LFU:online

1. Students in this course will learn that the story of war is not just about strategy, bugles and battles, but that all wars,  WWII in particular. They will learn that memories  add value to understanding the human responses and  experience of the war in its origins, its duration and its consequences.  This dimension of memory studies includes both individual and collective memories of the war, how those memories and lessons of WWII are remembered and preserved, and how  these  memories shape the values of individuals and nations over time. 

Students will learn what nations choose to remember, and what they choose to forget—and why. They will learn about public or collective memories of WWII emerging from different national perspectives as victors, victims, perpetrators or bystanders. Students will also learn to understand the different sources that shape national memory and how those memories may challenge or add value to   historical accounts and to individual memories of the war.  Finally, as students living and studying in Austria, they will learn ways that America’s public memory of the War may differ from Austrian, German and Italian national narratives of World War II, as well as those of 9 our Allied countries.

2. Students will learn about these contrasting national memories of WWII through the lens of selected monuments, museums, historic sites of heroism and human tragedy in Europe and America and will come to know how they shape public memory among those combatant nations. They will be able to discern and articulate the different meanings embedded in the “sacred ground” of memorials, the values they reflect, the heroic message of the Iwo Jima monument, the emotional purposes of slogans such as “Remember Pearl Harbor”, and the gruesome sites of the racist extermination of six million Jews in  the Nazi concentration camps of Dachau and Auschwitz. Here they will learn the meaning of words burned into national memories on an international scale: “I shall never forget”.   Students will be able to understand the historical context of these iconic remembrances of WWII and communicate in writing or verbally how these public memories inform our historical knowledge, shape national policies, and raise moral questions of good and evil that demand choices from individuals and nations alike.

3. Students will be able to discern and describe the role of myth and memory in WWII and how symbols, images, slogans and ideas mobilized individual and national actions during the war--and since.   They will also learn how national memories have evolved and find expression in monuments, museums and events that promise redemption or sometimes create divided memories or controversies of World War II.  Students will discover historical sites of WWII that convey conflicting memories of violence, sacrifice, evil, suffering, hope, freedom, liberation and human rights that are memorialized in these ways as well as from film, commemorations and cemeteries. They will learn to analyze, articulate, and debate how these iconic sources in words, stone, and battle sites continue to shape our different individual and national memories of World War II, and other wars as well.

This course will explore myth and memory, identity, commemorations, museums and selected historic sites that shape our public memory, as well as focusing on several monuments and historic sites of memory in Europe and America, representing victors and vanquished memorials to national memory.

The University of New Orleans International Summer School program has a mandatory class attendance policy. All students are required to attend class for all morning classes and any required afternoon and/or weekend fields trips and lectures. No unexcused absences are allowed. However, LFU students who have to miss a UNO class due to LFU examinations in the first two weeks of our program, can receive one excused absence for this. Any further unexcused absences will result in an academic penalty. Each faculty member determines the penalty for missed classes. Most professors deduct a letter grade for each additional missed class day. For details, please refer to your course syllabi, which will be distributed on the first day of class. The listed ECTS credits are a recommendation by the University of New Orleans Innsbruck Summer School, based on contact hours, anticipated out-of-classroom requirements such as field trips, and projected workload for readings, assignments, and exam preparation. Mail: Center-New-Orleans@uibk.ac.at