Beschreibung |
Today’s western societies live in the conviction that the worst is behind them, in the horrible past of the World Wars, Gulags, murderous fascist regimes and Nazi concentration camps. The past seems to have been finally brought under total control. Germany in particular – with its concept of Vergangenheitsbewältigung – is believed to have most successfully overcome its traumatic Nazi past. But is that really true? The Post-Cold-War era has witnessed a dramatic rise of right-wing populist forces even in the most developed countries of the liberal democratic West. Moreover, the politics of nationalism, xenophobia, white supremacism, and racism has recently begun to take shape of what some social theorists call neo- or post-fascism that becomes increasingly violent. For the Neo-Nazi terrorists we might even say that they literally live among us – all members of the so-called NSU (National Socialist Underground) come from Jena.
The course will explore the social and historical condition of this phenomenon. It will discuss its political practices and ideological claims. As a follow-up to the previous seminar on “Manufacturing the past” it will critically deal with today’s dominant politics of memory.
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Literatur |
Literature: z.B. Rastko Mocnik, ”Fascism: Historcal., Neo, and Post,” in M. Hlavajova, S. Sheikh (ed.), Former West: Art and the Contemporary After 1989, Cam bridge MA, London: MIT Press, 2016, p. 605-619.
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Bemerkung |
online Moodle Raum & Big Blue Button Video Conferencing, we will get in contact with you after your registration in Bison for this module by e-mail first
The work in the course will be organized mostly in the form of readings, discussions and self-curated discursive events in a mixed academic/public space. Particular attention will be attached to writing exercises in the formats of academic papers, abstracts and short statements.
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Leistungsnachweis |
Note nach Präsentation / Einreichen von finaler Arbeit
Consists in the active participation and contribution (discursive, textual and performative).
The module grading is based on the mentioned contribution, active in-class participation and submission of written assignments (word minimum of 1.500 total)
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