This research seminar is organized around one important, broad theme: history and memory, and the question of identity which is entangled therein. Memory has become a critical and widely used means of examining the past, a "booming" subfield in the history profession and subject of at least one academic journal. By "memory," here we refer to the collective remembering or cultural memory of a specific culture rather than the memory of an individual (though some theorists like Maurice Halbwachs have argued that all personal memory is socially produced). Cultural memory is, as Marita Sturken has written, "a field of cultural negotiation through which different stories vie for a place in history." (Tangled Memories, p. 1).

In other words, cultural memory is not a passive reception of fixed memories but an active construction of the past, continuously subject to revision. It continually "figures and refigures the past as a method for present purposes, particularly within contemporary social and cultural struggles." (Introduction to T. Fujitani, Geoffrey White and Lisa Yoneyama, eds., Perilous Memories, p. 1) In short, memory involves complex political stakes and thus plays an important role in producing concepts of the "nation" and national identity. Sometimes, as in the case of Japan, where the dominant methods of remembering have nationalized memories of the war and produced a national victimology, dissonant memories are marginalized or silenced. Both memory and amnesia--as well as conscious attempts to "kill" memory or to produce forgetfulness--are part of the same process, each essential to the other's existence.

In many respects the past refuses to pass away. Indeed, the hunger for
memory--the demand to recover memory--has been particularly strong since at least the mid-1980s. This is due to a variety of factors, which will be discussed in the course readings, but we should underscore the importance of the awakening of ethnic identity (David Lowenthal's "cult of heritage") and the emergence of formerly marginalized groups who were silent or whose memories were silenced. The surfeit of memory is evidenced by the sheer number of personal accounts of Holocaust survivors, survivors of the Cambodian "Killing Fields", Japanese and American veterans of World War II, Korean "comfort women," and so forth. In one country, France, this preoccupation with the past--specifically its Vichy period--has been termed a veritable "obsession." (Henry Rousso, The Vichy Syndrome). Cultural memory, though, is produced in many forms--referred to by Pierra Nora as les lieux de memoire ("sites" or "environments" of memory)--such as in memorials, monuments, museums, commemorations, literature, film, public art, photography, and other types of artifacts, not to mention in historical writing in the academy. These, too, have multiplied in number in the past couple of decades.

The seminar, and your research papers, should explore the relationship- the tension--between memory and history. This is an active process that moves both from memory to history as well as from history to memory. According to Marita Sturken, "whereas the memories of survivors can become part of the texts of history, historical narratives can often reshape personal memories." (Marita Sturken, "Absent Images of Memory: Remembering and Reenacting the Japanese Internment," in T. Fujitani, Perilous Memories). For example, Hollywood narrative film images can reenact and subsume documentary images, and in turn may subsume personal memories and images.

Required Textbooks:
Hue-Tam Ho Tai, The Country of Memory. Remaking the Past in Late Socialist Vietnam (2001)
Sanford Levinson, Written in Stone. Public Monuments in Changing Societies (1998).
Sarah Farmer, Martyred Village. Commemorating the 1944 Massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane (1999).
Henry Rousso. The Vichy Syndrome. History and Memory in France Since 1944 (1991).

Research Paper
Each student must write one research paper. This paper: 1) is to be 22-25, double-spaced, pages (12-pt. font, 1-inch margins) in length, text only; 2) demonstrate an understanding of some of the basic theoretical literature on memory and history; 3) make significant usage of primary documentation; 4) follow the department guidelines for writing historical papers, available on the History Department Website (failure to do so will result in a lower grade); 5) as this is a course in world history, it is important that the paper have a significant non-American perspective, even in the case of those research efforts involving an Asian-American theme.

Possible topics for your research papers might deal with a particular site of memory, including those where there was massive loss of life, which Edward Linenthal refers to as "sacred ground" (e.g., Oradour-sur-Glane, Hiroshima, Pearl Harbor); remembrance of an historical "event" (e.g. The Rape of Nanking, WWI); museums; monuments (e.g. the Korean War Memorial or the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.); commemorations (such as the events planned and cancelled for the 50th anniversary of WWII); the changing views of important historical persons, the political uses of that memory and their cultural significance (e.g. Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, Marshal Petain); and, historical textbooks. Due to other recent course offerings on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust I will ask that students not select paper topics related to them.

