Qi Wang, professor of human development in the College of Human Ecology, discussed her new book, "The Autobiographical Self in Time and Culture" (Oxford University Press) Sept. 17, 2013 as part of the library's Chats in the Stacks series.
By analyzing everyday family storytelling, autobiographical writings in Western and Chinese literature, memory data from controlled experiments in the laboratory, and personal narratives on blogs and Facebook, Wang illustrates that our memories and sense of ourselves are conditioned by time and culture. She examines some of the most controversial issues in current psychological research of memory and analyzes the influences of the larger social, political, and economic forces on the autobiographical self.