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Regular version of the site
Contacts

Address:
190068 Saint Petersburg
123 Griboedov channel, Room 123

Phone:+7 (812)786-92-49 

Postal address: 
190068 Saint Petersburg
123 Griboedov channel

Administration
Department Head Adrian A. Selin
Academic Supervisor Evgeniy Anisimov
Book
Remembering the Neoliberal Turn: Economic Change and Collective Memory in Eastern Europe after 1989

Gökarıksel S., Gontarska O., Hilmar T. et al.

L.: Routledge, 2023.

Article
The Russian Civil War after 100 Years: Within and Beyond the Historiographical Front Lines

Alexander V. Reznik.

Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History. 2024. Vol. 25. No. 3. P. 644-658.

Book chapter
The Stolbovo Treaty and Tracing the Border in Ingria in 1617–1618

Adrian Selin.

In bk.: Sweden, Russia, and the 1617 Peace of Stolbovo. Vol. 14. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2024. P. 99-118.

Working paper
The Image of the Past in Ciro Spontone’s ‘Historia Della Transilvania’

Khvalkov E., Levin F., Кузнецова А. Д.

Working Papers of Humanities. WP. Издательский дом НИУ ВШЭ, 2021

History of Collective Memory and Social Representations

2020/2021
Academic Year
ENG
Instruction in English
4
ECTS credits
Delivered by:
Department of History
Type:
Elective course
When:
4 year, 1, 2 module

Instructor

Levin, Feliks

Levin, Feliks

Course Syllabus

Abstract

This is a general course dedicated to the issues of memory and social representations in different historical perspectives. Its main focus is on the utility of the past which is employed by different social actors, that is why memory is always contested and depends on current socio-political contexts. Another objective of the course is to demonstrate that different epochs are characterized by specific forms of preservation of memory, and to explore the language of the narratives of memory: how they are constructed and produced. The course is divided into seven thematic clusters connected with certain issues of memory studies: approaches to collective memory; memory in ancient societies; memory in medieval and early modern Europe; memory and nationalism; remembrances of violence: wars, traumas, working through past; institutionalization of memory, memory politics; memory and media. The course will consist of different historical cases ranging from Antiquity to contemporary history.
Learning Objectives

Learning Objectives

  • to familiarise the students with the major approaches in memory studies
  • to familiarize the students with the main forms of representation, production and preservation of collective memory in different historical periods from antiquity to contemporary time
  • to familiarise the students with major issues in memory studies
Expected Learning Outcomes

Expected Learning Outcomes

  • The student is able to analyze, verify, evaluate the completeness of information in the course of professional activities, to add and synthesize missing information if necessary
  • The student is able to perform interdisciplinary interaction and cooperation with representatives of other fields of knowledge while solving research and applied tasks
  • The student can identify main thesis and issues raised in scholarly literature
  • The student can comprehend primary sources effectively
  • The student can discuss scholarly issues in groups and present the results of these discussions; can solve scholarly issue in collaboration with groupmates.
  • The student can communicate information and ideas in a style that is completely appropriate to discussions of scholarly literature
  • The student is able to review scholarly literature in English
  • The student is able to carry out a research into representation of cultural memory
Course Contents

