Handbook

What role does history play in European identities and politics and how has this changed over time? How have Europeans interpreted, used or tried to avoid their complex and often conflictual pasts? What, and whom, have they celebrated or condemned, and why? In this course, you will be introduced to the interdisciplinary fields of 'transitional justice' and 'memory studies' in the context of Europe since the Second World War. Considering cases from Spain to Ukraine, you will explore diverse approaches to the histories and legacies of fascism, Nazism, the Second World War, the Holocaust, Soviet-style communism and colonialism. You will study the ways in which these pasts have been addressed or reconfigured, including though trials and purges, through commemorative rituals, memorials, and museums, and through official histories and popular memories. You will learn about how Germany has 'come to terms' with its Nazi past; about how Stalinism and the Soviet Union are remembered in Putin’s Russia; and about how the European Union has sought to promote shared European memories of Europe’s difficult pasts.