KENNESAW STATE UNIVERSITY
HIST 4435
The Problems and Politics of Historical Memory
“The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”
—Milan Kundera
If we change the way we think about the world,
we automatically update memories to reflect our new understanding.”
—Jean Piaget and B. Inhelder 1973
Instructor:
Office:
Office Hours:
Phone:
E-mail:
Dr. Catherine M. Lewis
203 Pilcher Building
T/Th 8:00-10:45 a.m. and 3:30 to 5:00 p.m. and by appointment
(678) 797-2058
clewis1@kennesaw.edu
Course Description:
This course will address the following questions: (1) What do we know about the past
and how do we know it? (2) How does the interpretation of historical events change over
time? (3) Is history a matter of fact of a matter of memory? (4) How do politics shape the
presentation of the past? (5) How is the past presented to the public? As a class, we will
investigate the ways in which perceptions of the past are formed and communicated from
generation to generation, across cultures and centuries. This inquiry will address change
over time and focus on public history, with particular emphasis on museums and historic
sites (both private and those sanctioned by the state), film, and theme parks.
Classroom Policies:
o An atmosphere of mutual trust is essential to the success of this course. I strongly
encourage lively debates and urge students to respect each other's opinions.
Expressions of intolerance are discouraged. Disagreeing with others intelligently and
politely is a skill, one that we will all strive for during the semester.
o "Every KSU student is responsible for upholding the provisions of the Student Code
of Conduct, as published in the Undergraduate and Graduate catalogs. Section II of
the Student Code of Conduct addresses the University's policy on academic honesty,
including provisions regarding plagiarism and cheating, unauthorized access to
University materials, misrepresentations/falsification of University records or
academic work, malicious removal, retention, or destruction of library materials,
malicious/intentional misuse of computer facilities and/or services, and misuse of
student identification cards. Incidents of alleged academic misconduct will be
handled through the established procedures of the University Judiciary Program,
which includes either an 'informal' resolution by a faculty member, resulting in a
grade adjustment, or a formal hearing procedure, which may subject a student to the
Code of Conduct's minimum one semester suspension requirement" (KSU Senate 15
March 1999).
o Students should seek the help of the instructor or the Writing Center (770-423-6380),
located in Humanities Room 237, for all writing assignments.
o Punctual, regular class attendance is required. Students are responsible for all
assigned work. An absence does not absolve them from this responsibility. After three
absences, your final grade will drop three points with each subsequent absence.
Evaluation:
I.
Attendance, participation, and
preparation of discussion
questions
II. Leading Class Discussion
III. Book Review (5-7 pages)
IV. Annotated Bibliography
20%
20%
30%
30%
Grade Scale:
A
B
C
D
F
90-100
80-89
70-79
60-69
59 and below
Required Text (Available in the Campus Bookstore):
Linenthal, Edward T. Preserving Memory: The Struggle to Create America's Holocaust Museum.
New York: Penguin, 1995.
Nathan, Daniel. Saying It’s So: A Cultural History of the Black Sox Scandal. Urbana: University
of Illinois Press, 2003.
Reserve Readings (available at the Sturgis Library Circulation Desk): It is helpful to have
your syllabus with you when you request materials on reserve. It would be wise to copy all of the
reserve readings in the first week of the semester.
Assignments:
I.
Participation and Preparation of Discussion Questions
It is essential to the effective functioning of the class that everyone complete each reading
assignment and spend a little time considering what they have read before coming to class each
week. If this course is to be productive, it will be because we are all prepared and engaged. Class
sessions will be an forum for ideas to be raised, debated, and analyzed for strengths and
weaknesses. To that end, each student is responsible for preparing two discussion questions for
each reading assignment.
II.
Leading Class Discussion
Each student will lead a 30-minute class discussion once during the semester. The discussion
leader is required to: (1) provide a brief assessment of the major issues raised by the reading(s),
(2) analyze the merits and shortcomings of those readings, (3) make connections between
previous class readings, and (4) suggest five secondary sources for further study. Each student
should prepare a handout that includes these four items. This is an important task, as the shape of
our discussion will be guided by the presenter's questions and analytical approaches.
