Broad and specialised knowledge of various memory cultures, especially with regard to the memories of war and violence stories in literature, film, art, etc.

The course deals with different memory cultures in the Spanish-, French- and Italian-speaking world. The main focus will be on the memories of war and violence (the Second World War and the Shoah, civil wars and dictatorships, decolonisation) in different media and cultural practices (literature, film, art, politics of memory, etc.). On the one hand, we will look at concrete case studies and on the other hand we will study current concepts and theories, especially those approaches that take into account the increasingly transnational and transcultural character of memory discourses and practices (e.g. multidirectional memory (M. Rothberg), travelling memory (A. Erll), cosmopolitan memory (N. Sznaider), etc.).

Lectures; presentations by the participants; group work; discussion and close reading

Active participation; presentation; participation in group/partner work; final essay. The exact mode of examination will be communicated in the first session depending on the number of participants.

Depending on the student's language competences, the literary texts can be either read in the original (French, Spanish, Italian) or in the German translation.