J-Term Course

UVA in Hamburg and Berlin: Urban Memorial Archives

Questions? Contact Chrisann Zuerner at gsq4cy@virginia.edu

Program Description:

This program will examine the lasting implications of memory projects in Germany related to minority memory/perspectives, placing an emphasis on the urban projects that are readily accessible to the public – from museums, streets, placards, sites of memory/memorials. The course will engage with the texts of Michael Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory and Simon Ward’s Urban Memory and Visual Culture in Berlin. These two texts serve as the backbone and starting point from which to guide our perspective and discussions. Ward’s work specifically discusses the theme of our course as we arrive in Berlin. Drawing from these two initial works, we will then complicate our perspectives related to urban memory through incorporating additional scholarly articles and narratives as we visit various physical spaces of memory.

Engaging with the historical events commemorated in various urban sites of memory through a critical perspective of multidirectional memory (Rothberg), as well as through the various scholarly and narratorial perspectives, this course will visit and examine various sites of memory to question for whom and how these spaces function to commemorate various memories – specifically those related to victims of national socialism and divided Germany.

J-Term in Berlin and Weimar: Germany, Past and Present

J-Term in Budapest, Graz, and Vienna: The Jewish Experience

J-Term in Berlin and Weimar: Germany, Past and Present

Program Dates: December 30th, 2018 - January 12, 2019

Questions? Contact Christina Neuhaus

Program Description:

What does it mean for a country to confront its past, define its present and imagine its future? This course will introduce you to modern German history and culture by looking at the interaction between culture and memory. We will approach the cities of Berlin and Weimar not just as a collection of streets and buildings, but as multi-layered cultural and historical texts.

Some of the questions guiding us in this class will be: How does Germany remember its oftentimes complicated past, including its greatest cultural accomplishments but also its darkest hours? Which parts of Germany’s history are actively remembered and rendered visible? What remains hidden or absent? How does German discourse on dealing with the past differ from American strategies? And how does Germany’s current political situation, such as the rise of far-right populism or Germany’s evolving role in the European Union, fit into this?

On-site visits will combine lectures with active student participation, so you can practice strategies to analyze and interpret German narratives of history and culture. We will visit museums, the archives of the Stasi (the East German secret police), government buildings (including the German Bundestag or parliament), memorials (including the former concentration camp Buchenwald as well as Berlin’s famous Holocaust memorial). We will meet people who are active in the fields of social activism, journalism, publishing, politics, and the arts.

J-Term in Budapest, Graz, and Vienna: The Jewish Experience

Program Dates: December 28th, 2018 - January 12, 2019

Questions? Contact A sher Biemann

Program Description:

Explore and experience Jewish history, culture, and everyday life in Europe from a multidisciplinary perspective. UVA Jewish Studies Program faculty will accompany student participants on this two-week course, which will consist of introductory lectures, site visits, guest speakers, and personal encounters. Hosted by the Universities of Graz and Vienna, we will be holding classes on site, including field trips within Austria and a three-day visit to Budapest. The objective of the course is to acquaint students in a deep way with the history, culture, and everyday lives of European Jews through immersion in their seminal texts, ideas, cultural artifacts, and practices in the past and present.