The seminar will explore the field of historical memory studies. It is designed as transnational and comparativist. It will critically examine both the dominant and subversive versions of national histories in Central and Eastern Europe. The aim is to expose and analyse these clashing and competing national master narratives and to make students aware that they tended to exclude the people on broad social margins and their understanding of history. We will therefore ask who might have been relegated from the official memory. The seminar will stregthen students’ competences in working with analytical categories of difference (such as gender, class, religion, ethnicity, and generation) in order to foster their ability to think beyond national frames and to critically analyse Central and Eastern European societies and cultures, their past, present and historical memories. While the first part of the course will introduce historical memory and its national frames as discussed in current historiography, the second part will analyse selected narratives of early modern Central Europe employing various categories of difference. Course Overview: 1) Introduction 2) Key Concepts and Approaches in Memory Studies 3) Historical Memory and Historical Amnesia 4) National Frames of History 5) Historians and “National Interests” 6) Challenging traditional national historiographies I 7) Challenging traditional national historiographies II 8) Challenging traditional national historiographies II 9) Conflicting Historical Narratives of Early Modern Period I 10) Conflicting Historical Narratives of Early Modern Period II 11) Conflicting Historical Narratives of Early Modern Period III 12) Visualising Historical Master Narratives 13) Final Discussion - Conclusion The link to the quizz (October 13): https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=2naS4DT5hkC_CIgWogQUog985tDFY61DnSRaeqlg43ZUNU5TWjlJMUxXREw3SEFGQk1HU0NKVkxPTS4u

The seminar will explore the field of historical memory studies. It is designed as transnational and comparativist. It will critically examine both the dominant and subversive versions of national histories in Central and Eastern Europe. The aim is to expose and analyse these clashing and competing national master narratives and to make students aware that they tended to exclude the people on broad social margins and their understanding of history. We will therefore ask who might have been relegated from the official memory. The seminar will stregthen students’ competences in working with analytical categories of difference (such as gender, class, religion, ethnicity, and generation) in order to foster their ability to think beyond national frames and to critically analyse Central and Eastern European societies and cultures, their past, present and historical memories. While the first part of the course will introduce historical memory and its national frames as discussed in current historiography, the second part will analyse selected narratives of early modern Central Europe employing various categories of difference. Course Overview: 1) Introduction 2) Key Concepts and Approaches in Memory Studies 3) Historical Memory and Historical Amnesia 4) National Frames of History 5) Historians and “National Interests” 6) Challenging traditional national historiographies I 7) Challenging traditional national historiographies II 8) Challenging traditional national historiographies II 9) Conflicting Historical Narratives of Early Modern Period I 10) Conflicting Historical Narratives of Early Modern Period II 11) Conflicting Historical Narratives of Early Modern Period III 12) Visualising Historical Master Narratives 13) Final Discussion - Conclusion The link to the quizz (October 13): https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=2naS4DT5hkC_CIgWogQUog985tDFY61DnSRaeqlg43ZUNU5TWjlJMUxXREw3SEFGQk1HU0NKVkxPTS4u

Course Schedule and Readings:

 

Session 1. October 10 Introduction

 

Session 2. October 17 Historical Memory and Historical Amnesia

Short assigned reading: Gwendolyn W. Saul – Diana E. Marsh, In Whose Honor? On Monuments, Public Spaces, Historical Narratives, and Memory, Museum Anthropology 41, 2018, 2, s. 117−120.

 

Read the assigned text and answer the following questions:

1) What characteristics of monuments by Benedict Anderson are presented in the text?

2) How are museums characterized in the text from the perspective of museum anthropology?

3) What does the term "Jim Crow" mean? Find out.

 

Session 3: October 24 reading week (Vice-Deans' meeting at the Rector's office)

 

Session 4: October 31 Communicative, Cultural Memory and Transcultural Memory

Reading Assignment: Jan Assmann, Communicative and Cultural Memory, in: Astrid Erll – Ansgar Nünning (edd.), A Companion to Cultural Memory Studies, Berlin-New York 2010, pp. 109–118.

 Georgia Nickerson, Tomáš Čorej

Read the assigned text and answer the following question:

What are the examples of the so-called cultural memory specialists according to Jan Assmann?

 

Session 5: November 7           reading week (round table in internationalization)

 

Session 6: November 14         Between Memory and History

Reading Assignment: Alon Confino, Collective Memory and Cultural History: Problems of Method, The American Historical Review 102, 1997, 5, pp. 1386−1403. (accessible in SIS and also via JSTOR)

Mailys Aupicq, Olivia Hiskett

Read the assigned text and answer the following questions:

Who coined the term “vehicles of memory”?

And what is meant by the vehicles of memory?

 

Session 7: November 21         Conflicting Historical Narratives of Early Modern Period I

Reading Assignment: Mark von Hagen, Revisiting the Histories of Ukraine, in: Georgiy Kasianov−Philipp Ther (eds.), A Laboratory of Transnational History. Ukraine and Recent Ukrainian Historiography, Budapest−New York 2009, pp. 25−50.

 Kateryna Murat, Nikola Meierová...

Read the assigned text and answer the following questions:

Why has Ukraine been often conceived of as a “borderland”?

How do “borders” and “borderland regions” fit in with the national histories?

 

Session 8: November 28         National Historical Narratives and Their Others

Reading Assignment: Stefan Berger−Chris Lorenz, "National Narratives and Their 'Others': Ethnicity, Class, Religion and the Gendering of National Narratives", in: Storia della Storiografia, no. 50 (2006), pp. 59−98.

Julia Bahadrian, Sophie Dell, Annaelle Kolz 

Read the assigned text and answer the following questions:

What “regimes of historicity” do the authors discern and who do they draw on in doing so?

What specific examples of the role of religion in various Central European master narratives are cited?

 

Session 9: December 5             reading week

 

Session 10: December 12       Conflicting Historical Narratives of Early Modern Period III

Reading Assignment: Martin Votruba, Hang Him High: The Elevation of Jánošík to an Ethnic Icon, Slavic Review 65, 2006, 1, pp. 24−44 (accessible on JSTOR).

Krzysztof Michalski, Brighton Hugg, Anna Cherniak

Read the assigned article and answer the following questions:

How was Jánošíkʼs myth interconnected with the Tatras and how do the Tatras function in Slovak mythology?

What was the role of Slovak Lutherans who studied with Friedrich Schiller in Jena in shaping the Jánošík myth?

 

Session 11: December 19       Challenging traditional national historiographies

Reading Assignment: Emilia Kłoda - Adam Szeląg, ‘Ribald man with a cranky look’. The Sarmatian portrait as the pop-cultural symbol of Baroque art in Poland, Journal of Art Historiography 15, 2016

Obada Shweiki, Márton Soti

Read the assigned article and answer the following question:

What is the myth of Sarmatia?

 

Round-class discussion on the sites of memory, personalities and plots connected with the national historical master narratives (Every student will contribute with an example of their choice).

 

Session 12: January 2  Conclusion