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HIST353: Out of the Ordinary: Film and Memory in Twentieth-Century Europe

This course studies the memorialisation of twentieth-century historical events through fiction film. While the large part of the course will concentrate on representations of World War II in different timeframes (1930s-40s; 1970s-80s and contemporary), students will also look at the memorialisation of localised conflicts, including the Latin American ‘Dirty Wars’ of the 1970s and 1980s, the British Mining Strike of the 1980s and the Bosnian War (1992-95).

By and large, this course will investigate the social and cultural memories of ordinary, non-combatants and witnesses, whose roles have often been silenced. The course assumes that the impulse to tell stories is universal, and may be essential to restore dignity, work through trauma and for reconciliation to be achieved. In these contexts, films are ways to narrate, validate, memorialise and come to terms with atrocities. Students will scrutinise the reciprocal effects of cinematic interpretation and the memorialisation of events, paying attention to the processes involved in the ‘making of history’.

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