HYM5200 - History and Memory: Oral History, Life Stories and Commemoration

12 points, SCA Band 1, 0.250 EFTSL

Clayton First semester 2007 (Day)

This subject aims to:

Introduce key conceptual and theoretical issues in the relationship between memory and the writing of history.
Introduce students to a range of past and present 'memory-work' particularly as it relates to the development of shared understandings of the past, including the production of oral histories and life stories and various forms of public and private commemoration.
Provide students interested in exploring research tools such as oral history or life story reconstruction with a coherent and thorough grounding in the relevant historical scholarship and critical literature.
Introduce students to key questions about the ethical dimensions involved in producing and using various forms of memory as historical evidence.
Provide supervised practical experience in research techniques involving the use of memory in the writing of history.

Historiographical essay (3000 words): 30%
Research essay (6000 words): 70%

2 hour seminar per week