Module Information
Module Identifier
GG37920
Module Title
GEOGRAPHIES OF MEMORY
Academic Year
2008/2009
Co-ordinator
Semester
Semester 1
Course Delivery
| Delivery Type | Delivery length / details |
|---|---|
| Lecture | 10 x 2 hour lectures which involves group work and discussion |
Assessment
| Assessment Type | Assessment length / details | Proportion |
|---|---|---|
| Semester Assessment | ESSAY One coursework essay of up to 3,000 words. | 50% |
| Semester Exam | 2 Hours EXAMINATION Seen written examination. | 50% |
| Supplementary Assessment | RESUBMISSION Resit due to aggregate failure or non-completion of part of the assessment requires re-examination of each of the main components if marks of <40% in both were obtained, or re-examination or re-submission of the failed component (examination or assignment) to obtain a maximum mark of 40% for the module. A new exam paper and/or essay assignment will be set as appropriate. | 50% |
| Supplementary Exam | RESIT Resit on condoned (medical) grounds arising from non-completion of examination or coursework involves the completion of the missing component(s) for the full range of marks on dates set in the Supplementary Examination period. | 50% |
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this module students should be able to:
- Demonstrate a critical appreciation of the relationships between history, memory, and place, and in particular the power relations and identity narratives inscribed in the historical landscape.
- Critically discuss the complexities of our situated encounters with the past and evaluate a range of theoretical and applied approaches to the production of the historical landscape.
- Demonstrate an ability to critically interrogate the taken-for-granted, common-sense meanings and messages inscribed into and drawn from particular sites of memory.
- Demonstrate competencies in reading, writing, the analysis of texts and the historical landscape as well as practice in independent study.
Content
- Approaching memory, space and time (introduction to key debates)
- Memory and the Self: geographical perspectives on memory and subjectivity.
- Collaborative Memories: public memories, social memories, collective reminiscence, commemoration and performance.
- The politics of memory: spatializing history/spatializing identity
- Economies of memory: the heritage industry and past as commodity.
- Contesting Memories I: silence, forgetting, dissonant pasts, counter-memories and the politics of difference.
- Contesting Memories II: therapeutic landscapes, trauma, reconciliation and healing
- Materializing Memory: objects and technologies of remembrance
- Environmental Memories: contesting natures in the construction of national parks
- Haunting memories: ghosts, specters and places of enchantment
Brief description
This module offers students an opportunity to explore a broad spectrum of theoretical and applied debates that surround studies of memory and its links with the geographical. Drawing on a wide range of international examples, it examines the sites, technologies, politics and processes associated with various preservation and commemoration endeavours. Specifically, the ways in which groups and individuals struggle to gain authority to selectively represent and narrate their pasts will be discussed throughout alongside a concern with the practices of institutions in their efforts to reconcile problematic social memories. Case studies explore themes central to cultural geography including identity, subjectivity, embodiment, belonging, materiality, performance, scale, and the commodification of the past. The module develops substantive knowledge of topics introduced to students in The Geographies of Late Capitalism (GG25610), The Americas (GG26010) and Social and Cultural Geographies (GG25810). It also provides students with a range of critical approaches, concepts, vocabularies and ways-of-thinking about the "presentation of the past", the politics of heritage and the spatiality of memory. Throughout the module, student skills in analysis, written and oral communication will be developed through an engagement with both textual material and reflexive considerations of their own encounters with sites of memory.
