Syllabus
Instructor: Pavel Barša
* National Memories of the Holocaust
In the aftermath of World War II, the destruction of European Jews was not perceived as something exceptional in relation to other Nazi atrocities. Neither the event itself, nor its victims were given a special status vis-?-vis other events and victims of the war. Rather, the suffering of Jewish civilians was superseded by an apotheosis of heroism of antifascist fighters. This situation radically changed in the last quarter of the 20th century, when the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis became an emblematic event that symbolized not only Nazism or WWII, but the radical evil itself. As the genocide of the Jews began to be called "the Holocaust", it gained a pre-eminence not only in the discourses of the nationalities that were part of it (as victims, perpetrators or bystanders) but also in those of other groups and societies of the western world. Was it due to a "return of the repressed" that, according to Freud, characterizes a traumatic experience, or, rather, to conscious efforts of various groups to appropriate the memory of the Nazi genocide for their own purposes? This and related questions will be asked with regard to the specific national contexts of Israel, Germany, Poland, France and the USA.
* Summer Term
* Day: Wednesday
* Time: 17.30-19.00
Place: Room 326 (Palachovo náměstí 1)
Course Requirements
* Oral presentation
* Participation (including position papers for each class)
* In-class essay
* Week One
Bartov, Omer: Intellectuals on Auschwitz. Memory, History, and Truth, Murder in Our Midst: The Holocaust, Industrial Killing, and Representation, Oxford University press, 1996, pp. 115-136; Friedländer, Saul: History, Memory, and the Historian: Facing the Shoah, in: Roth, Michael S. and Salas, Charles G. (eds.): Disturbing Remains: Memory, History, and Crisis in the Twentieth Century, pp. 271-282.
* Week Two
Segev, Tom: The Seventh Million. The Israelis and the Holocaust, New York, Hill and Wang, 1993, (selection).
* Week Three
Zertal, Idith: Israel's Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood, Cambridge University Press, 2005 (selection).
* Week Four
Cole, Time: Yad Vashem, in: Selling the Holocaust. From Auschwitz to Schindler. How History is Bought, Packaged, and Sold, Routledge, London, (selection).
* Week Five
Giesen, Bernard: The Trauma of Perpetrators: The Holocaust as the Traumatic Reference of German National Identity, in: Alexander, Jeffrey C. et al. (eds.): Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity, University of California Press, 2004, pp. 112-154.
* Week Six
Pearce, Caroline: Contemporary Germany and the Nazi Legacy. Remembrance, Politics and the Dialectic of Normality, Palgrave, London, 2008, pp. 44-53, 80-118.
* Week Seven
Steinlauf, Michael C.: Bondage to the Dead. Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust, Syracuse University Press, 1997, pp. 43-61.
* Week Eight
Steinlauf, Michael C.: Bondage to the Dead. Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust, Syracuse University Press, 1997, pp. 62-88.
Week Nine
Steinlauf, Michael C.: Bondage to the Dead. Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust, Syracuse University Press, 1997, pp. 89-121.
* Week Ten
Wolf, Joan B.: Harnessing the Holocaust. The Politics of Memory in France, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California 2004, pp. 1-24.
* Week Eleven
Wolf, Joan B.: Harnessing the Holocaust. The Politics of Memory in France, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California 2004, pp. 79-80, pp. 92-127, pp. 189-198.
* Week Twelve
Novick, Peter: The Holocaust in American Life, New York, Houghton Mifflin, 1999, (selections).
* Week Thirteen
Novick, Peter: The Holocaust in American Life, New York, Houghton Mifflin, 1999, (selections).
Annotation
Instructor: Pavel Barša
National Memories of the Holocaust
In the aftermath of World War II, the destruction of European Jews was not perceived as something exceptional in relation to other Nazi atrocities. Neither the event itself, nor its victims were given a special status vis-a-vis other events and victims of the war. Rather, the suffering of Jewish civilians was superseded by an apotheosis of heroism of antifascist fighters. This situation radically changed in the last quarter of the 20th century, when the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis became an emblematic event that symbolized not only Nazism or WWII, but the radical evil itself. As the genocide of the Jews began to be called "the Holocaust", it gained a pre-eminence not only in the discourses of the nationalities that were part of it (as victims, perpetrators or bystanders) but also in those of other groups and societies of the western world. Was it due to a
"return of the repressed" that, according to Freud, characterizes a traumatic experience, or, rather, to conscious efforts of various groups to appropriate the memory of the Nazi genocide for their own purposes? This and related questions will be asked with regard to the specific national contexts of Israel, Germany, Poland, France and the USA.
Summer Term
Day: Wednesday
Time: 17.30-19.00
Place: Room 326 (Palachovo náměstí 1)
Course Requirements
Oral presentation
Participation (including position papers for each class)
In-class essay
Week One
Bartov, Omer: Intellectuals on Auschwitz. Memory, History, and Truth, Murder in Our Midst: The Holocaust, Industrial Killing, and Representation, Oxford University press, 1996, pp. 115-136; Friedländer, Saul: History, Memory, and the Historian:
Facing the Shoah, in: Roth, Michael S. and Salas, Charles G. (eds.): Disturbing Remains: Memory, History, and Crisis in the
Twentieth Century, pp. 271-282.
Week Two
Segev, Tom: The Seventh Million. The Israelis and the Holocaust, New York, Hill and Wang, 1993, (selection).
Week Three
Zertal, Idith: Israel's Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood, Cambridge University Press, 2005 (selection).
Week Four
Cole, Time: Yad Vashem, in: Selling the Holocaust. From Auschwitz to Schindler. How History is Bought, Packaged, and
Sold, Routledge, London, (selection).
Week Five
Giesen, Bernard: The Trauma of Perpetrators: The Holocaust as the Traumatic Reference of German National Identity, in:
Alexander, Jeffrey C. et al. (eds.): Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity, University of California Press, 2004, pp. 112-154.
Week Six
Pearce, Caroline: Contemporary Germany and the Nazi Legacy. Remembrance, Politics and the Dialectic of Normality,
Palgrave, London, 2008, pp. 44-53, 80-118.
Week Seven
Steinlauf, Michael C.: Bondage to the Dead. Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust, Syracuse University Press, 1997, pp. 43-61.
Week Eight
Steinlauf, Michael C.: Bondage to the Dead. Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust, Syracuse University Press, 1997, pp. 62-88.
Week Nine
Steinlauf, Michael C.: Bondage to the Dead. Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust, Syracuse University Press, 1997, pp. 89-121.
Week Ten
Wolf, Joan B.: Harnessing the Holocaust. The Politics of Memory in France, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California 2004, pp. 1-24.
Week Eleven
Wolf, Joan B.: Harnessing the Holocaust. The Politics of Memory in France, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California 2004, pp. 79-80, pp. 92-127, pp. 189-198.
Week Twelve
Novick, Peter: The Holocaust in American Life, New York, Houghton Mifflin, 1999, (selections).
Week Thirteen
Novick, Peter: The Holocaust in American Life, New York, Houghton Mifflin, 1999, (selections).