History 187 - Fall 2004

Acland Seminar Room

Thursday 1:10-4:00pm

 

Eliza Ablovatski

Office: Seitz 5

Telephone: 427-5892

Email: ablovatskie@kenyon.edu

 

 

Foundation Seminar: History and Memory in Eastern Europe

 

 

Course Description:  How do we remember and whose memories become history?  This seminar will look at the relationship among history, memory and remembering in Eastern Europe.  We will examine the experiences of people in Eastern Europe through empire, nation-building, revolution, wars, Holocaust, state socialism, and the “transition” after 1989.  We will examine literature, memoirs, film and oral history and will pay particular attention to minorities and women, groups whose memories often differ from the standard historical narrative.

 

Course Requirements:  Students will complete several research projects about a topic of their choice within the thematic area of our class.  The assignments are: 1) a Portfolio Project (described below), 2) an Annotated Bibliography, 3) a Primary Source Analysis, as well as 4) a Presentation on the topic at our final class Conference.

 

Portfolio Project:  each student will select a theme or issue raised by the readings and then, using the library’s resources, will find at least 3 scholarly articles about that theme.  Using these new articles as well as the original assignments from class, the student will write a paper (7 pages) on the topic they chose.  The entire “portfolio” will be handed in: a description of the theme with the assignments it was drawn from, copies of all of the scholarly articles, as well as the student’s own paper.

 

Class Participation/Attendance: are mandatory; we are covering a wide amount of material and will be moving quickly.  In addition, students should be prepared to discuss the themes and issues raised in the readings.  Please email me if you are going to miss class or have missed a class.  Missing more than 2 classes will affect your grade.

 

Grading:         Class Participation (all semester)                       200 points

                        Research Presentation   (last class)                   200 points

                        Portfolio Project (Oct. 21)                                200 points

                        Annotated Bibliography (last class)                    200 points

                        Primary Source Analysis (Nov. 18)                   200 points

                                    TOTAL = 1000 points

 

Policies:  All graded work must be handed in hard copy to me.  No emailed attachments will be graded.  Late work will be marked down one-third of a grade per day unless you have a valid reason and have gotten an extension from me in advance of the due-date.

 

Readings:

 

Required texts are available for purchase at the bookstore:

  • Lonnie Johnson, Central Europe: Friends, Neighbors, Enemies.
  • Joseph Roth, The Emperor’s Tomb.
  • Bruno Schulz, The Street of Crocodiles.
  • Henryk Grynberg, Drohobycz, Drohobycz and Other Stories: True Tales from the Holocaust and Life After.
  • Katherine Verdery, What was Socialism and What comes next?
  • Jan T. Gross,  Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland.
  • Courtney Brkic, The Stone Fields.
  • Kate Turabien, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations.   

 

Other readings will be available on-line, on reserve at Olin Library and in Seitz House, or will be handed out in class.  Note that many articles are available through EJC, JSTOR, or Ebscohost, electronic databases to which Kenyon subscribes.  You can access these articles from any network computer through the LBIS website.

 

 

Library:  We will schedule an opportunity for you to meet Mary Stettner, the history department liaison in the library.  Mary’s hours at the reference desk are: Mondays -- 10am-12pm and Thursdays -- 6pm-10pm.  You may also email her at any time for help with history resources and ask any other librarians to help you.  Mary’s email is: stettnerm@kenyon.edu.

 

 

Note: If you have a disability and therefore may need some sort of accommodation(s) in order to fully participate in this class, please let me know.  In addition, you will need to contact Erin Salva, Coordinator of Disability Services (x5145).  Ms. Salva has the authority and expertise to decide what accommodations are appropriate and necessary for you. 

 

 

SCHEDULE OF CLASSES

 

September 2:  Introduction

 

 

September 9: How we Remember/Where is Central Europe?

***Library Information Session with Mary Stettner***

  • Peter Burke, “History as Social Memory,” in Varieties of Cultural History (on Reserve).
  • Thomas Butler, “Memory: A Mixed Blessing,” in Memory: History, Culture and the Mind, (on Reserve).
  • Lonnie Johnson, Central Europe: Introduction (pp. 1-13).

 

 

September 16: Myths of Greatness and Defeat

·        Lonnie Johnson, Central Europe: Chapters 1-6 (pp. 13-123)

 

 

September 23: Nations and Nation States

·        Lonnie Johnson, Central Europe: Chapters 7 and 8 (pp. 124-170).

·        Cynthia Paces, “Rotating Spheres: Gendered Commemorative Practice At The 1903 Jan Hus Memorial Festival In Prague,” Nationalities Papers 28/3  (Sept. 2000), 523 – 539, available online through CONSORT/Ebscohost.

