Semester 1

Memory and Space in Contemporary Literature – Fernanda Mota Alves

Thursday,  3 p.m. – 6 p.m., room 8.2.

The locatedness of memory has become increasingly important both for cultural theory and for the analysis of specific mnemonic phenomena. Pierre Nora’s “lieux de mémoire” (“sites of memory”) and Aleida Assmann’s “Erinnerungsräume” (“spaces of remembrance”) allow for a first understanding of this relationship between memory and space. The more recent awareness of the implications of global mobility has, as a consequence, led to the realization that memory is permanently “on the move”, shifting between places, cultures and identities.

The aim of this seminar is to outline the aspects of the aforementioned relationship between memory and space in its literary representations, working especially on the following topics: places of memory, memory of places; trauma and memory of the body; memory and migration. The literary corpus will include works by W. G. Sebald, Uwe Timm, Jonathan Safran Foer and Dulce Maria Cardoso