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The Cultural Memory Studies Initiative at Ghent University brings together scholars from across the humanities whose research revolves around memory and trauma as mediated through culture.

Cultural Memory Studies Initiative

Teaching

While a substantial amount of our teaching is concerned with issues of memory and trauma in one way or another, the following MA courses deal most directly with themes relevant to CMSI. UGent students can take these courses either as part of their diploma contract or by enrolling for an additional credit contract. The latter option is also available to non-UGent students. Further information about credit contracts can be found here. Visiting scholars wishing to audit courses may do so with the permission of the instructor.

Literature in English: Modern Period II – Postmemory and Postmodern: Third-Generation Jewish American Trauma Narratives

  • 1st semester
  • 5 ECTS
  • Course catalogue listing (pdf)
  • This course offers an introductory discussion of the position of third-generation American Jews after the traumatic events of the Shoah. It will briefly consider the (attempts at) representation of the Holocaust in testimonies, memoirs, and fiction written by first, second, and third generation authors. The acquired insights about the literary representation of traumatic histories (most conspicuously the Holocaust, but also other historical crises such as 9/11 or Hiroshima) will then be applied to recent novels by third-generation Jewish American authors such as Art Spiegelman, Jonathan Safran Foer, Nicole Krauss, and Judy Budnitz.
  • For more information, please contact Joost Krijnen.

Postkoloniale geheugenstudies

  • 1st semester
  • 6 ECTS
  • Course catalogue listing (tba)
  • Deze cursus, die deel uitmaakt van de interuniversitaire ManaMa Literatuurwetenschap, zal de studenten introduceren tot de basisteksten van het veld van de (postkoloniale) geheugenstudies en hen ertoe in staat stellen literaire teksten die de herinnering aan koloniaal geweld en lijden oproepen, mobiliseren en representeren te analyseren tegen deze theoretische achtergrond. Bijzondere aandacht zal worden besteed aan (1) de interactie tussen herinneringen aan verschillende historische tragedies, bijv. de Holocaust, de slavernij en het kolonialisme, en (2) de ethische en politieke dimensies van het getuigen, die we zullen bestuderen in de context van de Zuid-Afrikaanse Waarheids- en Verzoeningscommissie.
  • For more information, please contact Stef Craps or Pieter Vermeulen.

Modern French Literature: Specific Problems II – Littérature et Temoignage: La Littérature de la Guerre

  • 1st semester
  • 5 ECTS
  • Course catalogue listing (pdf)
  • This course, which is taught in French, is text-centred (close reading of French literary texts) and aims at an advanced approach to French Literature (XIX-XXI) starting from the thematic of World War One. The subject is situated in relation to 19th-century realism and is analysed with inclusion of literary texts reflecting today about 14-18. The central question that this course tries to situate is the relation between reality and fiction. Starting from a close reading and contextual analysis of a selection of war novels that are representative of the period under study, we examine why “witnesses” use fictions, and how this happens. The approach pays attention to history, ethics and aesthetics, is problematical and places the subject in a Europeen context.
  • For more information, please contact Pierre Schoentjes.

Contemporary Spanish-American Literature: Special Topics

  • 1st semester
  • 5 ECTS
  • Course catalogue listing (pdf)
  • This course, which is taught in Spanish, examines the way in which contemporary Latin-American novelists (1980 and onwards) represent violence. It focuses on three geographical zones: the Southern Cone (Chile, Argentina, Uruguay) and – alternately – Central America (Guatemala), Colombia, Mexico, or Peru. The origins and social context of the violence (military dictatorship, guerilla movement, narcotráfico) will be outlined. The aim is to study the way in which violence is represented in a corpus of novels and short stories: Which forms of expression, narrative perspectives and techniques, characters, and rhetorical means are being used to present the unspeakable? In what way does violence turn into an essential element of a work of art? What is the extra value of fiction when it comes to rendering trauma? How are taboos being broken and memory discourses being critically reformulated? The course will also focus on the evolution of the forms of representation (directly concerned vs. second generation, the concept of “postmemory” and its relevance for Latin America) and their regional variation. The texts of the corpus illustrate an important characteristic of contemporary Latin-American literature, i.e. the centrality of the first person (“subjective turn,” Sarlo). In the course, several types of autobiographical texts are analysed (testimony, diary, autofiction) and connected with the central theme, i.e. the representation of violence. The actual textual analysis will mainly be conducted from a perspective of hermeneutics, history of ideas, narratology, and cultural studies.
  • For more information, please contact Ilse Logie, Bieke Willem, or Maarten Geeroms.