Download seminar in the social construction of memory

SEMINAR IN THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF MEMORY
GSO6011/1925 Spring 2011 Thur. 4-5:50pm Rm.913 (212) 229-5737 X 3133
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Off. Hrs:6 E.16 St.D1015 Tue. 2-5 or by apptmt. [email protected]
Introduction
Remembering and forgetting, usually thought of as individual matters, have
social dimensions. For some sociologists, memory is always a collective
phenomenon. In this course we analyze the theoretical foundations of memory
as a collective process. Through the now classic writings of Halbwachs,
Benjamin, and more recent theorists, we consider how memory is constructed,
its functions for social cohesion, durability, and other dynamics. We analyze
recent writing that treats collective memory as multi-vocal, divisive, and
unpredictable.
Memory is to be distinguished from History. Less concerned with documented
accuracy than are modern historians, sociologists assume that the past is a
construction in which little can be taken for granted. Who are the nation’s
heroes? Which national events are commemorated by monuments, holidays and
ceremonies? How is the past “revised”? Why have a nation’s “growth,
development, advancement” come to be seen as “colonialism, imperialism,
banditry.” Divergences such as these may be found at micro levels as well as
macro.
We trace the elaboration of collective memory by recent analysts, who
foreground different attributes of nation states: homogeneity – heterogeneity,
concord – cleavage; nationalist autarchy – transnational ties. These may
become the (sometimes) conflicting elements that produce the richly symbolic
meanings of the “imagined communities” that become a foundation for identity
formation.
Organization
Combining lectures and class discussion of writings in this field make up the bulk
of the course. Beside the required reading and your own selections from the
recommended readings, as a seminar, your most important work will be to
prepare a study of an aspect of memory of your choosing.
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As soon as possible (no later than the 5 week, Feb. 24), please turn in a
statement, not more than one page long of your research topic. It may be a
case study in historical and national memory dealing with the relatively recent
past or a more narrowly focused topic. Contact me by e-mail for guidance.
Students will present their own research in progress to the class as a whole.
Each student will also act as discussant for another presenter. These
presentations are intended to be “works in progress” and invite comments from
the class.
Course grades are based on participation (attendance, discussion) and the
Seminar Paper. Incompletes are discouraged.
Books are on reserve in Fogelman Library. Some may be bought at Barnes &
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Noble 5 Ave. at 17 St., Amazon, or elsewhere. Articles will be placed on ereserve and/or at a nearby copy shop. The E-reserves password is m5mory
Required Readings
Yifat Gutman, Adam D. Brown, Amy Sodaro, eds.2010. Memory & the Future of
Transnational Politics, Ethics & Society. Palgrave/Macmillan
Daniel Levy & Natan Sznaider. 2010. Human Rights & Memory.Pennsy lvania
State Univ. Press
Maurice Halbwachs. The Collective Memory. McGraw Hill Press (n.b., The book
is out of print, but will be available in photocopy)
Iwona Irwin-Zarecka.1994. Frames of Remembrance.N.J. Transaction Books
John Torpey, ed. Politics & the Past. Rowman & Littlefield
Benedict Anderson. 1991 (or latest edition) Imagined Communities: Reflections
on the Origin & Spread of Nationalism. NY: Verso
Course Outline and Readings
Jan. 27-Feb.3
I.Introduction
A.Theoretical considerations – Please begin reading:
Maurice Halbwachs. The Collective Memory Ch.1
Iwona Irwin-Zarecka. Frames of Remembrance Ch.1. Setting the Analytical
Parameters
Jeffrey Olick and Brenda Coughlin. “The Politics of Regret: Analytical
Frames” in John Torpey. Politics and the Past
Recommended
Maurice Halbwachs. On Collective Memory (trans.L.Coser) – Univ. of Chicago
Press, 1992)
D.L. Schacter. The Seven Sins of Memory (Houghton Mifflin 2001)
D.L. Schacter. Searching for Memory (Basic 1996)
Feb. 10 - 17
B. Memory and/or History?
M. Halbwachs. The Collective Memory Ch. 2 (e-reserve or BB)
I. Irwin-Zarecka. Frames of Remembrance Ch.3 Communities of
Memory
W. Benjamin. “Theses for a Philosophy of History” in Illuminations
Pierre Nora. “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire”
Feb. 24 Research Topic is Due. It will be presented to the class on March 3
C. Time, Space and Memory
M. Halbwachs. The Collective Memory Ch.3 and Ch. 4 (reserve)
Today’s class will be devoted to a book launch:
Excerpts to be announced:
Yifat Gutman, Adam D. Brown, Amy Sodaro, eds.2010. Memory & the Future of
Transnational Politics, Ethics & Society. Palgrave/Macmillan
Daniel Levy & Natan Sznaider. 2010. Human Rights & Memory.Pennsylvania
State Univ. Press
March 3 - 10
D. Durability and Impermanence
A. Huyssen. “Time and Cultural Memory at our Fin de Siècle” in Twilight
Memories
E. Zerubavel. Ch. 6. ”Social Memories” in Social Mindscapes
R. Wagner-Pacifici. “Memories in the Making: The Shape of Things
that Went” in Qualitative Sociology (e-reserves)
Recommended
D.L. Schacter. Searching for Memory
J. Boyarin. Introduction and Ch. 1 in Remapping Memory
E. Zerubavel. Hidden Rhythms: Schedules & Calendars in Social Life
SPRING BREAK – NO MAR. 17 CLASS
March 24-26 Fourth Annual Memory Conference
No regular class meeting on March 24. Students are required to attend at least
one session of the conference, and be prepared to present their reaction to it in
the class of March 31
March 31 - April 7
II. Inventing National Identity and National History
A. The Malleable Past
Eric Hobsbawm & Terence Ranger. The Invention of Tradition,
Introduction
Benedict Anderson. Imagined Communities Chs. 1-3 (pp. 1-37)
