Admission requirements
Propedeuse Humanities
Description
Collective memory of the Shoah is produced by testimonies such as Anne Frank’s diary, by documentaries such as Lanzmanns Shoah, by works of literature, by mainstream movies such as Schindler’s List, or in artworks, musea and rituals performed at memorial sites. In the dual context of both memory studies and representation analysis we will look at the different functions and effects that such works had over time in the construction of cultural memory.
In this interactive class, the central topics of Shoah-memory will be discussed: memory and oblivion, truth and narrative, documentation, the archive, sacralisation, irony, autobiography, Shoah-idols, aura and authenticity, and the function of mass-media. Among the cases discussed will be sites like ‘De Hollandsche Schouwburg’ and the Anne Frank House, digital memorials such as the online Jewish monument, work by Abel Herzberg, Carl Friedman, Primo Levi, Georges Perec, Steven Reich, Yael Bartana and Arnon Grunberg.
Representation analysis will demonstrate in which ways the Shoah is represented, and we will study the different ways in which trauma manifests itself and how collective memory is constructed by the different representations. Theoretical texts by Saul Friedländer, Oren Baruch Stier, Hillary Chute, Andreas Huyssen, Ernst van Alphen and Aleida Assmann will be used in our analyses.
Course objectives
Students
will acquire knowledge of the different ways in which memory may be produced in art, film and literature,
will become aware of cultural and politcal dynamics in the representation and remembrance of historical events. In this course,
will also learn to write and present well argumented and theoretically strong analyses and interpretations of such works
will be able to recognize and evaluate the icons, idols and clichés of Shoah representation.
Timetable
Mode of instruction
Weekly Seminar
Excursion to the Hollandse Schouwburg and the Anne Frankhouse in Amsterdam.
Course Load
140 hours:
Seminars: 42 hours
Time for studying the compulsory literature and preparing the assignments: 42 hours
Time for reading the primary literature: 30
Time to write a paper (including reading / research): 26 hours
Assessment method
Assessment and grading method (in percentages):.
Essay (60%)
Weekly assignments (20%)
Presentation and research plan (20%)
For each part of the assessment at least a 5.5 should be obtained. The final grade is the weighted average of all grades.
Resit
Only the paper has a resit possibility
Exam review
How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.
Blackboard
Blackboard will be used for:
communication and to pass on announcements
information about the content of the course
Reading list
Primo Levi, If this is a man. Translation Stuart Woolf.
Tadeusz Borowski, This way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen.
Art Spiegelman, Maus, 2 parts.
Anne Frank, The Diary of Anne Frank.
Alphen, E. van. (1997) Caught by history. Holocaust effects in Contemporary Art, Literature and Theory. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Friedländer, S. (ed.). Probing the limits of representation. Nazism and ‘the final solution’. Cambridge, Ma, Harvard University Press. Introduction.
Stier, O.B. (2003) Committed to memory. Cultural Mediations of the Holocaust. Amherst and Boston, University of Massachusetts Press.
Further reading will be announced in class.
Registration
Enrolment through uSis is mandatory.
General information about uSis is available in English and Dutch
Registration Contractonderwijs
Registration Studeren à la carte
Contact
For questions about the content of this course: Prof. dr. Y. van Dijk
For practical matters you may contact the secretarial office of the Opleiding Nederlandse Taal en Cultuur/Neerlandistiek. It is the Onderwijsadministratie P.N. van Eyckhof 4, room 101A. Tel. 071 5272 2144. E-mail.
Remarks
Students with doubts about the level of their English should consider taking an autumn course here. If that is not possible, please contact Yra van Dijk.