III.
Book Review
Each student will prepare a 5-7 page book review (12 point Times New Roman font, 1” margins)
on one of the following monographs. A handout detailing the assignment will be posted at the
beginning of the semester.
Bal, Mieke, Johnathan Crewe, and Leo Spitzer. Acts of Memory: Cultural Recall in the Present.
Hanover, MA: Dartmouth College, 1998.
Blair, William A. Cities of the Dead: Contesting the Memory of the Civil War in the South, 18651914. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004.
Blight, David W. Beyond the Battlefield: Race, Memory, and the American Civil War. Amherst:
University of Massachusetts Press, 2002.
Davis, Eric. Memories of State: Politics, History, and Collective Identity in Modern Iraq.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.
Flores, Richard R. Remembering the Alamo: Memory, Modernity and the Master Symbol. Austin:
University of Texas Press, 2002.
Fujitani, Takashi et.al., Perilous Memories: The Asia-Pacific War(s). Durham: Duke University
Press, 2001.
Gross, David. Lost Time: On Remembering and Forgetting in Late Modern Culture.Amherst
University of Massachusetts Press, 2000.
Huyssen, Andreas. Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory. Palo Alto:
Stanford University Press, 2003.
Igarashi, Yoshikuni. Bodies of Memory. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000
Landy, Marcia. The Historical Film: History and Memory in Media. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers
University Press, 2000.
Lipsitz, George. Time Passages: Collective Memory and American Popular Culture.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1990.
Landsberg, Alison. Prosthetic Memory: The Transformation of American Remembrance in the
Age of Mass Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004
Lowenthal, David. The Past is a Foreign Country. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1985.
Shackel, Paul A. Memory in Black and White: Race, Commemoration and the Post-Bellum
Landscape. Lanham, Maryland: AltaMira Press, 2003.
-----. A. Myth, Memory, and the Making of the American Landscape. Gainesville: University of
Florida Press, 2001.
IV.
Annotated Bibliography
For this assignment, students will expand on the theme(s) related to their book review and
prepare an annotated bibliography of 10 secondary sources. Each entry should provide a brief
summary paragraph, explaining the major arguments and connecting the supplementary texts to
the overall theme. Do not simply describe the essay or book, make sure you have read and
examined how it connects to your main text.
Reading Schedule:
Week 1:
T 8.23
Th 8.25
Week 2:
T 8.30
Th 9.1
Introduction
Introduction to the course.
David Thelan, "Memory and American History," Journal of
American History (March 1989): 1117-1129.
The History of Memory
Paul Thompson, “Believe it or Not: Rethinking the Historical
Interpretation of Memory,” from Memory and History: Essays on
Recalling and Interpreting Experience, ed. Jacklyn Jeffrey and
Glenace Edwall (New York: Lanham, 1994): 1-16.
Elizabeth Loftus, “Tricked By Memory,” from Memory and
History: Essays on Recalling and Interpreting Experience, ed.
Jacklyn Jeffrey and Glenace Edwall (New York: Lanham, 1994):
17-32.
Week 3:
Inventing Tradition
T 9.6
Hugh Trevor-Roper, "The Invention of Tradition: The Highland
Tradition of Scotland," in Hobsbawm and Ranger, eds., The
Invention of Tradition (Cambridge University Press, 1983): 15-41.
Scottish Highland website project
Th 9.8
Week 4:
T 9.13
Th 9.15
Reserve
Reserve
Reserve
Reserve
Remembering History: The Civil War as a Case Study
Michael Kammen, “Introduction” and “The Civil War
Remembered-But Unreconciled” from Mystic Chords of Memory:
The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture (New York:
Vintage, 1991), 2-14 and 101-131.
