Collective Memory and Its Research - YMH522

• Title: Collective Memory and Its Research
• Guaranteed by: Programme Historical Sociology (24-HS)
• Faculty: Faculty of Humanities
• Actual: from 2023
• Semester: summer
• E-Credits: 4
• Examination process: summer s.:
• Hours per week, examination: summer s.:2/0, C [HT]
• Extent per academic year: 26 [hours]
• Capacity: 20 / unknown (30)
• Min. number of students: unlimited
• 4EU+: no
• Virtual mobility / capacity: no
• State of the course: taught
• Language: English
• Teaching methods: full-time
• Teaching methods: full-time
• Level: basic
• Note: course can be enrolled in outside the study plan; enabled for web enrollment; priority enrollment if the course is part of the study plan; can be fulfilled in the future
• Guarantor: doc. PhDr. Jiří Šubrt, CSc.; Adam Coman, Ph.D.
• Teacher(s): Adam Coman, Ph.D.
• Class: Courses available to incoming students
• Incompatibility : YMH0222, YMH1222
• Is incompatible with: YMH0222, YMH1222

Annotation

Last update: Adam Coman, Ph.D. (22.03.2022)

The course presents the essential paradigms of collective memory research. Besides French and German authors that extensively influenced the discourse of collective memory, such as Maurice Halbwachs, Pierre Nora, Jan Assmann and others, the representatives of more Euro-Atlantic school of thinking are also presented (e. g. Jeffrey C. Alexander). The seminar further presents these concepts in particular instances and exposes various research agendas of collective memory studies. The main purpose of the seminar is to familiarize students with various possible approaches to collective memory and through concrete examples highlight the topical relevance of collective memory research in today’s social sciences. Students finish the course by writing a paper on the field of collective memory, employing, as much as possible, data and sources from their MA thesis research, i.e. analyzing them specifically through the approaches to collective memory presented throughout the course.

Syllabus

Last update: Adam Coman, Ph.D. (22.03.2022)

Lessons:

1.     Introduction

2.     Halbwachs, the collective memory

3.     Pierre Nora - Between memory and history

4.     Jeffery C. Alexander: "On the social construction of moral universals", pp. 196-221, in: Cultural Trauma and collective identity

5.     Collective memory and nationalism: Hobasbawm – "Inventing traditions", in: the invention of tradition 

6.     Politics of memory: Bernhard, M. and Kubik J. “The Politics and Culture of Memory Regimes”, in: Twenty Years after Communism

7.     Ostalgie: Berdahl - Ostalgie

8.     Assmann - Collective memory and cultural identity

9.     Zerubavel – time maps, introduction

10.  Technology and memory: Hutton, Cultural Memory: From the Threshold of Literacy to the Digital Age

11.  Media and memory

12. Conclusion

* Required Reading:
- OLICK, J. K. - VINITZKY-SEROUSSI, V. - DANIEL LEVY, D. (eds.). The Collective Memory Reader. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. ISBN 978-0-19-533741-9.

* Recommended reading:
- ALEXANDER, J. C., EYERMAN, R., GIESEN, B., SMELSER, J. N., SZTOMPKA, P. Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity. University of California Press: Berkeley. 2004. ISBN 0-520-23595-9.
- ASSMANN, J. Das kulturelle Gedächtnis : Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen . München: C.H. Beck. 1997. ISBN 9783406568442.
- CONNERTON, P. How Modernity Forgets. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2000. ISBN 9780521745802.
- HALBWACHS, M. On Collective Memory. Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press. 1992. ISBN 9780226115962.
- KOPEČEK, L (ed.) Past in the Making: Historical revisionism in Central Europe after 1989. Budapešť: Central European University Press. 2008. ISBN 978-963-9776-04-3.
- RICOEUR, P. Time and Narrative. Vol. 1 . Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1984. ISBN 978-0226713328.
- WELZER, H. 2005. “Grandapa Wasn’t a Nazi: The Holocaust in German Family Remembrance” In International Perspectives 54. American Jewish Committee: New York, pp 1-30
- ZERUBAVEL, E. Time Maps: Collective Memory and the Social Shape of the Past. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2003. ISBN 9780226981529.

Attendance and participation obligatory.

If you cannot participate in person, write email for Zoom arrangement.