Paris during the German Occupation and its Places of [Non-]Memory

Catalog description

This Penn Global seminar will aim to understand the dark historical period of WWII France through the study of the visible and invisible traces left on French memory and the Parisian landscape. The class will start by studying the conventional history of Vichy France, then turn to the writers who testified of that time, some as victims, others as witnesses or coming from the post-memory generation. Each of them has, in his or her own way, tried to find the words to fill the places of non-memory. The course will be open to French speakers and non-French speakers alike and will feature two recitation sections: one in French and one in translation. The travel component will feature visits to key sites of the German occupation and trace the lives of the key Parisian residents whose first-person accounts make up the bulk of the course readings.