Module overview
How has the Holocaust been represented? We will examine a range of responses to the Holocaust from the 1940s to the present day, including memoirs of camp survivors and experimental texts. Focusing on the limits of representation we will approach questions concerning memory, trauma and the aestheticization of horror through testimony, fiction, poetry and film.
Aims and Objectives
Learning Outcomes
Transferable and Generic Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- Analyse complex written texts and visual material including film
- Identify and draw upon a range of primary and secondary source materials
Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- Analyse and explain the ‘limits of representation’ in relation to Holocaust literature
- Problematise the term ‘Holocaust literature’
- Make connections across texts written from different perspectives
- Evaluate complex material and other critical opinions of Holocaust texts
- Demonstrate confidence and independence of thought
Knowledge and Understanding
Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:
- The relationship between history and memory.
- Literary responses to individual and collective trauma.
- The key theoretical debates surrounding the moral and representational challenges posed by the Holocaust
- The aestheticisation of horror.
Syllabus
This module will examine some of the most important testimony, fiction and poetry which represents the horrors of the Second World War known as the Holocaust. It will bring together memoirs of camp survivors, written from a range of perspectives, with a variety of filmic, literary and experimental texts produced, in response to the Holocaust, from the 1940s to the present day. It will focus on the limits of representation, memory and trauma, and the aestheticisation of horror.
Learning and Teaching
Teaching and learning methods
Teaching methods include
- lectures
- seminars
- consultation hours
- individual feedback on assessed work
- group work
- visits to archives and museums. Participation on this trip/field visit is not a formal requirement of the module, though you are strongly encouraged to attend wherever possible.
Learning activities include
- reading and researching
- preparing and delivering presentations
- contributing to an online group project through the blackboard website
- Visual and textual analysis
- Formal essay
Innovative or special features of this module
- One of the informal learning activities will be an online blog to which you will be required to contribute. You will be assigned one week and be asked to post a summary of either your seminar presentation, the lecture or the set reading for that week. You are encouraged, but not expected, to provide constructive feedback by way of peer-assessment.
Type | Hours |
---|---|
Teaching | 44 |
Independent Study | 256 |
Total study time | 300 |
Resources & Reading list
Textbooks
Lawrence Langer (1996). Admitting the Holocaust: Collected Essays.
James E. Young (1988). Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust: Narrative and the Consequences of Interpretation.
Omar Bartov (1997). Murder in our Midst: The Holocaust, Industrial Killing and Representation.
Michael R. Marrus (1987). The Holocaust in History.
Saul Friedlander, ed (1992). Probing the Limits of Representation: Nazism and the ‘Final Solution’.
Michael Bernard-Donals and Richard Glejzer (2001). Between Witness and Testimony: the Holocaust and the Limits of Representation.
Robert Eaglestone (2004). The Holocaust and the Postmodern.
Dominick LaCapra (1997). Representing the Holocaust: History, Theory, Trauma.
Assessment
Assessment strategy
Assessments designed to provide informal, on-module feedback
- In-class group discussion and oral presentations
- On-going online peer-assessed group project
Summative
This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.
Method | Percentage contribution |
---|---|
Essay | 60% |
Essay | 40% |
Referral
This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.
Method | Percentage contribution |
---|---|
Resubmit assessments | 100% |
Repeat
An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.
Method | Percentage contribution |
---|---|
Essay | 40% |
Essay | 60% |
Repeat Information
Repeat type: Internal & External