Certificate in Jewish Studies - History and Memory in Modern Russia and the West HIST 5088   History and Memory in Modern Russia and the West
CREDIT HOURS: 3
What can we learn from the memory of modern history – particularly that of the twentieth century? How did people remember, forget, imagine, and explain the upheavals of the past in Russia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Poland, or the United States? How do memories of revolutions and wars, nation building and national collapses, construction and destruction of monuments, political violence, denials of and nostalgias about the past compare in these countries? Those are the central questions this course considers. Rather than viewing Russian historical memory as a unique phenomenon, the course focuses on parallels and dialogues between memories in several countries, Russia included, viewing them as constitutive parts of the modern experience. The course begins with a discussion of such fundamental conceptual paradigms as memory, history, experience, identity, heritage, and commemoration. Subsequently, adopting a comparative approach, we examine several major problems of memory in modern societies, Russia among them. The principal emphasis is on the twentieth century. The course is based on advanced historical scholarship as well as on primary sources: memoirs, oral history, literary, artistic, and cinematic representations of the past.
FORMAT: Seminar
EXCLUSIONS: HIST 3088