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School of History · ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences
This course examines the intersections between concepts of nation and practices of memory in a series of case studies spanning from the legacies of imperialism and colonisation through to impact of social movements and digital media in interrogating national identities and public memorialisation. Working across diverse case studies, including Nazism, settler colonialism, and military commemoration, we will work with a diverse range of historical evidence to assess the ways in which understandings of nation have been shaped and contested through collective memory and memorialisation. Through an examination of public ceremony and commemoration, educational intervention and institutional design, trials, museum exhibitions, individual memory, literature, popular culture and historiography, we will examine how the memory and representation of national identities have been debated and transformed. At a time of heightened political engagement with questions of recognition in public culture, and the power of testimony in challenging collective representation, this course will encourage reflection on the particular and contestable power of 'the nation' in framing what is remembered and what is forgotten.
Historiographical Review (2,000 words)
Learning outcomes 1, 2, 3
Research Proposal (500 words)
Learning outcomes 4
Research Essay (4,000 words)
Learning outcomes 1, 2, 3, 4
Tutorial or online Participation
Learning outcomes 1, 2, 3
Research Presentation (10 minutes)
Learning outcomes 1, 2, 3
The mode of delivery for this course may be either in person or online: In person: 130 hours of total student learning time made up from: a) 36 hours of contact over 12 weeks: 24 hours of seminars and 12 hours of workshop and workshop-like activities. b) 94 hours of independent student research, reading and writing Online: 130 hours of total student learning time made up from a) 36 hours of contact in workshop format or through online activities. b) 94 hours of independent student research, reading and writing.
Not required Preliminary Reading Katharine Hodgkin and Susannah Radstone, eds. Memory, History, Nation: Contested Pasts ( Transaction Publishers, 2005) Edward Linenthal, Preserving Memory: The Struggle to Create America's Holocaust Museum (Columbia University Press, 2001) John R. Gillis, ed. Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity ( Princeton University Press, 1994).