B. Problems of Multivocality – Whose Past? How Commemorated?
S. Vromen. “The French Panthéon: A Study in Divisiveness” in JAMALS
(Spring 1995) 27-38
R. Wagner-Pacifici & Barry Schwartz. “The Vietnam Veterans Memorial:
Commemorating a Difficult Past” AJS 97 (1991): 376-420
Recommended
Karen Cerulo. Identity & Designs: The Sights & Sounds of a Nation.
Lynn Spillman. Nations & Commemoration: Creating National Identities
in the U.S. & Australia Ch. 1
Apr. 14
C. Multivocality via Museums
A. Huyssen. “Escape from Amnesia” The Museum as Mass Medium” Pp.
13-36 in Twilight Memories
Benedict Anderson. Ch. 10. “Census, Map, Museum”
S. Dubin. “A Matter of Perspective: Revisionist History & the West as
America” in Displays of Power: Memory & Amnesia in the American Museum
and
S. Dubin.”Battle Royal: The Final Mission of the Enola Gay”
V.L. Zolberg. “Contested Remembrance: The Hiroshima Exhibit
Controversy” in Theory & Society
Apr. 21
III. Cases of Victimization
A. Remembering and Forgetting the Holocaust
Ian Buruma. “Memorials, Museums and Monuments” in The Wages of Guilt pp.
202-238 (e-reserves)
Jan T. Gross. Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community
Jedwabne, Poland
Jerzy Jedlicki. “How to Deal With This” (e-reserves)
A.Huyssen. “The Politics of Identification. ’Holocaust’ and West German
Drama” in After the Great Divide
Recommended
Jan T. Gross. Fear (Random House, 2006)
Films:
“Night & Fog” (one of the earliest documentaries to be released)
“Shoah” by Claude Lanzmann (9 hours long)
“Schindler’s List” by Steven Spielberg
“The Pianist” by R. Polanski & the book on which it is based, by W.
Szpilman
April 28
B. Victims & Perpetrators
A.Grossman. “A Question of Silence: The Rape of German Women by
Occupation Soldiers” October 72 (Spring 1995): 43-64
I. Irwin-Zarecka. “’Topographies of Terror’ in Berlin: Is Remembrance of
Forgetting Possible?”
Additional articles will be recommended concerning the G ünter
Grass affair
Recommended
Hamburg Inst. For Soc. Res’ch. The German Army & Genocide The New
Press, 1998
John Hersey. Hiroshima
Günter Grass. The Tin Drum
G. Schlink. The Reader (a novel)
May 5
C. Imperialism Past & Responses in the Present
B.Anderson. Imagined Communities Ch.6 “ Official Nationalism & Imperialism”
P. Gilroy. “The Whisper Wakes, the Shudder Plays: ‘race’, nation and ethnic
absolutism” in There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack
Recommended
Zaydie Smith. White Teeth
Film:“Black and White in Color” (French feature film set in WWI in a West African
colony)
Several Films by Sembène Ousmane, Senegalese director
Chocolat, a feature film by Claire Denis, on the ambiguous relations among
Europeans and West Africans under colonialism
May 12 Last Class Meeting
C. Persistent Issues: Reparations, Regrets, Revenge
J. Torpey. Politics & the Past I. Introduction
Dalton Conley. “Calculating Slavery Reparations: Theory, Numbers, and
Implications”
Laura Hein. “War Compensation: Claims against the Japanese
Government & Japanese Corporations for War Crimes”
Recommended
Stuart E. Eizenstat. Imperfect Justice: Looted Assets, Slave Labor & the
Unfinished Business of WWII
Seminar paper is due
SELECTED REFERENCES
The list may grow as the semester proceeds. Students are warmly invited to
make further suggestions of books, articles, films, etc. of interest to the class.
Benedict Anderson. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin & Spread of
Nationalism NY: Verso, 1991
Walter Benjamin. “Theses for a Philosophy of History” in Illuminations ed. By Hannah
Arendt. Schocken Books, 1969 (orig. 1955)
Jonathan Boyarin. Remapping Memory: The Politics of Time Space. Univ. of
Minnesota Press, 1994
Ian Buruma. The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany & Japan. [Meridian]
Penguin, 1994
Karen Cerulo. Identity & Designs: The Sights & Sounds of a Nation. Rutgers Univ.
