Performance Memory Witness

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

The course engages the politics and poetics of cultural memory through engaging diverse representations of the Holocaust and other 20th and 21st Century atrocities in theatrical performance, film and other mediums. While German philosopher Theodor Adorno famously offered that "there can be no poetry after Auschwitz," the Holocaust and other genocides continue to be the source for scores of artistic works, as artists play a critical role play in preventing the erasure of past violence from current memory and in catalyzing new political visions and histories. .As we explore different artistic strategies for representing traumatic histories, our work will engage artistic choices in genre, structure, imagery, and point of view. We will grapple with complex ethical and philosophical questions about the limits of representation and the responsibility of bearing witness and remembering. Examples will be drawn from a variety of cultural perspectives and a range of forms, from first-hand and testimonial accounts, to documentaries /documentary theater, from abstract and ritualized expressions to a critical look at narrative portrayals that have been popularized by Hollywood and on Broadway (Schindler's List, Diary of Anne Frank etc). We will engage personally with survivors and make active use of extraordinary resources such as the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the legacy of Holocaust witness and World War II hero and former Georgetown Professor Jan Karski. The course will be offered concurrently with a number of theatrical opportunities including the Theater and Performance Studies Program's production of the award-winning Polish play Our Class, {directed by Professor Goldman) set against the backdrop of the demise of Polish Jews during World War II.