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Syllabus Global Holocaust Memory Popular Cinema and the Digital Age - 50987
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Last update 04-09-2019
HU Credits: 2

Degree/Cycle: 2nd degree (Master)

Responsible Department: Communication & Journalism

Semester: 1st Semester

Teaching Languages: English

Campus: Mt. Scopus

Course/Module Coordinator: Dr. Tobias Ebbrecht-Hartmann


Coordinator Office Hours: Mondays, 12:00-14:00

Teaching Staff:
Dr. Tobias Ebbrecht Hartmann

Course/Module description:
The representation of the Holocaust became a central topic in global visual culture over the last decades. Besides certain generic forms how to present the tragic events of the past especially films communicated particular narrative and stylistic concepts of visual memory. In recent years, however, Holocaust memory did not only become global and increasingly mobile through a particular media memory of the Holocaust. The digital age again transforms our perception and connection to the past. This course focuses on intersections between Holocaust memory and cinema in the digital age. It discusses films from various countries and decades in relation to present challenges of commemorating the Holocaust in the 21st century and various concepts of cultural and collective memory.

Course/Module aims:
The course will provide interdisciplinary knowledge in cinema studies, media studies and memory studies. The aim of the course is enabling the students to analyze visual culture in relation to social and historical discourses and to situate current cinema in context of global memory cultures and digital technologies as well as within the film historical context.

Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
• learning about the history of Holocaust cinema and other media representation of the Holocaust
• engaging into contemporary discourses on Holocaust memory
• analyzing films and other visual and digital medias and applying knowledge of narrative ans stylistic conventions in order to understand media of memory as social and historiographical mediators in the global age
• using and applying theoretical and empirical concepts of Holocaust memory (including memory conflicts) on popular visual and digital culture
• conducting independent research on different films, digital culture products and platforms

Attendance requirements(%):
80 %

Teaching arrangement and method of instruction: We will discuss how far films and new forms of digital Holocaust memory mediate visual memories from the Holocaust through the repetition and circulation of particular images or narratives. In doing so the course is based on a reevaluation of the concept of "migrating images" and juxtaposes this crucial aspect of a visual memory of the Holocaust to related concepts such as the “Traveling Memory”, “Postmemory” and "Multidirectional Memory". Students will introduce these specific memory concepts and we will relate them to specific films. A focus of the course will be on the use and reuse of specific images and narratives in films about the Holocaust.

Course/Module Content:
28-10-2019 | The Return of the Past: Mediating Memory in Popular Culture

04-11-2019 | Cinematic Memory Frames

11-11-2019 | Echoes from the Past

18-11-2018 | Footage to be Found

25-11-2018 | Ambient Memories

02-12-2019 | Memory in Segments

09-12-2019 | Testimony in the Digital Age

16-12-2019 | Interacting with the Past

23-12-2019 | Virtual and Augmented Sites of Memory

30-12-2019 | Conclusion: Media, Memory and Emotion in the Digital Age

Required Reading:
1. Assmann, Aleida. “Transformations of Holocaust Memory: Frames of Transmission an Mediation.” In: Holocaust-Cinema in the Twenty-First Century: Memory, Images, and the Ethics of Representation. Ed. Oleksandr Kobrynskyy and Gerd Bayer. New York: Wallflower, 2015. 23-40.

2. Ebbrecht, Tobias. “Migrating Images: Iconic Images of the Holocaust and the Representation of War in Popular Film.” Shofar, 28:4 (2010). 86-103.

3. Kansteiner, W. (2017). “Transnational Holocaust Memory, Digital Culture and the End of Reception Studies”. In: The Twentieth Century in European Memory: Transcultural Mediation and Reception. Eds. T. Sindbaek Anderson and B. Törnquist-Plewa. Brill, 305-343.

4. Elsaesser, Thomas. “From Mastering the Past to Managing Guilt: Holocaust Memory in the New Century.” In German Cinema: Terror and Trauma. Cultural Memory since 1945. London: Routledge, 2014, pp. 263-305.

A full reading list will be provided at the beginning of the seminar.

Additional Reading Material:
A full reading list will be provided at the beginning of the seminar.

Course/Module evaluation:
End of year written/oral examination 0 %
Presentation 20 %
Participation in Tutorials 0 %
Project work 60 %
Assignments 20 %
Reports 0 %
Research project 0 %
Quizzes 0 %
Other 0 %

Additional information:
• Oral Presentation
• Review of a Holocaust related film
• Final essay
 
Students needing academic accommodations based on a disability should contact the Center for Diagnosis and Support of Students with Learning Disabilities, or the Office for Students with Disabilities, as early as possible, to discuss and coordinate accommodations, based on relevant documentation.
For further information, please visit the site of the Dean of Students Office.
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