Syllabus - Mayterm 2014
From Berlin to Belfast: Reconciling Memory
"Reconciliation is a journey, an encounter, and a place. God calls us to set out on this journey.
It is a journey through conflict, marked by places where we see the face of God, the face of the enemy,
and the face of our own self." – John Paul Lederach
GE:Thinking Historically: Reconciling Memory (Art/Com 195)
Com:Conflict & Reconciliation (Com 133)
Professors:Lisa DeBoer,
Deborah Dunn,
Introduction:
The purpose of this program is twofold: 1) to broaden and deepen your understanding of the power of symbols – from the discursive to the architectural – in creating, perpetuating, reconciling, and remembering conflict; and 2) to explore the intersections among memory, identity, and history as societies attempt to move beyond conflict into peaceful coexistence. While it is the nature of treaties, settlements, and policies to look toward the future, they require a new start, which implies some kind of release from the past. How does the “release” happen? Is it through Gladstone’s “blessed act of oblivion” or through remembering and reckoning with the past? Key to thinking broadly and deeply on these themes, students will explore and live into two cases: Post-war and post-wall Germany (including Dresden and Berlin) and post-Good Friday Agreement Northern Ireland.
The course is about conflict, reconciliation, and memory, but to begin to understand these on a national, group, or even an interpersonal level you must also see the connections among context, history, institutions, and human symbolic activity. We will help you make these connections via readings, lectures, discussions, site visits, testimonies, and reflection. These are key aspects of the course, as the art forms, narratives, and sites of public memory are visible manifestations of changing beliefs, fears, desires, and ideologies. And understanding conflict entails exploring both how conflicts define cultures and how cultures symbolically construct and represent conflicts.
As you visit, study, engage in close readings of, and learn to appreciate the various artistic expressions of conflict, peace, and memory over the centuries and across cultures, here are some questions you might keep in mind: How do people memorialize war? Peace? Violence? Sacrifice? How are scapegoats portrayed artistically and narratively? How do scapegoats both create recipes for genocide and possibilities for peace? How do we “remember rightly” as Miroslav Volf asks? When we create memorials or stories of our pasts, what are we remembering, and what are we forgetting? Who decides, ultimately, which stories are truthful, and which accounts will be publicly enshrined? From families to nations, we weave our sense of ourselves into stories and images and spaces that tell us who we are and what has happened to us as well as who we are not and who caused us pain.
“The past is not dead and gone; it isn’t even past.” – William Faulkner
Course Objectives:
Students will appreciate the challenges and rewards of analyzing conflict and memory within specific historical contexts[ld1], including the following specific topics and cases: The Cold War & East/West Germany; Remembering WWII allied and axis bombings through the lenses of Dresden and Coventry; and the Irish War for Independence and Lingering Memories in Northern Ireland.
Students will understand and articulate principles & theories of conflict, conflict resolution, dialogue, and reconciliation.
Students will appreciate the challenges and rewards of analyzing a range of textual and symbolic primary sources[ld2] with respect to how interpretation intersects with conflict, memory and reconciliation.
Students will deepen their awareness of how the past continues to shape the present, connecting their learning to their own responsibilities as Christians [ld3]in the church and in the world.
Students will gain exposure to both ancient and modern spiritual disciplines
Students will gain practice in living and traveling with diverse others in close quarters
On Assignments, Course Structure, Grades & Grading:
Student learning in this course will occur through two main approaches: Meetings and Reflective experiences. Meetings invite you to encounter life, Others, God, and yourselves. True meetings take place in walking the streets, worshiping in unfamiliar places and spaces, and engaging with people. Reflective experiences, shaped by lectures, discussions, studies, and site visits invite you to make sense of what you are learning.
Meetings: Site Visits, Lectures and Readings:
Site visits and exercises ask you to wrestle with how a physical space, work of art, or a public monument gives a tangible, contextually specific shape to the core themes of war, peace, memory, and narratives of identity; visits will also develop your knowledge of styles and techniques, and provide practice using critical vocabulary terms.
Interactions with guest lecturers, story tellers, and eye witnesses should help you develop your abilities to hear the stories of others, compare eyewitness accounts with historical record and shared narratives of events and meanings, and develop your moral imaginations both in imagining a past and in seeing a path toward peace.
