Professor Janet Jacobs
Office Hours Th
Grad Seminar in Sex and Gender Farrand Hall (first floor)
Thursday
Gender, Trauma and the Sociology of Memory
This course explores the relationship among trauma, gender and the construction of memory. Within this academic discourse, memory and it’s relationship to individual and mass trauma will be interrogated from multiple points of view, including psychological, social and cultural understandings. Using various forms of text (theoretical, narrative, and visual), the course will explore the use of empirical research, memoir, and film to interrogate the way in which memory impacts the lives of individuals, ethnic and racial minorities, and nation states. Because of the breadth of the subject matter, the course covers a broad range of material on trauma and memory in diverse political, social and familial settings.
Texts
Alexander, Cultural Trauma and Collective Memory
Anonymous, A Woman in
Caruth, Trauma: Explorations in Memory
Dash, Daughters of the Dust
Halbwachs, On Collective Memory
Hooks, Sisters of the Yam
Connerton, How Societies
Remember
La Capra, History and Memory After
Signs Volume 28
Stiglmayer, Mass Rape Against Women in Bosnia-Herzegovina
In addition to these texts, a number of assigned readings have also been placed on reserve in Norlin. The texts for the class have been ordered
through Word is Out Book Store on the
Topics and Assigned
I Memory, Trauma and the Development of
Psychoanalysis
September 7 Freud: “The Aetiology of Hysteria” (on reserve); Herman: chaps 1-2 (on
reserve); Caruth: Preface, pp. 3-11, 151-182, Brown, “Not Outside the Range”, Van
der Kolk, “The Intrusive Past”; Alexander, chap 2 (Smelser)
II Memory, Mass Trauma and Identity Formation
September 14 Alexander, Chaps 1, 3 (Eyerman); Fanon, chaps 4-5 (on reserve); Duran
And Duran, chaps 2-3, 5 (on reserve)
III Women, the Trauma of Slavery and the Development of the Self
September 21 hooks, chaps 1, 2, 5, 7; Dash, preface, pp. 1-67,
Representations of Slave Memory: “Daughters of the Dust”
IV How Societies Remember: Theories of Cultural and Collective Memory
September 28 Halbwachs, The Social Frameworks of Memory
October 5 Connerton, How Societies Remember
October 12 Olick, “Collective Memory” (on reserve); Schwartz, “The Social Context
of Commemoration (on reserve); Signs: “Feminism and Cultural Memory”
(Hirsch); “Feminist Memorializing and Cultural Countermemory” (Bold); Caruth:
“Notes on
Trauma and Community” (Erikson)
V Genocide, Terror and the Creation of Memory
1. The Holocaust in Cultural and Personal Memory
October 19 La Capra,chaps 1,2, 6; Alexander: chaps. 4 (Giesen) and 6 (Alexander)
October 26 Signs: Empathic Identification in Anne Michael’s Fugitive Pieces:
Masculinity
and Poetry After
Zertal, “From The People’s Hall to the Wailing Wall” (on reserve); Caruth: “Truth
and Testimony” (Laub); Jacobs, “Gender and Collective Memory” (on reserve)
Representations of Cultural and Personal Memory: “Night and Fog” ;
“The Women of Ravensbruck”
2.
November 2
3. Rape, War and Torture: Women and Remembrance
November 9 Anonymous, A Woman in Berlin (diary); Sancho, The ‘Comfort
Women’ System (on reserve)
November 16 Stiglmayer, Foreward, Prologue, pp.1-34, 54-81;
174-182;
Signs:“Crossing theRiver
November 30 Signs: “Legal Memories” (Campbell); Stiglmayer, 82-115; 183-230
Representations
of Mass Rape: “Rape A Crime of War”
VI Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century: 9/11 and the Making of Traumatic Memory
December 7 Signs: “Roundtable: Gender and September 11; Alexander: Epilogue
(Smelser)
Representations of Terrorism: The 9/11 International Film Project
VII Wrap Up and Concluding Thoughts
December 14
Course Requirements
The requirements for this course include class participation, leading class discussion, thought papers and a final research paper. Each student is required to lead one class discussion and all students are expected to participate in class discussions on a regular basis. To facilitate this process, a total of 7 thought papers are due throughout the semester. Six of these may be on any of the weekly readings that the student chooses throughout the semester. The thought paper is due on the day of the reading assignments and may not be turned in after class. The goal of the papers is to ensure that, in addition to the discussion leader, some number of you will have done a close reading of the text for that week. The last thought paper, required of all students, is due on the final day of class and will be used to bring your thoughts and ideas from the semester together. Finally, the bulk of your grade is based on a research paper that should be 12-15 pages in length. The following is the point distribution for the course:
Discussion Leader: 100 points
Thought Papers: 140 points (20 points each)
Class Participation: 60 points
Research Paper: 700 points
Total 1000 points
Research Paper
The majority of your grade is based on a research paper that should address some aspect of the study of memory that is of most interest to you. Students will be required to turn in a paper proposal and a tentative bibliography at various points throughout the semester. Students may also want to schedule at least one appointment with me, either during my office hours or at another time, to discuss their research ideas and or the progress of their paper. The fixed due dates for the proposal, bibliography and research paper are:
Paper proposal: October 26
Tentative Bibliography: November 17
Paper Due: December 8
Guidelines for Leading Class Discussion and Writing Thought Papers
The responsibility of the discussion leader is to guide the
students through a discussion of the material assigned for that day. Although it is expected that all students
will have read the material prior to class, it might be useful to summarize the
main points of the readings as you understand them and to pose questions and ideas
to critique, challenge and further interrogate the ideas and theoretical
concepts presented in the texts.
Similarly, the thought papers, which should be no more than 2
pages in length, should not summarize
the readings but be a response to the theories, ideas, and experiences that the varied texts discuss and express. Your thought paper should address what you think are the most significant and meaningful aspects of the readings and how they inform your understanding of how memory functions in society.
I look forward to an exciting and dynamic semester together.