HPSA-Fall-2024-Memory and Migration-Exploring Berlin Musuems

Berlin’s rich muselogical landscape lends itself to in-depth exploration: How are the upheavals of the 20th and 21st centuries remembered and represented? How can the urban landscape be read as a myriad of dynamic sites? What do these sites, in turn, tell us about past traumas and present-day issues? This course aims to enable the students to get to know a number of Berlin museums focussing on key aspects of memory of the Second World War and Post-WWII migration, using anthropological methods. Students are encouraged to critically analyse these reprentations within larger theoretical frameworks of “self” and “other” constructions, exploring the role of museums in rendering such constructions visible.