Grading:
Writing a substantial research paper involves a process. Each step of that process is important and will be evaluated as follows:

Discussion of assigned readings in seminar, 15%
Prospectus/outline and Bibliography, 5%
Two peer reviews, 15%
Rough draft, 25%
Final paper, 30%
Oral presentation of paper, 10%

Blackboard & You:
This course will utilize Blackboard software, which provides a convenient platform for communication amongst class members as well as between students and the professor. You will be required to submit much of your written work electronically through the Electronic Drop Box function. A hard copy of the rough draft and final paper should also be submitted. A permanent electronic record of your final papers will be maintained in the History Department. Additionally, some required readings will be available through the "Course Documents" function. These must be downloaded using Adobe Acrobat. Please note that most of the articles have been divided into several files to make downloading easier.

Schedule of Meetings, Assigned Readings and other Imp't Dates:

Meeting #1 (1/28): Course Introduction

Meeting #2 (1/30)
Alon Confino, "Collective Memory and Cultural History: Problems of Method," American Historical Review 103, 5(Dec. 1997), pp. 1386 1404.
Henry Rousso, The Vichy Syndrome, pp. 1-59.

Additional Assignment:
Make sure that you are enrolled in Blackboard for this course. Post a one-paragraph summary of the Confino article on the course Discussion Board by 1/29 (by 10 pm, please).

Meeting #3 (2/4)
Pierre Nora, "Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Memoire," Representations 26 (Spring 1989), 7-24.
Henry Rousso, The Vichy Syndrome, pp. 60-167, 219-71.

Additional Assignment:
Post to the Discussion Board a one-paragraph summary of the Nora article by 2/3 (10 pm)

Meeting #4 (2/11)
Sarah Farmer, Martyred Village, pp. 1-170, 207-213.

Meeting #5 (2/18)
Sanford Levinson, Written in Stone. Public Monuments in Changing Societies (entire).

Meeting #6 (2/20)
Marita Sturken, "Absent Images of Memory: Remembering and Reenacting the Japanese Internment." In T. Fujitani, ed., Perilous Memories, pp. 34-48.
In Class Video: "History and Memory" by Rea Tajiri, director and writer (1991), 30 min.

Meeting #7 (2/25)
Nicholas D. Kristof, "The Problem of Memory," Foreign Affairs 77, 6 (Nov./Dec. 1998), 37-49.
"Japan Will Not Bow to Its Neighbors" (from CNN.com/World)
Ishihara Masaie, "Memories of War and Okinawa," in T. Fujitani, Perilous Memories 87-106.
***Paper topics due (submit via Electronic Drop Box)***

Meeting #8 (2/27)
Hue-Tam Ho Tai, The Country of Memory. Remaking the Past in Late Socialist Vietnam, pp. 1-16, 46-101, 167-222.

2/26 Individual Sessions with professor to discuss paper topics. 2/28 Please sign up for time slot ahead of time.

#9 (3/4) Presentation of Paper Topics.
Small groups for peer review will be selected. Instructions for the peer review will be posted on Blackboard''s Announcements.

#10 (4/15) Semi-Final Drafts due
Bring three extra copies, please, one for each of your peer reviewers, one for the professor.

4/22 Peer Reviews due
You should send a copy electronically to each of your peers whose paper you reviewed and another to the Drop Box.

#11-#15 Oral presentations
4/29, 5/1
5/6, 5/8
5/13

5/13 Final Papers due

Select Bibliography

I. General Theoretical Treatments
Barthal, Diane. Historic Preservation: Collective Memory and Historical Identity (1996).
Bartran, G., et al, eds. Reconstructing the Past. Representations of the Fascist Era in Post-War European Culture (1996).
"Between Memory and History," Special issue of History and Anthropology 2 (Oct. 1986).
Butler, Thomas, ed. Memory: History, Culture and the Mind (1989).
Confino, Alon. "Collective Memory and Cultural History: Problems of Method," American Historical Review (Dec. 1987).
Connerton, Paul. How Societies Remember (1989)
Frisch, Michael H. "The Memory of History." In Susan Porter Benson, Stephen Brier, and Roy Rosenzweig, eds., Presenting the Past. Essays on History and the Public (1986), 5-17.
Gillis, John R., ed. Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity (1994).
Halbwachs, Maurice. On Collective Memory. Translated/edited by Francis J. Ditlert, Jr. and Vida Yazdi Ditter [1952] (1992).
Hartmann, Geoffrey. The Shapes of Memory (1993)
Hilberg, Raul. The Politics of Memory (1996)
History and Memory. Studies in the Representation of the Past (journal).
Hutton, Patrick. History as an Art of Memory (1993).
Johnson, George. In the Palaces of Memory: How We Build the Worlds inside Our Heads (1991).
Le Goff, Jacques. History and Memory (1992)
Lowenthal, David. The Past is a Foreign Country (1985).
_____. The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History (1998).
Nora, Pierre. Les Lieux de Memoire. An English translation (Realms of Memory) has been published, vols. 1-3 by Columbia University Press, vols. 4-8 by the University of Chicago Press.
Rendall, Steven and Claman, Elizabeth, trans. History and Memory (1992).
Wilkinson, James D. "Remembering World War II: The Perspective of the Losers," American Scholar (Summer 1985).