Module Skills
| Skills Type | Skills details |
|---|---|
| Application of Number | Not developed through this module |
| Communication | Written communication skills will be developed and assessed through the examination as well as through the assessed essay. Oral communication skills will also be developed through group discussion in lectures. |
| Improving own Learning and Performance | Students should implicitly develop their skills in this area through the organization of free-time reading and exam and essay preparation. Not explicitly developed through the module. |
| Information Technology | Students will be directed to material from the internet that is relevant to lecture topics. They will also have the opportunity to develop IT skills by using the internet as a source for primary and secondary materials in preparation for the assessed essay. |
| Personal Development and Career planning | Not explicitly developed through the module. The content of lectures and reading may indirectly encourage students to reflect on their own beliefs and views and may identify potential career paths for some. |
| Problem solving | Problem solving will be indirectly addressed through some lecture content, essay assignments and class-based discussions but will not be explicitly developed in the module. |
| Research skills | Students will be encouraged to develop independent research skills through collating material from library and internet sources, and through the analysis of primary sources. The opportunity that the module offers for practicing these skills will be especially useful for students wishing to conduct research or study at postgraduate level. Research skills will be assessed by means of the coursework essay. |
| Subject Specific Skills | The module will enable students to practice subject-specific skills which they have developed in years one and two, including techniques for analyzing historical and cultural texts. Students will develop their analytical skills through class-based discussions and in their assessed essay and examination. |
| Team work | Students will have the opportunity to develop team-work skills through group-based exercises and discussion in lectures. |
Reading List
Recommended TextAntze, P. and Lambeck, M. (eds) (1996) Tense Past: Cultural Essays in Trauma and Memory Routledge, London Primo search Casey, E (1987) Remembering: a phenomenological study Indiana UP Primo search Connerton, P. (1989) How Societies Remember Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Primo search Coser, L.A.. (1992) Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory University of Chicago Press, London Primo search Foote, K. (1997) Shadowed Ground: America¿s landscape of violence and tragedy University of Texas Press, Austin Primo search Foucault, M. (1984) Language, Counter memory, practice: selected essays and interviews by Michel Foucault (ed) D. F. Bouchard Cornell University Press, Ithaca Primo search Gillis J. R. (ed) (1994) Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity Princeton, New Jersey Primo search Graham, R, Tunbridge J. E and Ashworth, G. (1996) Dissonant Heritage: the management of the past as a resource in conflict John Wiley and Sons Ltd, London. Primo search Hayden, D (1997) The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History The M.I.T. Press: Boston Primo search Hewison, R (1987) The Heritage Industry Methuen, London Primo search Hodgkin, K and Radstone, S (2003) Contested Pasts: The Politics of Memory Routledge, London Primo search Loewen, J. (1999) Lies Across America: What our historic Sites get wrong Simon and Schuster, London Primo search Lowenthal, D (1996) The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History The Free Press: New York Primo search Lynch, K. (1976) What Time is this Place The M.I.T Press: Cambridge MA. Primo search Middleton D and D. Edwardsm (eds) (1990) Collective Remembering Sage, London Primo search Radstone, S and Hodgkin, K (ed) (2003) Regimes of Memory Routledge, London Primo search Ricoeur, P (2004) Memory, History, Forgetting Chicago U.P. Primo search Sturken, M (1997) Tangled Memories: the Vietnam War, the AIDS epidemic, and the politics of remembering University of North Carolina Press: Berkeley Primo search Tilden, F. (1997) Interpreting our Heritage 3rd Edition University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill Primo search Till, K (2005) The New Berlin Minnesota University Press, Minneapolis Primo search Trouillot, M (1997) Silencing the Past: Power & the Production of History Beacon, Boston Primo search Walsh, K (1992) The Representation of the Past: Museums and Heritage in the post-modern world. Routledge, London Primo search Zerubavel, E (2003) Time Maps: Collective Memory and the Social Shape of the Past. Chicago U.P. Primo search Edensor, T. (1997) Environment and Planning D: Society and Space National Identity and the Politics of Memory: Remembering Bruce and Wallace in symbolic space 15 vol. 15, pp. 175-194 Primo search Harvey, D. (1979) Annals of the Association of American Geographers. Monument and Myth: The Building of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart 69(3) Primo search Hoelscher, S and Alderman, D (2004) Social and Cultural Geography Memory and Place: Geographies of a Critical Relationship. 5 (3) Primo search
Notes
This module is at CQFW Level 6