06929 - History of Contemporary Europe

Course contents

The history of the Holocaust, memory and representation

The course is divided into three parts:

1
In the first part of the course, emphasis will be placed on the genesis of the cultural profile of the worst genocide of modern times, seen as a part of recent European history as well as a complex event tied to the concrete historical context in which the Nazi genocide took shape.

2
How does the Holocaust talk about ourselves? In this part of the course, through the dynamics of memory and removal, we will address the issue of distance that European culture today maintains between itself and the Nazi program of the extermination of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and all those considered as inferior human beings.

3
The industrial genocide of the Jewish people was an "object" of narrative and / or of show, sometimes easy to depict, sometimes elusive. Referring to some of the most significant films, this part of the course will investigate ways in which the language of cinema has tried to envisage the Holocaust through testimony, history and fiction.

Readings/Bibliography

Assessment methods

Office hours

See the website of Alessandro Bellassai