2. France
Conan, Eric and Rousso, Henry. Vichy. An Ever-Present Past (1998).
Gildea, Robert. The Past in French History (1994).
Golsan, Richard J., ed., Memory, the Holocaust, and French Justice: The Bousquet and Touvier Affairs (1996)
Munholland, Kim. "Wartime France: Remembering Vichy," French Historical Studies 18, 3 (Spring 1994).
Sherman, Daniel. "Objects of Memory: History and Narrative in French War Museums," French Historical Studies 19 (Spring 1995), pp. 49-74.
"Symposium on Mitterand's Past." French Politics and Society 13, 1 (1995).
"A Time to Remember," Special issue of Contemporary French Civilization 19, 2 (1995).
"The Eye of Vichy," videotape of Vichy newsreels, available at UMBC Library's Media desk.

3. Japan, China and Korea
Chang, Iris. The Rape of Nanking.
Chungmoo Choi. "The Discourse of Decolonization and Popular Memory: South Korea," positions 1, 1 (Spring 1993), 77-102.
Cook, Haruko Taya and Cook, Theodore, eds. Japan at War. An Oral History.
Field, Norma. "War and Apology: Japan, Asia, the Fiftieth, and After," positions 5, 1 (Spring 1997), 1-49.
Fogel, Joshua, ed., The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography (2000).
Fujitani, T. Splendid Monarchy: Power and Pagentry in Modern Japan (1996).
_____, White, Geoffrey, and Yoneyama, Lisa, eds. Perilous Memories. The Asia-Pacific War(s) (2001). As the title indicates, this volume deals with the entire Pacific region (e.g. Okinawa, China, Singapore, Guam, etc., not just Japan.
Gibney, Frank. Senso. The Japanese Remember the Pacific War.
Gerrit W. Gong,ed. Remembering and forgetting : the legacy of war and peace in East Asia (2001).
Heine, Laura and Selden, Mark, ed. Living with the Bomb. American and Japanese Cultural Conflicts in the Nuclear Age (1997)
Hogan, Michael J., ed. Hiroshima in American Memory.
Igarashi, Yoshikawa. Bodies of Memory. Narratives of War in Postwar Japanese Culture, 1945-1970 (2000).
Kim, Hyun Sook. "History and Memory: The 'Comfort Women' Controversy," Positions 5, 1 (1997), 73-106.
Pearlman, Michael. Imagined Memory and the Place of Hiroshima (1988).
Stetz, Margaret and Oh, Bonnie B.C., ed. Legacies of the Comfort Women of World War II (2001).
Unger, Jonathan. Using the Past to Serve the Present: Historiography and Politics in Contemporary China (1993).
Yoneyama, Lisa. Hiroshima Traces. Time, Space and the Dialectics of Memory (1999).

4. Other
Bodnar, John. Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century (1992).
Boyarin, Jonathan. Storm from Paradise: The Politics of Jewish Memory (1992).
Fernandez, Paloma Aguilar. Memory and Amnesia: the role of the Spanish Civil War in the Transition to Democracy (2002).
Fussell, Paul. The Great War and Modern Memory (1975).
History and Memory 7 (Spring/Summer 1995): "Special Issue on Israeli Historiography Revisited."
Kammen, Michael. The Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture (1991).
Linenthal, Edward. Sacred Ground. Americans and their Battlefields .
Marling, Karal Ann and Wetenhall, John. Iwo Jima: Monuments, Memories, and the American Hero (1991).
McBride, Ian. History and Memory in Modern Ireland (2001).
Roeder, George H, Jr. The Censored War: American Visual Experience during World War II (1993).
Sturken, Marita. Tangled Memories. The Vietnam War, the AIDS Epidemic, and the Politics of Remembering (1997)
Tumarkin, Nina. The Living and the Dead. The Rise and Fall of the Cult of World War II in Russia (1994).
Turim, Maureen. Flashbacks in Film: Memory and History (1989).
Wistrich, Robert and Ohana, David, eds., The Shaping of Israeli Identity: Myth, Memory and Trauma (1995).
Young, James E. The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning (1993).
_____. The Art of Memory: Holocaust Memorials in History (1994).
Zerubavel, Yael. Recovered Roots: Collective Memory and the Making of Israeli National Tradition (1995).