Memory, Heritage and the City: Postsocialist and Postcolonial Perspectives 3500-FAKANG-UM
This course deals with the various ways that memory and heritage are situated in urban spaces where numerous communities coexist, each inscribing its social memory and identity in the places it inhabits, interacts, or simply transits. The collective memory of each community has its spatial boundaries, but it often has temporal boundaries too. Political transformation, social upheaval, and economic change might dramatically revise the established narratives of the past and delegitimize certain mnemonic representations and practices, alongside tangible and intangible heritage. The transformation of social memory and heritage is particularly stark in the aftermath of regime change, when much of what has previously constituted everyday experience is now called into question.
This course will start with a general discussion of memory, heritage, and the city, focusing specifically on dominant and marginal identities with their voices and narratives, cultural and social memories, institutionalized heritage, contested heritage, and the city as a fluid container of all these facets of collective life. Then, our focus will shift to two dimensions that highlight the transformation of memory, heritage, and the city after radical change – the post-colonial and the post-socialist frameworks of remembrance. These two frameworks will be analyzed in two blocks of four sessions each, where urban space, architecture, monuments, and museums will set the frames of our discussions.
This is a co-teaching course of Prof. Joanna Wawrzyniak and Dr. Elitza Stanoeva who is currently ERA Fellow at the UW’s Faculty of Sociology working on her project CONDEM (“Conservation and demolition of architectural heritage in times of transformation: politics of memory vs. politics of professionalization”) funded by the European Union.
The course is recommended but not limited to Erasmus students and Sociology students. Students from other departments are welcome if student limit permits.
For each class you will do short readings (ca 20-30 pages) accompanied by some audio and visual sources, including podcast, movies, and others. You are expected to participate in class discussions. Additionally, you will work on a small project of your own choice: you will pick up a contested postsocialist or postcolonial heritage site; summarize the main debates around this site; and propose your own solutions on what to do with the site. You will work either individually or in a small team, depending on your preferences, and you will summarize your project in a PPT presentation and in the short paper of ca 2000 words.
Topics:
1. Introduction to the course
2. Cultural memory; notions of heritage, institutionalized heritage and contested heritage; tangible and intangible heritage
3. The city as a space of memory
4. Enactments of memory in the city: monuments and commemorations
5. Post-socialist, post-empire, post-colonial processes of transformation – the “post” experience
6. Post-socialism: revision of social memory and remaking the cities
7. Post-socialism and its impact on architecture
8. Post-socialism and the fate of monuments
9. Post-socialism and its representations in museums
10. Post-colonialism: revision of social memory and remaking the cities
11. Post-colonialism and its impact on architecture
12. Post-colonialism and the fate of monuments
13. Post-colonialism and its representations in museums
14. After the monument and the afterlife of monuments: urban voids and memorial substitutes
Rodzaj przedmiotu
Tryb prowadzenia
Założenia (opisowo)
Koordynatorzy przedmiotu
Efekty kształcenia
K_W01 You will learn several key concepts of memory studies, heritage studies, and postcolonial studies;
K_W03 You will raise your awareness of ongoing theoretical and methodological debates in critical sociology and critical heritage studies;
K_W16 You will improve your knowledge in postcolonial studies;
K_W27 You will improve your knowledge about postsocialist and postcolonial transformations;
K_U04 You will improve your skills of critical selection of information for academic work, using various sources in your native language and in English;
K_U16 You will improve your skills of interpretating of the role of culture in the social life;
K_U19 You will improve your skills of presenting in English;
K_K01 You will improve your skills of team work;
K_K07 You will improve your skills of justification of the choice of social data for analysis.
Kryteria oceniania
In-class participation (50%), presentation and final paper of 2000 words on the project of your own choice (50%)
Literatura
Please note that the reading list might change depending on the interests of participants of the course:
Core readings: Recommended literature:
Ariese C., L. Pozzi & J. Wawrzyniak, Curating Colonial Heritage in Amsterdam, Warsaw and Shanghai’s Museums: No Single Road to Decolonization, w: Decolonizing Colonial Heritage. New Agendas, Actors and Practices in and beyond Europe, red. Britta Timm Knudsen, John Oldfield, Elizabeth Buettner, Elvan Zabunyan, Routledge, forthcoming 2022.
Ariese C., M. Wróblewska, Practicing Decoloniality in Museums: A Guide with Global Examples, University of Amsterdam Press, forthcoming 2021 (selected pages)l
Bukowiecki, Ł., J. Wawrzyniak, & M. Wróblewska (2020). Duality of Decolonizing: Artists’ Memory Activism in Warsaw. Heritage & Society, 13(1–2), 32–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/2159032X.2021.1898076
Czaplicka, J., N. Gelazis and B. A. Ruble, eds. (2009) Cities after the Fall of Communism: Reshaping Cultural Landscapes and European Identity. Johns Hopkins Uni Press [selected pages]
Dimitrova, K. (2016) Appropriation of Urban Space as Resistance: The Soviet Army Monument in Sofia. Critique & Humanism, 46
Dimova, R. (2019) Elusive Centres of a Balkan City: Skopje between Undesirable and Reluctant Heritage. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 25:9, 958-973, DOI: 10.1080/13527258.2018.1482473
Goodbye Lenin (film 2003)
Grama, E. (2019) Socialist Heritage: The Politics of Past and Place in Romania. Indiana University Press [selected pages]
Lehrer, E., J. Wawrzyniak, Decolonial Museology in East-Central Europe: A Preliminary To-Do List, EuropeNow, issue 50, February 2023 https://www.europenowjournal.org/2023/02/24/decolonial-museology-in-east-central-europe-a-preliminary-to-do-list/
Light, D. (2000) An Unwanted Past: Contemporary Tourism and the Heritage of Communism in Romania. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 6:2, 145-160, DOI:10.1080/135272500404197 [selected pages]
Mrozik, A. and S. Holubec, eds. (2020), Historical Memory of Central and East European Communism. Routledge
Murawski, M. (2019) The Palace Complex: A Stalinist Skyscraper, Capitalist Warsaw and a City Transfixed. Indiana Uni Press [selected pages]
Warsza, J. and Sowa, J., 2022. Eastern European Coloniality without Colonies. [online] postMOMA. Available at:
Andrusz, G., M. Harloe and I. Szelenyi, eds. (1996) Cities after Socialism: Urban and Regional Change and Conflict in Post-Socialist Societies. Blackwell
Lynch, K. (1960) The Image of the City. The MIT Press
Molnár, V. (2013) Building the State: Architecture, Politics, and State Formation in Post-War Central Europe. Routledge
Tunbridge, J. E. and G. J. Ashworth (1996) Dissonant Heritage: The Management of the Past as a Resource in Conflict. John Wiley & Sons
Więcej informacji
Dodatkowe informacje (np. o kalendarzu rejestracji, prowadzących zajęcia, lokalizacji i terminach zajęć) mogą być dostępne w serwisie USOSweb: