WiSe 21/22: PS-Introduction to Cultural Studies: Protest and Memory: Constructing Counter Memory in Northern Ireland
Kübra Özermis
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From 1968 – 1998 Northern Ireland was shaken by a conflict between Irish Catholics who were adamant to restore civil rights for their community, Protestant Unionist who defended the status-quo and the British army who initially should have ensured peace between the two communities but became quickly involved in the conflict. Despite the end of the armed conflict through the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, Northern Ireland remains a deeply divided society. Although the common terms describing the conflict parties as “Protestants” and “Catholics” imply fundamentally religious disparities at play, the division between the two communities is much more complicated and is based on different collective identities and memories.
In this seminar, students will gain an overview on how collective identity and memory are situated within the context of the Northern Irish conflict and its aftermath. As the conflict ignited when Northern Ireland was a predominantly Unionist state that discriminated against its Irish Catholic population it will be of interest to examine how the protests against the Northern Irish and British governments were informed by counter hegemonic collective memories of the Irish Catholic population. Many of the protests that took place during the escalation of violence were linked to and inspired by the memory and tradition of anticolonial resistance in Ireland. During and after the conflict the shift in the political dynamics towards a more inclusive political landscape also influenced the commemorative cultures in Northern Ireland. The legacy of the Northern Irish conflict, particularly the commemoration of episodes of violence and its victims, still plays a major role for each community and their respective identity constructions. Students will critically engage with concepts of cultural memory and identity in order to form an understanding of how the conflict was shaped by memory, identity and trauma. For a better understanding of how these concepts impact Northern Irish society we will be looking at various forms of cultural representation, such as literature, street art and commemoration culture and their inclusion in protest cultures.
The reader for this seminar will be provided on Blackboard. You will receive the password for the Blackboard course in the first session.
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Regular appointments