19-20 DT2304: Theatre & Culture: Cultures of Memory

This course puts diverse art forms that investigate memory in dynamic conversation in order to ask urgent questions about the nature of art, history, and humanity. Starting with the disruption to the purpose, value, and nature of art in the aftermath of the cataclysmic events of the Holocaust, we will move through the twentieth century to consider different cultures of memory, memorialisation, trauma, and witnessing. We will cover a wide range of cultural textual and performative genres including first-hand testimony, plays, films, graphic novels, and public monuments. Questioning the politics and ethics of representation, memory, and memorial, we will also interrogate the limits of trauma as an interpretative lens.