Press, 1995
Michele C. Cone. French Modernism: Vichy and the Arts. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2000
Stefanie Coontz. The Way We Never Were. Basic, 1992
N.B. Dirks, et al. Culture/Power/History Princeton. Univ Press, 1994
Steven C. Dubin. Displays of Power: Memory & Amnesia in the American Museum.
NYU Press, 1999
Emile Durkheim. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. [trans. Karen Fields]
Elizabaeth L. Eisenstein. The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communications
and Cultural Transformations in Early-Modern Europe Cambridge Univ. Press,
1980
Stuart E. Eizenstat. Imperfect Justice: Looted Assets, Slave Labor, & the Unfinished
Business of World War II. New York: Public Affairs Press, 2003
William A. Gamson & David Stuart. “Media Discourse as a Symbolic Contest: The
Bomb in Political Cartoons” in Sociological Forum 7/1 (March 1992): 55-86
Paul Gilroy. There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack: The Cultural Politics of Race &
Nation 1987
________ The Black Atlantic & Double Consciousness , Ch. 6 “’Not a Story to Pass
On’: Living Memory & the Slave Sublime” pp. 187-224 Harvard Univ. Press,
1993
Jan T. Gross. Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne,
Poland. Princeton Univ. Press, 2001
Jan T. Gross. Fear . Random House, 2006
Atina Grossman. Victims, Victors & Survivors: Gender & Memory, Germany 1945-49.
(New Press)
Maurice Halbwachs. On Collective Memory [trans. Lewis Coser] Univ. of Chicago
Press, 1992
_________ The Collective Memory. Harper & Row, 1980 [n.b., This book is out of
print, but a Xerox copy of the assigned chapters is on reserve]
Hamburg Institute of social Research. The German Army and Genocide. The New
Press, 1998
John Hersey. Hiroshima (the report by Hersey was printed in its entirety in The New
Yorker Magazine and subsequently appeared in book form.
Eric Hobsbawm & Terence Ranger. The Invention of Tradition
Andreas Huyssen. After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism
Indiana University Press 1996
________ Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia. Routledge, 1995
Iwona Irwin-Zarecka. Frames of Remembrance N.Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books,
1994
Fredric Jameson “Remapping Taipei” Ch.2 in The Geopolitical Aesthetic: Cinema &
Space in the World System. Bloomington, IN.: Univ. of Indiana Press, 1995
Jerzy Jedlicki. “How To Deal With This” from Polityka Feb. 10, 2001 (reserve article)
Flora E.S. Kaplan. Museums & the Making of “Ourselves : The Role of Objects in
National Identity Leicester Univ. Press, 1994
Robert Jay Lifton & Greg Mitchell. Hiroshima in America Grosset/Putnam, 1995
Elizabeth Long, ed. From sociology to Cultural Studies: New Perspectives. Blackwell,
1997
George L. Mosse. Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the memory of the World wars . Oxford
Univ. Press, 1990
G.B. Nash et al. History on Trial: Culture Wars & the Teaching of the Past. Alfred
Knopf, 1997
Philip Nobile, ed. Judgment at the Smithsonian: The Bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki
N.Y.: Marlowe & Co., 1995
Pierre Nora. “From Lieux de mémoire to Realms of Memory” Preface to the EnglishLanguage edition of Lieux de Mémoire
________ “Between Memory and History: les lieux de mémoire in Representations 26
(spring 1989)
Jeffrey K. Olick. “Introduction: Memory and the Nation – Continuities, Conflicts and
Transformations” and
________ ‘’What does it mean to Normalize the Past? Official Memory in German
Politics Since 1999”, in Social Science History: Special Issue: Memory and the
Nation 22/4 (Winter 1998)
D.L. Schacter. Memory Distortion.1995
________ Searching for Memory: The Brain, the Mind, and the Past Basic Books,
1996
Barry Schwartz. George Washington: The Making of an American Symbol Part I. (pp.
13-106)
________ “The Social Context of Commemoration: A Study in Collective Memory” in
Social Forces 61/2 (pp. 374-397)
Art Spiegelman. Maus I & Maus II, Pantheon, 1992
Lyn Spillman. Nation and Commemoration: Creating National Identities in the U.S. &
Australia. Cambridge Univ, Press, 1997
Wladyslaw Szpilman. The Pianist , New York: Picador, 1999.
John Torpey, ed. Politics and the Past: On Repairing Historical Injustices. Rowman and
Littlefield, 2003
Robin Wagner-Pacifici & Barry Schwartz. “The Vietnam Veterans Memorial:
commemorating a Difficult Past “ AJS 97 (1991): 376-420
James E. Young. The Texture of Memory: Holocaust memories & Meaning. New
Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1993
Eviatar Zerubavel. Social Mindscapes Harvard Univ. Press, 1997
_______ Hidden Rhythms: Schedules & Calendars in Social Life. Berkeley, CA. Univ.
of California Press, 1981
Vera L. Zolberg. “Contested Remembrance: The Hiroshima Exhibit Controversy” in
Theory and Society