Borns Jewish Studies Program

Holocaust memory has undergone significant changes in German culture over the past seven decades, as evident in literary and artistic works, theatrical performances and cinematic productions, as well as in memorial sites, museums and public debates. In this course, we study different media and the kinds of agents through which Holocaust memory takes place, focusing on memorial projects and debates of the past  20 years. We begin with a theoretical introduction to how the Holocaust is examined through the lens of collective memory studies. We will discuss the dynamic relations between Holocaust historiography, wider cultural shifts, and the changing landscape of Holocaust memory in Germany. We will inquire how the prominence of the Holocaust as a unique historical event informed debates about antisemitism, colonialism, genocide and trauma, in ways that can be traced through new memorial sites, national and local ceremonies, educational programs, poetry and prose, art and historical exhibitions. In our consideration of these projects, their theoretical analyses and in reading literary works by Paul Celan, Ingeborg Bachmann, May Ayim, Esther Dischereit, Jenny Erpenbeck, and Karl Jaspers, we will ask how Holocaust memory is one prism through which to understand cultural and political changes.  We will further ask how memory activism and public debates may contribute to modes of articulating historical and present injustices.

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