WMST7023 Memory and the Politics of Difference: Gender, Race and Nations

2019

4.5

1 x 2-hour lecture weekly
1 x 1-hour tutorial weekly

1 of HIST2022, HIST2063, WMST7016 has been successfully completed

Women's Studies (Honours)

This interdisciplinary topic introduces students at honours level to the importance of memories and other representations of the past in the present. It investigates the various ways that the past is remembered, and forgotten, and examines the ways in which memory is sought, communicated and interpreted. It focuses on the ways in which memorialising practices are shaped by competing contemporary discourses, with particular emphasis on the place of the politics of race, gender and sexuality in informing national identities and other forms of belonging. It also includes an exploration of the status of personal testimonies in contexts including historical research, the media and the law. Australian issues form the core material to be considered but debates about other pasts will also be discussed.

This topic aims to:

• Introduce students to the area of Memory Studies and the ways in which memories are key in constructing not only personal but also collective and national presents;
• Introduce students to the diversity of ways in which memories of the past are carried and their always contested nature;
• Focus on the ways that memories are central in the creation of gendered, raced and sexualised individual subjects and collectivities;
• Introduce students to a wide range of case studies that suggest the importance of the practices of memory and memorialisation in Australia and in selected other locations;
• Extend students' oral and written communication skills

Students successfully completing this topic should be able to:

1. Demonstrate through written and oral communication:

   • familiarity with several key debates about the past and its relationship to the present

   • familiarity with some contemporary theories and debates about the place of memory in constructing individual and collective narratives which shape understanding of the present

2. Critically assess representations of the past, with particular attention to the ways in which ideas about gender, race and sexuality, play a part in shaping memories and shaping individual and collective identities.