106-404 Memory and Contemporary Culture

Formerly available as 106-127. Students who have completed 106-127 are not eligible to enrol in this subject.

Usually admission to the postgraduate diploma or fourth year honours in English, cultural studies or creative writing.

The aim of this subject is to explore a theoretical history of remembrance in contemporary culture. We will begin by considering the massive transformations in cultural memory brought about by modernity. From this starting point we will consider the trajectories of cultural memory from Freud's curative hypotheses to the dominance of amnesia and trauma as tropes of memory in contemporary culture. Students will be expected to read and explore both theoretical accounts of contemporary cultural memory and to produce specific studies of the ways in which mechanical reproduction, testimony, the bureaucratic and state archive, film, monuments, museums, digital technologies and other cultural products and institutions have formed and continue to form contemporary cultures of remembrance.

• have advanced research and analytic skills;

• develop critical and ethical self-awareness;

• have the ability to develop and communicate effective arguments in both oral and written form.

A research essay of 5000 words for 4th year students or 6000 words for masters students 100% (due at the end of semester). All students are required to make a formal class presentation (due during the first 10 weeks of semester) and a presentation of work towards their final essay (due during the last two weeks of semester).

A subject reader will be available from the University Bookshop.