Program Overview
Program Overview
What is the role of historical memory in the formulation of individual and national identities in contemporary post-Holocaust and post-communist Poland and the former East Germany? During this seminar, we’ll explore the construction and transmission of memory through multiple lenses—art, literature, and culture; institutions, education, and politics; place, monument, and memorial—with a special focus on the consciousness and relations of a new generation of Poles and Germans, their past, their present, and their future. Lectures and discussions with experts, opinion leaders, and locals combined with site visits to Berlin, Warsaw, and Krakow provide an opportunity to examine complex and powerful notions of memory in three thriving cities, rapidly rising from the ashes of their wartime and socialist pasts.
Program Activities
Program Activities
Lectures, site visits, direct encounters and dialogues with local people, and workshops will facilitate participants’ intellectual and experiential journey throughout the seminar. In Krakow, site visits and lectures correspond with the vibrant Jewish Culture Festival. In Warsaw, focus is placed on central institutions of memory and identity, among them The Institute of National Remembrance and The Museum of the History of the Polish Jews. Berlin site visits include The Berlin Wall Memorial, a central place of remembrance of German division, and The Topography of Terror, former headquarters of the SS and Gestapo.
Program Objectives
Program Objectives
During this seminar, participants will:
- Unpack the dilemma of history and memory through an investigation of the rewriting of official national histories that occurs post-regime change.
- Gain insight about the workings and tactics of the socialist governments of Poland and East Germany in presenting WWII and Holocaust histories.
- Analyze how public school curricula approach(ed) and teach/taught the official histories of East Germany, West Germany, Reunified Germany, and pre- and post-1989 Poland.
- Appraise the effectiveness of various museum exhibits to present a balanced and informative history, particularly around the Jewish Holocaust and socialism.
- Discuss how monuments, memorials, and sites of memory in Germany and Poland have shifted their designs and messages over time to reflect different truths, lies, and omissions.
- Analyze and critique the role of Holocaust- and Socialist-centered tourism.
- Experience firsthand contemporary art initiatives in Germany and Poland aimed to raise consciousness about the countries’ 20th century past.
- Appraise the effectiveness of particular artistic works and efforts to comment on history and/or current identities in Germany and Poland.
- Link official and unofficial histories to common self-conceptions of East German, West German, Reunified German, and pre- and post-1989 Polish identities.
- Develop an understanding of new Polish-Jewish-German-Russian relations and newly identified common histories and tensions.
Seminar Locations
Seminar Locations
Based in Warsaw and Krakow, Poland and Berlin, Germany; participants fly into Warsaw and out of Berlin.