996011 Workshop on Memory Studies (WS) (SoSe 2011)

Course Description and Objectives:
The field of Memory Studies has grown significantly over the past five decades, and continues to grow, spanning disciplines – from Architecture to Women’s and Gender Studies. The aim of this course is not to cover “everything” there is to know about this burgeoning field of study. Rather, we will aim for depth of knowledge and a common language on the debates, theories, and methods of the study of history and memory through the assigned readings, discussions, and written analysis. In addition, for breath and individual development of knowledge on the subject matter, each course participant will team up with others of similar interest(s) to present an analysis of a particular week’s readings as it pertains to either research in progress or ideas on the subject matter that will blossom during the seminar. The instructor envisages that students will utilize the seminar as a space to develop their own original research work, with potential for publication in scholarly journals, OR into a solid chapter for a thesis.

Readings shall include (mostly) parts of or all of the following Texts (students are encouraged to use the reading list to further develop their own bibliographies for their projects):
Paul Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting
Jan Vansina, Oral Tradition as History
Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember
Maurice Halbwachs, (trans., ed., Lewis Coser), On Collective Memory
Paula Hamilton and Linda Shopes, eds., Oral History and Public Memories
David Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory
Carolyn Hamilton, Terrific Majesty: The Power of Shaka Zulu and the Limits of Historical Invention
Representations, Special Issue: Memory and Counter-Memory 26 (Spring, 1989); The American Historical Review, 102, 5 (Dec., 1997); The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 33, 3 (2000)

Bibliography

Week 1 – Definitions, Debates, Methods: Part I (all available online via Univ. Databases)
- http://www.jstor.org/stable/i347292 Representations, Special Issue: Memory and Counter-Memory 26 (Spring 1989) – focus on Europe – Read the “Introduction,” and articles by Nora, Rosaldo, and Knapp (you are welcome to read the rest).
- http://www.jstor.org/stable/i337867 AHR Forum, The American Historical Review, 102, 5 (Dec., 1997) – Read the “Introduction,” and articles by Crane and Confino (you are welcome to read the rest).
- http://www.jstor.org/stable/i355790 The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 33, 3 (2000) – focus on Africa – Read articles by Roberts, Gengenbach, and Pohlandt-McCormick (you are welcome to read the rest).

Week 2 – Definitions, Debates, Methods: Part II
- Anna Green, “Individual Remembering and „Collective Memory‟: Theoretical Presuppositions and Contemporary Debates” Oral History, 32, 2 (Autumn 2004), 35-44.
- Jan Vansina, Oral Tradition as History
- Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember
- Maurice Halbwachs, (trans., ed., Lewis Coser), On Collective Memory

Week 3 – Case Study Analysis
- (Multi-disciplinary) Paula Hamilton and Linda Shopes, eds., Oral History and Public Memories
- (Historian) David Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory
- (Anthropologist) Carolyn Hamilton, Terrific Majesty: The Power of Shaka Zulu and the Limits of Historical Invention

Week 4 – Research Proposal Discussions
Individual Presentation and Class Discussions.