two-chapter binary: the work of remembering (chapter 4) and the work of forgetting.