Monuments and Memorials of the Holodomor

Annotation

Dr Wiktoria Kudela-Świątek

Pedagogical University of Cracow, Poland [e-mail]

Monuments and Memorials of the Holodomor: aspects of constructing national identity and public memory through the visual arts in Ukraine and Ukrainian Diaspora

/Summer Semester/

Instructor(s) name(s): dr Wiktoria Kudela-Świątek

Email address: [e-mail]

Availability: by appointment

Course Description

This course will facilitate student learning in developing skills in critical analysis, expository writing, visual-arts practices, in considering cross-cultural perspectives as a starting point for critical inquiry, and in probing fundamental questions about the production of knowledge to forward global understanding. The Ukrainian Holodomor is a significant case study for all these aspects of visual analyses. There are no prerequisites for students. In the first part, we will read some classical texts from scholars such as Maurice Halbwachs, Pierre Nora, Aleida Assmann, Patrick H. Hutton, Alon Confino and others on the subject of history and memory that are of international and interdisciplinary importance. In the second part, we will analyze the Holodomor memory culture and its aesthetic and political component as a case study for analysis and discussions.

The course has three primary objectives: 1. to develop a critical vocabulary for the analysis and interpretation of visual images; 2. to recognize cultural and historical contexts of the theories and practices of visual studies, including technical, economic, social, philosophical, and military influences; 3. to use these analytical skills in written, oral, and visual responses to visual images and cultures.

Course Goals:

Students who complete this course successfully will be able to:

• understand and apply a critical vocabulary for visual literacy;

• describe, discuss, and analyze a variety of visual forms and media from Ukrainian cultural context (diaspora and modern Ukraine) and historical contexts;

• assess and summarize arguments in critical texts, applying an understanding of the social, political, aesthetic, and economic context to interpretation of artistic works;

• apply analytic thinking, critical vocabulary, and creative observation to projects;

• articulate, support, and develop new arguments in oral, visual, and written forms.

Course outline: 1. Introduction: images and meanings 2. Places of memory, sites of memory and realms of memory 3. Memory studies: key concepts and classical texts 4. The role of the first communities of memory in interwar Europe. The Ukrainians from Poland and Czech as creators of the Holodomor culture of memory in the Ukrainian diaspora. 5. Transmissions of the Holodomor images from interwar Europe to the afterwar USA 6. The role of the Ukrainian diaspora from the USA and Canada in the Great Famine Commemoration 7. Holodomor Communities of Memory (Europe and USA) 8. Ukrainian Autocephalous Church in the USA as a creator of underground Holodomor cultures of memory in the USA 9. How did the Holodomor (Great Famine) create Ukrainians as a modern nation? 10. Sacralisation of the Holodomor Memory in diaspora and post-communist Ukraine 11. Why is "Holodomor" a woman? Gender Aspects of the culture of memory of the Holodomor. 12. The places of memory of the Great Famine 1932-1933 in contemporary Ukraine and abroad 13. Visual Culture of the Holodomor Memory

Required Texts Materials: 1. Assmann, Aleida, Cultural Memory and Western Civilization: Functions, Media, Archives (New York, 2011). 2. Burke, Peter, Eyewitnessing: The Uses of Images as Historical Evidence (London, 2001) 3. Confino, Alon, "Collective Memory and Cultural History: Problems of Method," American Historical Review 102 (1997): 1386–1403 4. Halbwachs, Maurice, On Collective Memory, edited, translated, and with an introduction by Lewis A. Coser (Chicago, 1992). 5. Jordanova, Ludmilla, "Approaching Visual Materials", in Simon Gunn and Lucy Faire (eds), Research Methods for History (Edinburgh, 2011): 30-47. 6. Nora, Pierre, "Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémorie," Representations, 26, Special Issue: Memory and Counter-Memory (Spring 1989): 7-25. 7. Kudela-Świątek, Wiktoria, Eternal Memory. Monuments and Memorials of the Holodomor, (Edmonton-Toronto-Cracow, 2021). 8. Winter, Jay M., Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning. The Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge and New York, 1995).

Course Requirements:

• Attendance in class and assigned screenings is required. In case of sickness, students must notify the instructor and provide medical documentation.

• Readings and class participation: Students are expected to discuss the assigned readings and participate in class discussions.

• Field trip (outdoor lessons)

• Visual Analysis Short Presentation:

Short Individual Presentation (2 pages essay) – send via GoogleForms by May 17 (2022)

Grading:

• Attendance, reading assignments and class participation 50%

• Field Trip 25%

• Short Individual Presentation (2 pages essay) 25%