This course has been canceled.

Course Description

This course will examine the politics and aesthetics of commemorating the Holocaust in the sites where it took place through an intensive program of guest lectures and site visits in Berlin. After studying theory on the difference between official and unofficial histories and the political uses of narratives about the past, students will visit the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. then spend a week in Germany (May 17-25). We will explore clashes over interpretations of the past conveyed by such places as the governments’ official Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe; the Jewish Museum of Berlin; the German Resistance Memorial, an effort to provide a positive lesson in the midst of negative associations with German national identity; community-level memorials that arose often without permission in two former Jewish neighborhoods in East and West Berlin; and Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, a site where first the Nazis, then the Soviet occupiers confined their prisoners, leading to a controversial effort at multiple commemoration.

The course is open to graduate students, advanced undergraduates and anyone interested in public history, European history, war and society, and memory and national identity. Course assignments include reading, discussion and a final paper.

Important Dates

March 21st-Registration Begins
April 15th-Registration Ends and Deposits ($500) are due
April 15th-All remaining money due
May 12th-Initial class meeting at American University, History Lounge
May 13th-Local visit to United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
May14th-Richmond Holocaust Museum visit
May 17th-Depart for Berlin
May 25th-Return from Berlin
June 2nd-Final paper due