MEMORY OF WORLD WAR II

Catalog description

This course aims at exploring the European memory of World War II and will also attempt to draw some comparison with American memory of WWII. World War II has played a salient role in shaping postwar European national identities and had crucial consequences for people living in postwar cultures. Central themes that will be discussed are the issues of amnesia and repression of the dark aspects of the past; coming to terms with the dark past manifested in debates and in commemorative practices; the European representations of the resistance to the Nazis; and the memory of communism in East Central and Eastern Europe. The memory of WWII will be examined in many of its frames such as history writings, films, novels and museums.