13108

SoSe 21: Borders. Concepts, Perceptions and Experiences in Modern History

Franziska Exeler

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This seminar investigates the conceptions, perceptions and experiences of borders. It interrogates historically different meanings of borders and their shifting functions, it examines the main historiographical debates about “frontiers” and “borderlands,” and it assesses the impact that shifting border regimes have had on the lives of people. Chronologically, the focus is on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, thereby tracing the global development toward territorial state formation. Geographically, the seminar draws from different examples around the globe, empires and nation-states alike, while analytically, equal attention will be paid to the macro and micro levels, from the level of state down to communities and individuals on whom border regimes made themselves felt – and who, in turn, contested, supported or undermined them. Themes to explore include: Migration, mobility and (non)permeability of borders; power, cartography and the political imaginary; the invention of passports, international law and the problem of statelessness; and the relationship between center, periphery and borderlands. As part of the course (if possible), students will visit one of the two following museums or memorials in Berlin that are important historical sites relating to the history of the border between East and West Germany: the Berlin Wall Memorial at Bernauer Strasse and the Marienfelde Refugee Center Museum that is dedicated to the history of inner-German flight and emigration in divided Germany. The purpose of these visits is to explore the connection between public history and academic discussions, to examine how the history of the German-German border and the movement of people are represented at these sites, and to analyze how the historical sites are incorporated into the exhibitions. Alternatively, students are invited to undertake their own field research by uncovering (with the help of photography) the visual traces that the Wall has left in the urban landscape of Berlin. close