Close readings and observations as well as lectures and class discussions are designed to give frameworks helpful for understanding with specificity and sensitivity the varied and conflicting narratives and points of view you will encounter; exams help you clarify and remember the knowledge you’ve gained.
Reflective Experiences: Journal entries, Reflective Essays and Exams
Journal keeping provides a space for personal reflective thought. Daily entries might note where we went and what we did, what struck you, what troubled or inspired you, and why. Though some entries—particularly at the beginning of the course—might simply report the day’s activities, others—especially those toward the end of the course—will begin the work of questioning, analyzing, synthesizing and personalizing what we are learning.
Formal reflective essays invite you to integrate your new-found knowledge (acquired through visits, testimonies, readings, lectures, and studying for exams) into a meaningful and coherent sensibility, linked to your own identity as a contemporary Christian. They must focus on two “primary sources,” providing a thoughtful analysis of each, with comparison, analysis, and reflection.
In journal entries, formal reflective essays, in class discussion, and for exams, analysis requires you to use the skills and vocabularies you are learning to discuss and evaluate the ways in which spaces, artifacts, monuments and texts give shape to our core themes.
Exams may be oral or written, essay-intensive, or more “quiz-like.” Some will be announced; some will be surprises; and some may not be recognized until they’re over.
Participation, Citizenship & Firesides
You are asked to actively participate in class discussions by being present, by asking good questions, by freely contributing when appropriate, and by being fully prepared (via readings or reflective exercises). You are expected to be good citizens by caring for each other, taking initiative to get baggage loaded, being on-time, and generally being the best group member you can be. You are also required to be hospitable at all times to all of our speakers, guides, and hosts by paying attention, dressing appropriately, and being mindful. Firesides invite you to create and narrate your own experiences by entertaining your fellow travelers with original works of poetry, creative monologues, short stories, music, and devotions.
Exams & Quizzes30%
Reflective Essays / Journal Entries40%
Fireside Contributions / Dialogues15%
Citizenship / Helpfulness15%
Required Texts (in whole or in part):
Stephanie Barron, Art of Two Germanys/Cold War Culture
Greg Dickinson, Carole Blair, and Brian Ott, Places of Public Memory: The Rhetoric of Museums and Memorials
Ireland Faith & Politics Group, Remembrance & Forgetting: Building a Future in Northern Ireland
John Paul Lederach, Journey Toward Reconciliation
Marc Mulholland, Northern Ireland: A Very Short Introduction
Dietrich Orlow, A History of Modern Germany, 1871 to the Present.
John Rodden, Walls that Remain: Eastern and Western Germans since Reunification
Donald Shriver,Political Ethics as Moral Memory (in An Ethic for Enemies)
Miroslav Volf, Exclusion & Embrace
Additional Readings Available On-Line
Academic Integrity:
The relationship between students and faculty at Westmont is one of our best features and is informed by our common commitment to living ethically in community. This relationship assumes and requires an atmosphere of mutual trust and collaboration. Thus, how we learn (and teach) is every bit as important as what we learn (and teach). We believe that our mission, to serve “God’s kingdom by cultivating thoughtful scholars, grateful servants and faithful leaders for global engagement with the academy, church and world” is best accomplished in community, where
our social and intellectual growth needs freedom for exploration complemented by a commitment to good will and graciousness. Personal discipline is also required. For example, civility is basic to all types of community, while academic honesty and respect for education are fundamental to an instructional environment. Learning depends on truth-centered attitudes. It thrives in an atmosphere of discriminating openness to ideas, a condition that is characterized by a measure of modesty toward one's own views, the desire to affirm the true, and the courage to examine the unfamiliar. As convictions are expressed, one enters into the ‘great conversation’ of collegiate life, a task best approached with a willingness to confront and be confronted with sound thinking. (Westmont Community Life Statement)
Accordingly, we are committed to the highest standards of ethical conduct and academic excellence. Make academic integrity the guiding principle for all that you do, from taking exams and making presentations to writing term papers and blogs. You violate the principle of academic integrity when:
You cheat on an exam
You copy a classmate’s work or allow your classmate to copy your work.
You fail to properly assign authorship to a paper, a document, an idea, or a turn of phrase, whether intentionally or unintentionally
You submit the same work for two different courses without prior permission from your professors
You seek or obtain help on any work that calls for independent work (including take home exams, homework, and problems to be solved)
You purchase documents or papers and then present them as your own
Should you violate the principle of academic integrity, you will fail the assignment and the course. See the student handbook for the full college policy.
