PY3091 Memory, Testimony and the Shoah
CM3037, CM5037 Museum as Medium
Brian Schiff & Charles Talcott
Cost: €550 (includes round-trip air transportation, on-site transportation, entrance fees, guided visits, professors’ trip costs, and VAT)
This trip focuses on the sites of social memory, with particular attention to the public display and representation of traumatic events within museums, memorials and monuments. Address issues of social construction and how the processes of memorialization and “museum-ification” following mass atrocity create possible sites of restorative justice and collective witnessing. The Shoah serves as the point of reflection on how memory is materialized and put into social practice. We also investigate “history tourism” while exploring the meaning and the “lived experience” offered by historical sites and museums for visitors. We examine Krakow’s rich and complex Jewish and Catholic religious history and cultural heritage while studying the impacts that popular media representations, such as Steven Spielberg’s film Schindler’s List, have had within the cityscape of Krakow. How is history told and displayed and to what end? Why are sites of destruction increasingly popular tourist destinations? What does it mean to “bear witness” today?
Last day to register/cancel: January 24
Late cancelation fee: €550
Payment for study trips must be made no later than February 1 for the Spring 2016 semester. Any concerns in this regard should be addressed to the Cultural Program & Student Accounting Services.