Dr. Devin Zuber, M.A., M.Phil. Pacific School of Religion Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley

Transcription

1 PROVISIONAL DRAFT 1 Cultural Memory in Urban Space FTRS 3785 New York City, Jan 6-20, 2013 Maximum: 12 students Dr. Devin Zuber, M.A., M.Phil. Pacific School of Religion Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley dzuber@psr.edu Office: PSR Holbrook 126 (510) Tribute in Light (2002 ongoing) Office Hours: Wednesdays, 10:00-12:00 and by appointment Description: This two week immersion trip explores the contested ways public memory is (re)constructed in urban space. With the streets of New York City as our laboratory, we will explore various cultural institutions (museums, historic houses) and memorials (the African Burial Ground Monument, the Irish Hunger Memorial) to investigate how various religious and ethnic communities have chosen to inscribe themselves into the city. Special attention will be given to the fraught layers of memory surrounding the 9/11 Memorial in lower Manhattan. Students must attend two long preparatory sessions in the fall 2012 semester in advance of the trip (November 9 th and November 30 th, from 1:00 to 5:00 pm) that will provide a theoretical context for approaching urban space and concepts of cultural memory. There will be required reading, student-lead discussions, and blogging before and during the immersion. A final integration paper will be due in February after the trip commences. Students will also prepare site-specific presentations on particular locations of contested memory, and amplify how the locations provide opportunity for deeper theological reflection. Required Texts: 1) Print-ups of all readings made available on-line via the course blog 2) Teju Cole, Open City (Random House) 3) Course Reader (available first week of December in local Berkeley copy shop)

2 PROVISIONAL DRAFT 2 Student Learning Outcomes After successfully completing this course with a grade B or better, students taking this class can expect to: 1) have gained familiarity with the interdisciplinary field of memory studies, and to understand the different discourses and methodologies that have shaped the field: from anthropology to urban planning, literary theory to social psychology. 2) critically reflect on the ways that public memory is constructed by questions of race, gender, and class, and how this intersects with larger cultural frameworks of identity, such as religion and the nation 3) have a conceptual toolbox of ideas, tested out in new york city streets, for reading and interpreting various sites of collective memory, and to situate these ideas within a broader process of theological reflection and personal spiritual growth 4) have successfully worked in collaborative teams on site-specific presentations in New York, and produced creative content for the seminar blog (text, photos, video) 5) become fluent in intercultural competency, and be sensitized to the density and complexity of New York City s diverse communities; to be able to utilize this intercultural competency within other urban and multifaith contexts Assessment and Course Requirements Students enrolled in the class will be expected to attend and participate in all pre-trip sessions (Nov. 9 th and Nov. 30 th ), and to be in New York City for the duration of immersion period. Students will be graded upon: active course contributions through class participation and posting comments, questions and observations on the course blog (15%) producing a site-specific presentation in a team with two other peers (selected by the instructor), and creating a subsequent page on the course blog with appropriate text and images (25%) writing a final reflection paper upon commencement of the trip (65%), precise length t.b.d. (to be determined)

3 3 PROVISIONAL DRAFT The site-specific presentations will variously focus on four related groupings of sites in New York City that have constituted spaces of ritualized remembrance and/or representations of collective memory: 1) Immigrant Memory (Ellis Island Immigration Museum, Tenement Museum, Museum of the Chinese American, the Jewish Museum of New York) 2) African-American Cultural Memory (Schomberg Center, Harlem Studio Museum, Louis Armstrong House & Museum, African Burial Ground National Monument) 3) Traumatic Memories (Reflecting Absence, Living Holocaust Memorial Museum, Irish Hunger Memorial). 4) Queer Urban Space (Alice Austen House, Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space, George Segal s Gay Liberation, St. Mark s Poetry Project Archive, Herstory Lesbian Archives) Guerilla street art campaign originating in NYC, from Paul Chan s Baghdad Snapshot Action Team ( )

4 PROVISIONAL DRAFT 4 CALENDAR tentative November 9th: Introduction to Memory Studies and Memorial Mania Kerwin Lee Klein, On The Emergence of Memory in Historical Discourse (blog) Pierre Nora, Between Memory and History (blog) November 30th: Anna Deveare Smith, excerpts from Fires in the Mirror (blog) Teju Cole, Open City Walt Whitman, Crossing Brooklyn Ferry (blog) Site-specific readings in NYC, t.b.d., including: 1) Immigrant Memory Leo Spitzer, Back through the Future: Nostalgic Memory and Critical Memory as a Refuge from Nazism in Cultural Memory in the Present t.b.d. [chapter from Julia Creet s Memory and Migration: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Memory Studies] 2) African-American Cultural Memory Ira Berlin, American Slavery in History and Memory and the Search for Social Justice, Harvey Young, from Embodying Black Experience: Stillness, Critical Memory, and the Black Body 3) Representations of Cultural Trauma Marita Sturken, from Tourists of History: Memory, Kitsch, and Consumerism James Young, from The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning 4) Queer urban space Sarah Schulman, from Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination Judith Jack Halberstam, from In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives Daniel Kane, St. Mark s Poetry Project from All Poets Welcome: Lower East Side Poetry Scene in the 1960 s