Student Needs:
If you have special circumstances (e.g. a learning disability, academic or athletic team schedule) that I should be aware of, please inform me before the second week. Arrangements to accommodate your need must be made well in advance of any exams or assignments. If you have been diagnosed with a disability (learning, physical, or psychological) I strongly encourage you to contact the disability services office as soon as possible to discuss strategies for success in college and discuss appropriate and necessary accommodations for this course. While formal accommodations are granted only to students with verified disabilities, any student may request advice on being tested for a disability.
Itinerary
Week One: Stating the Problem
Monday (on campus)9-12: A Primer on 20th C. German History I
Readings from Orlow, Rodden
1-3: How to Read a Primary SourceI
--1950 Foreign Service Association Report: Germany Promise and Perils
--1690-1760 Excerpts from Laws in Ireland for the Suppression of Popery (more
commonly known as The Penal Laws)
6-8: A Primer on 20th c. German History II
Readings from Orlow, Roddon,
Tuesday (on campus) 9-12: A Primer on Northern Ireland I
Readings Mulholland, from the IF&PG
1-3: How to Read a Primary Source II
Readings from Barron, Dickinson et al.
--The Siegesseula & Brandenburg Gate
--Stormont and the Monument to Edward, Lord Carson
6-8 History, Memory and Identity I
Introducing Volf’s Exclusion and Embrace
Wednesday (on campus) 9-12: A Primer on Northern Ireland II
Readings from Mulholland, from the IF&PG
1-3: History, Memory and Identity II
Introducing Lederach’s Journey Toward Reconciliation
Thursday (on campus)9-12: History, Memory & Identity III
Shriver, “Political Ethics as Moral Memory”
1-2: Exam #1
FridayTravel Day
SaturdayTravel Day
Travel—General Outline of Itinerary
(details may change)
Week Two: Germany (specific readings tbd)
SundayBerlin - Orientation & Walking Tour
MondayBerlin - Museum Island and German identity
Tuesday Berlin - Cold War geographies
WednesdayBerlin - War memorials East & West
ThursdayBerlin - Jewish memorials / Jewish Museums Friday
SaturdayOranienburg - Sachsenhausen as a contested denkmahl
Travel to Dresden
Week Three: Germany / Travel to Ireland
SundayDresden – Worship at the Frauenkirche
MondayBerlin: Normannenstrasse
TuesdayExam #2
WednesdayTravel to Belfast via Air
Walking Tour of City Centre
ThursdayBelfast – Healing Through Remembering
FridayBelfast – Shankill & Loyalist Areas
SaturdayBelfast – West Belfast & Falls Road & Republican Areas
Week Four: Northern Ireland
SundayBelfast – Worship & Afternoon Off
MondayBelfast – Stormont / Political Solutions
TuesdayBelfast – Exam #3
WednesdayCorrymeela Reconciliation Centre
ThursdayCorrymeela Reconciliation Centre
FridayCauseway Coast & Ancient Ulster History thru Flight of the Earls
SaturdayDerry/Londonderry –Bogside Artists, Bloody Sunday Centre
Week Five: Northern Ireland / Republic of Ireland
SundayDerry/Londonderry – City Walls, Worship, St. Colum Cille
MondayRostrevor – Reflection
TuesdayRostrevor – Benedictine Monastery
WednesdayRostrevor – Processing; Posing Questions; Addressing Confusions
ThursdayDublin – Viking / English / Irish History (also Book of Kells)
FridayDublin – Kilmainham Gaol & Republican Landmarks
SaturdayTravel from Dublin to Coventry
Week Six: Republic of Ireland/England
SundayWorship at Coventry Cathedral
MondayTravel to London
TuesdayLondon – Representations of WWII, Cold War, Irish Independence
WednesdayExam #3
1
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From Berlin to Belfast: Reconciling Memory
[ld1]Items highlighted in blue point to the contextually specific nature of historical interpretation. (SLO #2)
[ld2]Items highlighted in red constitute the primary sources we’ll be encountering. (SLO #1)
[ld3]Items in green highlight our goal of fostering maturity in historical understanding. (SLO #3)