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Syllabus Global Holocaust Memory Popular Cinema and the Digital Age - 50987
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Last update 03-09-2020
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 visual media in the digital age. It discusses films and digital content 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 analyse visual culture in relation to social and historical discourses and to situate current visual culture in context of global memory cultures and digital technologies as well as within the historical context of visual media.

Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
• learning about the history of Holocaust cinema and other visual representations of the Holocaust
• engaging into contemporary discourses on Holocaust memory
• analysing films and other visual and digital media, and applying knowledge of narrative and 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: The course will be held online in a mix of asynchronous and synchronous teaching. Students need to watch audiovisual essays and listen to podcasts for preparation of Zoom meetings that will focus on key memory concepts and exemplary case studies.
We will discuss how far these visual media products 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 “Traveling Memory”, “Postmemory” and "Multidirectional Memory". Students will prepare weekly reading material, and we will relate these memory concepts 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:
19-10-2020 | The Return of the Past: Mediating Memory in Popular Culture

26-10-2020 | Filming the Unimaginable? Memories of the Camps

02-11-2020 | Cinematic Memory Frames

09-11-2020 | Echoes from the Past

16-11-2020 | Ambient Memories

23-11-2020 | Memory in Segments

30-11-2020 | Footage to be Found

07-12-2020 | Testimony in the Digital Age

14-12-2020 | Self-Witnessing in the Digital Age

21-12-2019 | Social Media Witnessing

28-12-2019 | Playing the Holocaust

04-01-2021 | Virtual Sites of Memory

11-01-2021 | Augmented Space

18-01-2021 | Commemorating the Holocaust in Times of COVID-19

Required Reading:
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.

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

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.

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 0 %
Participation in Tutorials 0 %
Project work 60 %
Assignments 20 %
Reports 20 %
Research project 0 %
Quizzes 0 %
Other 0 %

Additional information:
Course requirements:

1.Active participation in asynchronous and synchronous teaching

2.Preparation of weekly reading material: formulating a question to the text

3.Written review of a background article (submission two days before the relevant session) – 20%

4.Written review of a film, graphic novel or digital project (deadline 20 December 2020) – 20%

5.Final paper on a postwar German artist, photographer, playwright, filmmaker, play, film, artwork, exhibition … (10 Pages, 12 pt., Double Space) - Submission deadline for the final paper: 11 March 2021 – 60%

It is also possible to write Seminar papers (25-30 Pages, 12 pt., Double Space) in this course; an abstract, research question and draft bibliography has to be submitted until 22 January 2021. Final submission deadline for the seminar paper is 30 September 2021.
 
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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