·        “A Hungarian Cult: Queen Elisabeth of Bavaria,” in András Gerő, Modern Hungarian Society in the Making: The Unfinished Experience (on Reserve)

 

 

September 30: WWI and End of Empire

  • Lonnie Johnson, Central Europe: Chapter 9 (pp. 171-196)
  • Joseph Roth, The Emperor’s Tomb
  • Pierre Nora “Generations,” in Realms of Memory, Volume 1 (on Reserve)

·        Richard Bessel, “The Great War in German Memory: The Soldier of the First World War, Demobilization and Weimar Political Culture,” German History, v. 6, no. 1 (1988), 20-34.

 

 

October 7: The Gathering Storm

  • Lonnie Johnson, Central Europe: Chapter 10 (pp. 197-222)
  • Bruno Schulz, The Street of Crocodiles.
  • Henryk Grynberg, “Drohobycz, Drohobycz,” in Drohobycz, Drohobycz and Other Stories: True Tales from the Holocaust and Life After

 

 

 

 

October 14: Holocaust and Memory I – National Memory

  • Jan T. Gross, Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland.
  • Selected readings from Polish Sociological Review on Neighbors (pdf).

 

 

October 21: Holocaust and Memory II – Oral History

***Portfolio Project Due***

  • In class film: “Herr Zwilling und Frau Zuckermann” (German, dir. Volker Koepp, 1999, English subtitles)
  • Interviews with film’s protagonists and other Jews in Ukraine and in Israel (handouts/electronic resources).
  • Henryk Grynberg, “Escape from Boryslaw,” “Without a Trace,” and “A Brother in Volhynia,” in Drohobycz, Drohobycz and Other Stories: True Tales from the Holocaust and Life After

 

 

October 28: Remembering Soviet-Style

  • Lisa Kirschenbaum, “Gender, Memory, and National Myths: Ol'ga Berggol'ts and the Siege of Leningrad.” Nationalities Papers 28/3 (Sept. 2000), available online through Consort/Ebscohost.
  • Andrea Pető, “Memory and the narrative of rape in Budapest and Vienna in 1945,” in Richard Bessel and Dirk Schumann (eds.), Life after Death: Approaches to a Cultural and Social History of Europe during the 1940s and 1950s (Reserve).
  • Catherine Merridale, “War, Death and Remembrance in Soviet Russia,” in Jay Winter and Emmanuel Sivan, War and Remembrance in the Twentieth Century (on Reserve).

 

 

November 4: State Socialism – Part I

  • In class film: “Father” (István Szabó)
  • Katherine Verdery, What was Socialism and What comes next?: Introduction and Chapters 1-3 (pp. 3-82).
  • Zsuzsanna Kőrösi and Andrienne Molnár, Carrying a Secret in my Heart… Children of the Victims of the Reprisals after the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. An Oral History: “Introduction” and “The Revolution” (pp. 1-24), optional: “A New World” and “Stigmatisation” (pp. 25-44 and 59-72).
  • Lonnie Johnson, Central Europe: Chapter 11 (pp. 223-248)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

November 11: State Socialism – Part II

  • Katherine Verdery, What was Socialism and What comes next?: Chapters 4, 8 and Afterword (pp. 83-103, 204-234)
  • George Konrád, “The Melancholy of Rebirth,” in The Melancholy of Rebirth: Essays from Post-Communist Central Europe, 1989-1994 (on Reserve).
  • Lonnie Johnson, Central Europe: Chapter 12 and Epilogue (pp. 249-308)

 

 

 

November 18: The Rebirth of History? Memory, History and Nostalgia

***Primary Source Analysis Due***

·        Articles about Bruno Schulz murals (handouts/electronic).

·        Hoffmann, Eva. “Life Stories East and West,” Yale Review, 88/1 (January 2000), 1-19

·        Zsuzsanna Kőrösi and Andrienne Molnár, Carrying a Secret in my Heart… Children of the Victims of the Reprisals after the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. An Oral History: “The Turnaround” and “The Legacy,” (pp. 117-148).

·        Svetlana Boym, “Nostalgia and Post-Communist Memory,” in The Future of Nostalgia (on Reserve).

 

November 25: THANKSGIVING BREAK

 

December 2: Yugoslavia, War and Memory (guest speaker)

  • Courtney Brkic, The Stone Fields
  • Katherine Verdery, “Giving Proper Burial: Reconfiguring Space and Time,” in The Political Lives of Dead Bodies: Reburial and Post-socialist Change (on Reserve).

 

 

December 9:  Last Class – Conference

***Annotated Bibliography and Presentation Due***