Course Contents

  • Approaches to collective memory
    Different approaches to memory; contemporary criticism of the methodology of memory studies; memory and history
  • Memory in ancient societies
    Commemoration of the dead; ritual and festival; commemorative monuments; history-writing; canon and archive; ancient theories of memory; the forms of preservation of memory in ancient societies
  • Memory in medieval and early modern Europe
    Christian memory; liturgical memory; commemoration of the dead; lay memory; memory and ethnicity; early medieval historical culture; uses of history; historical memory and genealogy in the medieval Ireland; transition from oral memory to written memory ; official history-writing; noble and urban memoria; Renaissance and historical relativism; protonational narratives; changing attitudes to death; changing memory of an event (Battle of Bouvines); antiquarian history-writing
  • Memory and nationalism
    approaches to the relationship between memory and nationalism; discontinuity and national revolutions; continuity; nationalism and festivals; nationalism and school education; inclusive culture of commemoration; cultural nationalism; romanticism and revivalism; historicism; public museums; construction of nations; invention of traditions and heroes
  • Remembrances of violence: wars and traumas
    Approaches to trauma in trauma studies (psychoanalysis; research into historical trauma;crisis of testimony; representations of trauma; contemporary trauma studies; criticism of trauma studies); traumatic accounts of Holocaust; false memories and the issue of authenticity
  • Institutionalization of memory and memory politics
    Narratives of October revolution; working through the past in East and West Germany; memories in transition - ghosts of Civil wars in Italy and Spain; facing the past in South Africa after apartheid; memory politics in post-communist countries; memory politics in contemporary Russia; memories of fascist regimes in Italy and in Spain; The issue of “post-imperial nations”; experience of decolonization; self-image of former empires: British Empire, France, Germany, Russia — between greatness and guilt; vestiges of colonial empire: between memory and non-memory; empire strikes back: acknowledgment of difficult history; competing historical narratives of an imperial past: indigenous perspective; Black Lives Matter: questioning official narratives and current landscape; the issue of decolonization of school curriculum
  • Memory in the post-modern world
    Democratization of history and memory in 1960-70s; emergence of public history; cult of heritage; forms of consumption of past in the post-modern world; concepts of media, mediation of memory, memory and communication, materiality of memory; public history and TV; mediated memories in the digital age, digital forms of fixation of memories; films and cultural memory; memory in the digital and global age.
Assessment Elements

Assessment Elements

  • non-blocking Seminar discussions
  • non-blocking Review of the book
    If the student misses the deadline to inform the instructor what book he/ she is going to review for the course, course instructor assigns the book to her/him. In this case, student gets minus one point for the review.
  • non-blocking Research project
    If the student misses the deadline for decision on the topic of the research project, course instructor assigns the topic for the student. In this case, student get minus one point for the research project.
Interim Assessment

Interim Assessment

  • Interim assessment (2 module)
    0.4 * Research project + 0.24 * Review of the book + 0.36 * Seminar discussions
Bibliography

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

  • Aldrich R. Vestiges of the colonial empire in France: monuments, museums, and colonial memories. Houndmills and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
  • Garde-Hansen, J. (2011). Media and Memory. Edinburgh University Press.
  • Herf, J. (1997). Divided Memory. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=668836
  • Kansteiner, W. (2002). Finding Meaning in Memory: A Methodological Critique of Collective Memory Studies. History & Theory, 41(2), 179. https://doi.org/10.1111/0018-2656.00198
  • LaCapra, D. (1997). Lanzmann’s ’Shoah’ : “here there is no why” (Vol. 23). Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsram&AN=edsram.000182428
  • Loewen, J. W. (2007). Lies My Teacher Told Me : Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong (Vol. Touchstone trade pbk. ed). New York: The New Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=516592
  • The Invention of Tradition // ed. by E. Hobsbawm, T. Ranger. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012
  • Walsh, K. (1992). The Representation of the Past : Museums and Heritage in the Post-Modern World. London: Routledge. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=72295
  • Winter, J. M. (2006). Remembering War : The Great War Between Memory and History in the Twentieth Century. New Haven: Yale University Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=187914

Recommended Additional Bibliography

  • A companion to cultural memory studies: an international and interdisciplinary handbook // ed. by Astrid Erll, Ansgar Nünning, Sara Young. Berlin, New York: De Gruyter, 2008.
  • Carruthers, M., & Ziolkowski, J. M. (2004). The Medieval Craft of Memory : An Anthology of Texts and Pictures (Vol. First pbk. edition). Philadelphia, Pa: University of Pennsylvania Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=1648751
  • Eric Orlin. (2007). Augustan Religion and the Reshaping of Roman Memory. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsbas&AN=edsbas.DBF677B4
  • Gross, A. ((Andrew S. ). (2004). Memory, authority, and identity : Holocaust studies in light of the Wilkomirski debate. Biography, 27(1), 25–47. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsram&AN=edsram.000428242
  • Hirsch, M. (2008). The Generation of Postmemory. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsbas&AN=edsbas.93F3EB4B
  • Hroch, M., & Graham, K. (2015). European Nations : Explaining Their Formation. New York: Verso. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=840378
  • Simpson, K. (2009). Unionist Voices and the Politics of Remembering the Past in Northern Ireland. Houndmills, England: Palgrave Macmillan. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=328056
  • Sophia Drakopoulou. (2017). “We Can Remember It for You”: Location, Memory, and Commodification in Social Networking Sites. SAGE Open, 7. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244017712026