Jednostki pamięci kulturowej : próba kulturoznawczej redefinicji i interpretacji hipotezy memetycznej

Abstract

From the perspective of Cultural Studies, the concept of meme proposed by Richard Dawkins and defined as a unit of cultural transfer, which equates imitation, is imprecise and inadequate considering our contemporary knowledge of culture, cultural transfer and cultural memory. The reinterpretation of the definition of meme presented in the article aims to specify it for the benefit of the theory of culture. Analyzing the anthropological concepts of cultural transfer in reference to Jan Assmann’s theory of memory, the author distinguishes several types of memes: a meme understood as the smallest unit of cultural information which undergoes rewriting in the deep structures of the cultural systems (cultural codes); a meme as a fragment of communicative memory, a unit of multiplying types of communicative behaviour (also in the media); and finally, a meme as a material junction of the cultural memory of things.