Die genaue Literatur wird zu Semester¬beginn bekannt gegeben. Interessierten Studierenden werden zur möglichen Vorbereitung folgende Titel empfohlen (aus diesen werden im Seminar jeweils 1-2 Kapitel gelesen): – Boldizsár Simon, Z. and Deile, L. (eds.) (2022). Historical Understanding. Past, Present and Future. London: Bloomsbury. – Chakrabarty, D. (2009). Provincializing Europe. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. – Hemmings, C. (2011). Why Stories Matter. The Political Grammar of Feminist Theory. Durham and London: Duke University Press. – Trouillot, M. R. (1995). Silencing the past: Power and the production of history. Boston: Beacon Press.

Die erfolgreiche Teilnahme wird bescheinigt aufgrund genauer Lektüre der Textsammlung, aktiver mündliche Mitarbeit sowie einem mündlichen Referat zu einem Thema des Seminars.
Näheres in der ersten Sitzung.

Angebotene Prüfungsleistung: Eine Hausarbeit als Modulabschlussprüfung ist möglich. Näheres regeln die jeweilige Studien- und Prüfungsordnung.

Since the late Twentieth century, the emergence of previously underrepresented or silenced collectives or “new subjects” into the public sphere has brought a wide array of changes, including thorough critiques of political institutions, culture, and the academic world. Representations of the individual and collective past have not been alien to such tendencies, as they have traditionally served to build precisely the identities and practices that these “new subjects” came to problematise. This seminar will focus on such debates, in order to examine some of the main political and epistemic challenges this phenomenon of the "new subjects" poses to traditional understandings of history and historiography, but also of other notions central to both, such as identity, knowledge, objectivity, temporality or progress. Readings will centre theorizations brought forth by the same groups that have struggled for a place both in narratives of the past, and in their production: feminist theories, queer studies, and decolonial and postcolonial studies, with their insights regarding how and who represents the past, and what are or could be the links between past and present (and future). The Seminar is organised into four modules: The first offers an introduction to the subject and the chosen theoretical and conceptual framework. The second focuses on the political challenges of representing the past raised by the emergence of these "new subjects" into the public sphere; we will examine the connections between historiographical presence and political presence, and address problems such as the constitution of identity through the selection of ancestors and temporal figurations. The third module turns to the epistemic aspects of history-making, with an emphasis on debates over objectivity, epistemic authority, standpoint, the body, the archive, among others. Finally, the fourth module will apply the categories and approaches seen in the previous ones, to two case studies: a) the discussion on monuments representing contested historical figures, and initiatives to bring them down or de-monumentalize; and b) the ways in which the problems studied throughout the Seminar also permeate narratives of the past produced by progressive social movements, with a particular focus on feminist and LGBTQ+ collectives.