HSY4200

Life stories: memory, narrative and history

Bain Attwood and Esther Faye

8 points - One 2-hour seminar per week - First semester - Clayton

Objectives Students successfully completing this subject should gain an understanding of key conceptual and theoretical issues concerning the nature of individual and collective memory, various forms of 'life reconstruction' (such as oral history, memory biography and autobiography) and the writing of history. In developing projects in oral history or other forms of life stories, students should also develop an understanding of the ethical dimensions and problems involved in producing and using these forms of historical evidence, and gain supervised practical experience in one or more historical research techniques.

Synopsis This subject introduces the major theoretical and conceptual frameworks deployed in the analysis of memory and life narratives, especially in the practices of oral history, collective biography and 'memory narratives', and the relationships between 'history' and memory as forms of remembering. Specific fields to be investigated include memory and the Holocaust; 'popular' and 'official' memory; history and 'nostalgia'; Aboriginal oral histories; and relationships between psychoanalysis, autobiography and history.

Assessment Research essay (4000 words): 70% - Take-home examination (2 hours): 30%

Recommended texts

Attwood B and others A life together, a life apart MUP, 1994
Fraser R In search of a past Verso, 1984
Hartman G H (ed.) Holocaust remembrance: The shapes of memory Harvard U P, 1994
Le Goff J History and memory Columbia U P, 1992
Samuel R Theatres of memory Verso, 1994
Young J The texture of memory New Haven, 1993

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