William A. Blair, “Waging Politics Through Decoration Days,
1866-1869,” from Cities of the Dead: Contesting the Memory of
the Civil War in the South, 1865-1914. Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 2004), 49-76.
Reserve
Reserve
Week 5:
T 9.20
Th 9.22
Week 6:
T 9.27
Th 9.29
Week 7:
T 10.4
Th 10.6
Week 8:
T 10.11
Th 10.13
Week 9:
T 10.18
Th 10.20
Remembering History: Constructing an American Identity
Michael Kammen, “Memory is What We Now Have in Place of
Religion,” from Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of
Tradition in American Culture (New York: Vintage, 1991), 194227.
Workshop: Book reviews and annotated bibliographies
Reserve
The Problems of Oral History
Michael Frisch, "The Memory of History," from A Shared
Reserve
Authority: Essays on the Craft and Meaning of Oral and Public
History (Albany: SUNY Press, 1990): 15-28.
Alice M. Hoffman and Howard S. Hoffman, “Reliability and
Reserve
Validity in Oral History: The Case Study for Memory,” in Memory
and History: Essays on Recalling and Interpreting Experience, ed.
Jacklyn Jeffrey and Glenace Edwall (New York: Lanham,
1994):105-132.
History, Memory, and the State
Film: The Fog of War
Carol Duncan and Alan Wallach, "The Universal Survey
Museum," Art History 3:4 (December 1980): 448-469.
Reserve
History, Memory, and the State
Beatrice Heuser, "Museums, Identity, and Warring Historians:
Observations on History and Germany," The Historical Journal
33:2 (1990): 417-440.
Ariella Azoulay, "With Open Doors: Museums and Historical
Narratives in Israel's Public Space," from Museum Culture:
Histories, Discourses, Spectacles (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1994): 85-112.
Reserve
Reserve
The Politics of Public Display: The Holocaust Museum as a Case Study
Edward T. Linenthal, Preserving Memory: The Struggle to Create
America's Holocaust Museum (New York: Penguin, 1995): 1-56.
Edward T. Linenthal, Preserving Memory: The Struggle to Create
America's Holocaust Museum (New York: Penguin, 1995): 57166.
Week 10:
The Politics of Public Display: The Holocaust Museum as a Case Study
T 10.25
Edward T. Linenthal, Preserving Memory: The Struggle to Create
visit web
Th 10.27
America's Holocaust Museum (New York: Penguin, 1995): 167272.
Visit Anne Frank in the World, 1929-1945 in the KSU Center
Week 11:
The Politics of Public Display: History, Memory, and Museums
T 11.1
Susan A. Crane, "Memory, Distortion, and History in the
Museum," from Bettina Messias Carbonell, ed., Museum Studies:
An Anthology of Contexts (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004),
314-334.
Th 11.3
Peer Review: In-class peer review.
Week 12:
T 11.8
Th 11.10
Daniel Nathan, Saying It’s So: A Cultural History of the Black Sox
Scandal (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003), 1-91.
Daniel Nathan, Saying It’s So: A Cultural History of the Black Sox
Scandal (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003): 92-148.
Baseball: History, Memory, and Popular Culture
T 11.15
Th 11.17
Daniel Nathan, Saying It’s So: A Cultural History of the Black
Sox Scandal (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003): 149221.
Peer Review: Annotated Bibliography
Week 14:
History, Memory, and Film
11.24
Reserve
Book
Review
Due (turn
in two
copies)
Baseball: History, Memory, and Popular Culture
Week 13:
11.22
site: www.
ushmm.org
Annotated
Bibliography
Due
“How to Look at An Historical Film,” from Marcia Landy, ed. The
Historical Film: History and Memory in Media. Piscataway, NJ:
Rutgers University Press, 2000): 25-49.
Thanksgiving
No class
Week 15:
T 11.29
Th 12.1
Film: Eight Men Out
Film: Eight Men Out
Week 16:
T 12.6
Conclusion and course evaluations
Submit
completed and
revised
assignments