HR970-7-SP-CO:
War and Memory: Remembering, Commemorating, and Contesting the Past
2023/24
Philosophical, Historical and Interdisciplinary Studies (School of)
Colchester Campus
Spring
Postgraduate: Level 7
Current
Monday 15 January 2024
Friday 22 March 2024
20
25 September 2023
Requisites for this module
(none)
(none)
(none)
(none)
(none)
Memories of war are often highly politicised and controversial, becoming bedrocks of national myths. To challenge these memories, and these myths, is often to challenge the fundamental ideas that national cultures are based on. This module looks at the construction, circulation and contestation of war memory in a variety of national contexts, and at different points in the past.
This module focuses on three broad themes: commemoration, popular culture, and the politics of remembering the past. We will discuss topics including the symbolism of the `poppy` in commemorating the First World War, the depiction of the Second World War in film, the memory of the Vietnam War in the United States, and the different ways societies have remembered the bombing of civilians throughout the twentieth century.
The aims of this module are:
- To provide students with an advanced understanding of how the memory of war and conflict has been used subsequently in different cultures and societies.
- To develop students’ understanding of the different forms the memory of war and conflict takes, including formal commemorative practices, representations within popular culture, and within political culture.
- To provide students with the tools to analyse contemporary debates surrounding the memory of warfare and commemoration, using sophisticated analytical arguments and deploying relevant historical examples.
By the end of this module, students will be expected to be able to:
- Compare in a sophisticated way the different forms war memory has taken in the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries.
- Analyse in depth how war and conflict has been remembered in different cultures and societies.
- Demonstrate an advanced understanding of how memory is constructed, circulated and contested in societies and cultures.
The memories surrounding war and conflict are defining features of cultures and societies around the world. Wars are remembered in a variety of ways: through commemoration, in in individual and family stories, within popular culture, and within political narratives.
These memories often tell us more about the present (or rather the time in which they are remembered) than about the wars and conflicts themselves. In fact, analysing how war is remembered today is often one of the best ways to understand how all types of history can be deployed to serve different purposes in the present.
Syllabus
- Introduction to the Module.
- Understand Memory: Concepts and Practices.
- Poppies and the Policitics of Commemoration, 1919-Now.
- The Vietnam War Memorial.
- Gender and Memory of the Second World War in British Film.
- Fiction and the First World War in the 1990s.
- The Search for a Useable Past in Post-War Europe.
- 'Difficult Memories': Bombing Civilians in the Second World War.
- Reckoning with the Past: American Civil War in Contemporary America.
This module will be delivered via:
- One 2-hour seminar per week.
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Roper, M. (2023)
Afterlives of war: a descendants’ history. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. Available at:
https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/101494.
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Mercer, A. (2013) ‘The Changing Face of Exhibiting Women’s Wartime Work at the Imperial War Museum’,
Women’s History Review, 22(2), pp. 330–344. Available at:
https://doi.org/10.1080/09612025.2012.726119.
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Peniston-Bird, C. (2014) ‘The People’s War in Personal Testimony and Bronze: Sorority and the Memorial to the Women of World II’, in L. Noakes and J. Pattinson (eds)
British cultural memory and the Second World War. London: Bloomsbury, pp. 67–87. Available at:
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/universityofessex-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1569365.
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Gregory, A. (1994)
The silence of memory: Armistice Day, 1919-1946. Oxford: Berg. Available at:
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/universityofessex-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1609910.
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Basham, V.M. (2016) ‘Gender, race, militarism and remembrance: the everyday geopolitics of the poppy’,
Gender, Place & Culture, 23(6), pp. 883–896. Available at:
https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2015.1090406.
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Lagrou, P. (1997) ‘Victims of Genocide and National Memory: Belgium, France and the Netherlands, 1945-65’,
Past & Present, 154(1), pp. 181–222. Available at:
https://doi.org/10.1093/past/154.1.181.
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Robert G. Moeller (1996) ‘War Stories: The Search for a Usable Past in the Federal Republic of Germany’,
The American Historical Review, 101, pp. 1008–1048. Available at:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2169632?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents.
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Information Portal to European Sites of Remembrance - Germany (no date). Available at:
https://www.memorialmuseums.org/deutschland.
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Harjes, K. (2005) ‘Stumbling Stones: Holocaust Memorials, National Identity, and Democratic Inclusion in Berlin’,
German Politics and Society, 23(1), pp. 138–151. Available at:
https://doi.org/10.3167/104503005780889237.
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Oliver Wainwright (2021) ‘Berlin’s bizarre new museum: a Prussian palace rebuilt for €680m.’ Available at:
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/sep/09/berlin-museum-humboldt-forum.
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Leworthy, P. (2020b) ‘On memory and memorials with guest speaker Prof Bill Niven (Nottingham Trent University).’ The Connecting Memories Podcast. Available at:
https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/connectingmemories/episodes/On-memory-and-memorials-with-guest-speaker-Prof-Bill-Niven-Nottingham-Trent-University-edag7f.
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Information Portal to European Sites of Remembrance (no date). Available at:
https://www.memorialmuseums.org/europe.
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Tony Judt (1992) ‘The Past Is Another Country: Myth and Memory in Postwar Europe’,
Daedalus, 121(4), pp. 83–118. Available at:
https://www-jstor-org.uniessexlib.idm.oclc.org/stable/20027138.
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Gross, J. (2020) ‘The Difficulty Of Confronting The Holocaust: Mass Murder In Jedwabne, Poland - Jan Gross.’ UW Stroum Center for Jewish Studies. Available at:
https://soundcloud.com/stroum-jewish-studies/the-difficulty-of-confronting-the-holocaust-mass-murder-in-jedwabne-poland-jan-gross.
The above list is indicative of the essential reading for the course.
The library makes provision for all reading list items, with digital provision where possible, and these resources are shared between students.
Further reading can be obtained from this module's
reading list.
Assessment items, weightings and deadlines
Coursework / exam |
Description |
Deadline |
Coursework weighting |
Coursework |
Essay (5000 words) |
|
100% |
Exam format definitions
- Remote, open book: Your exam will take place remotely via an online learning platform. You may refer to any physical or electronic materials during the exam.
- In-person, open book: Your exam will take place on campus under invigilation. You may refer to any physical materials such as paper study notes or a textbook during the exam. Electronic devices may not be used in the exam.
- In-person, open book (restricted): The exam will take place on campus under invigilation. You may refer only to specific physical materials such as a named textbook during the exam. Permitted materials will be specified by your department. Electronic devices may not be used in the exam.
- In-person, closed book: The exam will take place on campus under invigilation. You may not refer to any physical materials or electronic devices during the exam. There may be times when a paper dictionary,
for example, may be permitted in an otherwise closed book exam. Any exceptions will be specified by your department.
Your department will provide further guidance before your exams.
Overall assessment
Reassessment
Module supervisor and teaching staff
Prof Tracey Loughran, email: t.loughran@essex.ac.uk.
Dr Matthew Grant
PHAIS Postgraduate Queries: phaispg@essex.ac.uk
Yes
Yes
Yes
Prof Rohan McWilliam
Anglia Ruskin University
professor of Modern Hritish History
Available via Moodle
Of 20 hours, 20 (100%) hours available to students:
0 hours not recorded due to service coverage or fault;
0 hours not recorded due to opt-out by lecturer(s), module, or event type.
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