Graduate course of the Estonian Graduate School of Culture Studies and Arts
Afterlife of Events: Perspectives of Mnemohistory
Estonian Institute of Humanities

Tallinn University, 2 – 3 November 2012

Hosting institutions: Estonian Institute of Humanities, Tallinn University; Graduate School of Culture Studies and Arts

Supporters: European Union Structural Funds; Estonian Science Foundation (grant no 8625)

Program director: Dr. Marek Tamm (Tallinn University)

Program manager and student coordinator: Ms. Tuuli Piirsalu (Tallinn University)

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Program
Friday, November 2, 2012 (open for public)

Venue: Tallinn University (Uus-Sadama 5), M-225

16:00 – 16:15 Introduction
Dr. Marek Tamm (Tallinn University)

16:15 – 17:15 Keynote lecture:
Exodus and Memory: Mnemohistory as the Retrospective Construction of an Event

Prof. em. Jan Assmann (University of Heidelberg)

17:15 – 18:15 Keynote lecture:
Theories of Cultural Memory and the Concept of ‘Afterlife’

Prof. Aleida Assmann (University of Konstanz)

Saturday, November 3, 2012 (for registered participants)

Venue: Tallinn University (Uus-Sadama 5), M-648

Chair: Dr. Marek Tamm (Tallinn University)

10:00–11:00 Events, Proper Names and the Rise of Memory
Prof. Nikolay Koposov (John Hopkins University, Baltimore)

11:00–12:00 Can Criminal Events in the Past Disappear in a Garbage Can in the Present? Some Observations on National History, “Negative Memory” and Universal Human Rights
Prof. Chris Lorenz (VU University Amsterdam / Amsterdam University College)

12:00–13.00 Local Memories of War between National and Transnational Memorial Practices: Memories of Königsberg in the Second World War in Kaliningrad, Germany and Russia, 1945 to 2005
Prof. Stefan Berger (Ruhr-University Bochum)

13:00–14:30 Lunch (for registered participants)

Chair: Prof. Karsten Brüggemann (Tallinn University)

14:30–15:30 Rebellion Ripples: The Irish 1798 Rebellion as a Commemorative Experience
Prof. Joep Leerssen (University of Amsterdam)

15:30–16:30 Apology as the End of Memory? The Afterlife of Bloody Sunday
Prof. Ann Rigney (University of Utrecht)

16.30–17:00 Coffee break
Chair: Dr. Siobhan Kattago (Tallinn University)

17:00–18:00 Lost in Translation: Transnational Holocaust Memory and the Persistence of National Frames of Remembrance on German Public Television
Dr. Wulf Kansteiner (Binghamton University)

18.00–19.00 Non-Holiday: 9th of November. A Paradoxical German lieux de mémoire from the Weimar Republic through the “Third Reich” to Unified Germany
Prof. Claus Leggewie (Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut Essen)

Afterlife of Events Seminar Titles and Abstracts

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Requirements for participation

Interested graduate students (maximum 20) can apply for the seminar by sending a letter of motivation (ca 100 words) to Tuuli Piirsalu ( tuulip@ehi.ee ) by October 20, 2012. Students who are not members of GSCSA are required to add a short CV to specify their education and research interests. You will be notified of your participation by October 25, 2012.

Students are expected to do preparatory reading in order to participate in the discussions. Upon full participation in the study programme and completion of a 2000-word essay (in Estonian or in English) on the topics of the seminar (deadline December 30, 2012) students will be awarded 2 ECTS points.

The language of the seminar is English.

Participation in the course is free of charge; the accommodation and travel costs of the students of GSCSA will be reimbursed.

Preparatory reading

Assmann, Jan, 1997. Moses the Egyptian. The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism. Cambridge, Mass., London: Harvard University Press, pp. 1–22.

Assmann, Jan, 2011. Cultural Memory and Early Civilization. Writing, Remembrance, and Political Imagination. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–69.

Assmann, Aleida, 2011. Cultural Memory and Western Civilization. Functions, Media, Archives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–14; 119–134.

Electronic copies are available for registered participants; please address to Tuuli Piirsalu ( tuulip@ehi.ee ).