13176a

SoSe 19: War Stories. Myth, Memory and Trauma in the Twentieth Century.

Franziska Exeler

Comments

This course examines the aftermath of war. It discusses how extreme violence transforms states and societies, analyzes the ways in which individuals and social communities try to rebuild their lives again after tremendous death and destruction, and traces the different narratives that state and non-state actors create in their efforts to assign political or personal meaning to the war’s events. Our discussions will cover the aftermaths of twentieth-century wars that were fought by liberal states, totalitarian dictatorships and colonial empires alike in Europe, Asia and Africa. The focus of the seminar is thematic and includes topics such as the possibilities (or impossibilities) of social reconciliation, the complex interplay between official and private memories, and the search for truth and justice in the wake of war. Although historical in nature, the seminar also engages with research advanced by anthropologists, political scientists, psychologists and lawyers. As part of the course, students will visit one of the two following documentations centers in Berlin, which are important historical sites relating to the Second World War: the Topography of Terror (where the Secret State Police, the SS and the Reich Security Main Office were located) and the last well-preserved former Nazi forced labor camp in Schöneweide. The purpose of these visits is to explore the connection between public history and academic discussions, and to analyze the present-day representation of the historical sites. Alternatively, students are invited to undertake their own field research by uncovering (with the help of photography) the visual traces that the Second World War has left in the urban landscape of Berlin. close