Memory, Media & Visual Culture

Code

CULT2031

School

Cultural, Media and Visual Studies

Level

2

Credits

20

Semesters

Spring UK

Summary

Media, TV, film and visual culture play a central role in forming our knowledge of the past. There is no memory without its representation in language or images, and both public and individual memories often take material and media form. Whether a holiday souvenir or the Aids Memorial Quilt; a bench in a public garden as a site of private remembrance or a monument to colonial war, remembering has a materiality and media presence. While public commemorations of historical anniversaries often feed grand national narratives, such collective memories are contested, their policies shift, and they respond to the political and cultural demands of the present. Even individual memories follow conventions and communicable scripts - be it in the form of family albums, Facebook timelines, or ways we tell our private stories.

Using a range of case studies, this module will explore how different forms of remembrance add weight to what they are representing. Who remembers what, when, where, why and to what purpose? Why do screen and other media retell certain stories over and over again, and how is such remembrance linked to the erasure of other pasts? How can we explain an abundance of remembered soldiers from the First World War, while millions of victims of the ‘Spanish Flu’ have been publicly forgotten? What is the relationship between national and transnational memories, when set against memories of enslavement and its visualisations? How do images of disaster respond to audience expectations and what do they tell us about the ethics of viewing? What needs to be considered when knowledge about atrocities is mediated in photographs taken by perpetrators?

These, and other questions, will guide our approach to an interdisciplinary field of media, film and visual studies. The module will encourage students to reflect critically on regimes of visibility and narration, and on the distinct ways that memories of certain events are communicated via different genres, institutions, and artefacts. Its programme will explore individual memories, as well as public, via analysis of a variety of media and their narratives. It will explore counter memories, including the queering of grand narratives in visual and other texts. The module will introduce students to seminal concepts in memory studies.

A single coursework assessment will replace all failed assessment components at the reassessment stage.

Target Students

Only available for International Media & Communication Studies students, Film and Television Studies students, History of Art students, Liberal Arts students and Exchange students

Classes

• One 1-hour-30-minute seminar each week for 11 weeks
• One 1-hour-30-minute lecture each week for 11 weeks

The School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies operates an attendance policy. The details of this policy can be found in the student handbook on Workspace and in module handbooks.

Assessment

• 100% Coursework: Coursework - 3,000 words portfolio of written work and equivalent

Assessed by end of spring semester

Educational Aims

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge and Understanding: This module will provide students with

• a broad knowledge of mediated ways to remember and key concepts of memory studies;
• a broad understanding of narrative and aesthetic strategies of remembering;
• an appreciation of the contested nature of memory politics in varying (trans)national contexts

Intellectual Skills: This module will encourage:

• the ability to analyse and compare complex forms, images, and narratives across a variety of media and artefacts
• the ability to research, gather information and interpret secondary and primary sources
• the ability to think critically about the subject matter

Transferable (Key) Skills: This module will enhance transferable skills such as:

• Retrieving, presenting and communicating complex information and argument clearly in oral and written forms
• Planning and organization skills, including working to deadline, project management and managing resources

Conveners

• Dr Franziska Meyer