5 PROVISIONAL DRAFT 5 Working Bibliography Anderson, Benedict R. O G. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Rev. ed. London: Verso, Print. Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. New York: Beacon Press, Print. Bal, Mieke, Jonathan Crewe, and Leo Spitzer, eds. Acts of Memory: Cultural Recall in the Present. 1st ed. Dartmouth, Print. Barkan, Elazar. The Guilt of Nations: Restitution and Negotiating Historical Injustices. 1st ed. W. W. Norton & Company, Print. Benjamin, Walter. Illuminations. 1st ed. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Print The Arcades Project. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press, Print. Bennett, Jill. Empathic Vision: Affect, Trauma, and Contemporary Art. 1st ed. Stanford University Press, Print. Berlin, Ira, and Leslie Harris. Slavery in New York. New Press, The, Print. Blake, Casey Nelson, ed. The Arts of Democracy: Art, Public Culture, and the State. Reissue. University of Pennsylvania Press, Print. Bodnar, John. Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century. Princeton University Press, Print. Bogart, Michele H. Public Sculpture and the Civic Ideal in New York City, st Smithsonian ed. Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, Print The Politics of Urban Beauty: New York and Its Art Commission. annotated ed. University Of Chicago Press, Print. Caruth, Cathy, ed. Trauma: Explorations in Memory. 1st ed. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Print. Cole, Teju. Open City: A Novel. Random House Trade Paperbacks, Print. Dabakis, Melissa. Visualizing Labor in American Sculpture: Monuments, Manliness, and the Work Ethic, Reissue. Cambridge University Press, Print.

6 PROVISIONAL DRAFT 6 Dann, Graham M. S., and A. V. Seaton. Slavery, Contested Heritage, and Thanatourism. 1st ed. Routledge, Print. DEBORD, Guy. Society of the Spectacle. Reprint, Black & Red, Print. Derrida, Jacques. Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression. 1st ed. Trans. Eric Prenowitz. University Of Chicago Press, Print. Dickinson, Dr Greg, Carole Blair, and Brian L. Ott, eds. Places of Public Memory: The Rhetoric of Museums and Memorials. 1st ed. University Alabama Press, Print. Doss, Erika Lee. Memorial Mania: Public Feeling in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Print. Eyerman, Ron. Cultural Trauma: Slavery and the Formation of African American Identity. 1st ed. Cambridge University Press, Print. Halberstam, Judith. In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives. First Edition. NYU Press, Print. Halbwachs, Maurice. On Collective Memory. 1st ed. Trans. Lewis A. Coser. University Of Chicago Press, Print. Harvey, David. Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference. Wiley-Blackwell, Print Spaces of Global Capitalism: A Theory of Uneven Geographical Development. 1st ed. Verso, Print. Huyssen, Andreas. Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, Print. Cultural Memory in the Present. Kane, Daniel. All Poets Welcome: The Lower East Side Poetry Scene in the 1960s, Includes 35-track CD of Audio Clips of Poetry Readings. Har/Com. University of California Press, Print. Knight, Cher Krause. Public Art: Theory, Practice and Populism. 1st ed. Wiley-Blackwell, Print. Lacy, Suzanne, ed. Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art. Bay Pr, Print. Landsberg, Alison. Prosthetic Memory: The Transformation of American Remembrance in the Age of Mass Culture. Columbia University Press, Print. Levinson, Sanford. Written in Stone: Public Monuments in Changing Societies. 1St ed. Duke University Press Books, Print.

7 PROVISIONAL DRAFT 7 Lin, Andrew Barshay, Stephen Greenblatt, Thomas Laqueur, Stanley Saitowitz Maya. GROUNDS FOR REMEMBERING - Monuments - Memorials - Texts: Occasional Papers of the Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities No. 3. Ed. Christina M. Gillis. University of California - Berkeley, Print. Miller, Nancy K., and Jason Tougaw. Extremities: Trauma, Testimony, and Community. University of Illinois Press, Print. Ricoeur, Paul. Figuring the Sacred. Augsburg Fortress Publishers, Print Memory, History, Forgetting. University Of Chicago Press, Print. Sassen, Saskia. The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. 2nd ed. Princeton University Press, Print. Savage, Kirk. Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves. Princeton University Press, Print. Schulman, Sarah. The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination. 1st ed. University of California Press, Print. Sherman, Daniel J., and Terry Nardin, eds. Terror, Culture, Politics: Rethinking 9/11. Indiana University Press, Print. Simpson, David. 9/11: The Culture of Commemoration. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Print. Smith, Anna Deavere. Fires in the Mirror. First Edition. paperback original. Anchor Books, Print. Soja, Edward W. Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory (Second Edition). Second ed. Verso, Print. Solnit, Rebecca. Wanderlust: A History of Walking. New York: Viking, Print. Sturken, Marita. Tourists of History: Memory, Kitsch, and Consumerism from Oklahoma City to Ground Zero. Durham: Duke University Press, Print. Tapies, Xavier A. Street Art and the War on Terror: How the World s Best Graffiti Artists Said No to the Iraq War. Korero Books, Print. Young, Harvey. Embodying Black Experience: Stillness, Critical Memory, and the Black Body (Theater: Theory/Text/Per [Paperback]. University of Michigan Press, Print.

8 PROVISIONAL DRAFT 8 Young, James E. At Memory s Edge: After-Images of the Holocaust in Contemporary Art and Architecture. Yale University Press, Print The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning. First ed. Yale University Press, Print. Zelinsky, Wilbur. Nation Into State: The Shifting Symbolic Foundations of American Nationalism. The University of North Carolina Press, Print. Zuber, Devin. Flanerie at Ground Zero: Aesthetic Countermemories in Lower Manhattan. American Quarterly 58.2 (2006): Print.