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Sites of violence and their communities: Critical Heritage and Memory Studies in Contemporary Post-Holocaust Poland
About the program
This site-based, 3-credit interdisciplinary field school will introduce students first hand to the “social lives” of key sites of Holocaust history and memory in the city of Kraków, Poland (and selected other sites). We will together explore how the state, community groups, and creative practitioners of “memory work,” make use of and (often critically) re-interpret sites of wartime violence for a variety of purposes. We will also consider the effects of a range of forces – from government attempts to legislate memory, to heritage tourism, to natural and environmental factors – on the changing shapes and meanings of memory sites.
Using Kraków as a home base, we will read and discuss key scholarly texts (sometimes with their authors), hear guest lectures, visit historical sites (German Nazi camps, former Jewish districts, monuments, and museums), and meet local artists and activists working to activate and expand Polish memory culture against social and political pressures to forget. We will attend to both conventional and less-commonly acknowledged social and material processes that influence remembering in post-conflict sites, and think about past violence in terms of new social formations and pressures (e.g. ethno-racial diversification and activism, migration and climate crises). The goal of this field school is to transform the way you think about how societies remember.
Professor Erica Lehrer (History, Sociology-Anthropology) will lead the group to a range of historical sites (German Nazi camps, former Jewish districts, monuments, and museums), and meet local artists and activists who have worked to activate and expand Polish memory culture against social and political pressures to forget. We will attend to both conventional and less-commonly acknowledged social and material processes that influence remembering in post-conflict sites.
Program Dates & Courses
Dates: May 30 to June 8 2024
Undergraduate course: HIST 498 Special Topics: Sites of Violence and their Communities
Graduate course: HIST 670/1 Special Topics: Sites of Violence and their Communities