HENK00024U English, 2013 curriculum - Free topic 14: Life-story, oral history and the archive of memory
Volume 2017/2018
Content
Life-story telling, even as silent recollection, is always located socially and historically as well as psychologically. Consequently the recent study of life-stories cuts across disciplinary boundaries to reveal the structures that underly thought, spoken and (sometimes) written down versions of the past. This course considers what it means to create one, or many, personal histories, as well as the ways in which historians, sociologists and anthropologists analyse such accounts. We pursue these theoretical considerations through various life-stories beginning from the 18th century.
Literature
Main reading list:
- James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw (c. 1707-75), Narrative (1772)
- Mary Saxby (1737-1801), Memoirs of a Vagrant Woman Written by Herself (1806)
- ‘A vagrant boy’ (born c. 1834) in: Peter Razzell & Henry Mayhew, The Morning Chronicle Survey of Labour and the Poor (1850)
- Ellen O’Neill, Extraordinary Confessions of a Female Pickpocket (1850).
- Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977), My Autobiography (1964)
- Donall MacAmhlaigh (1926-89), An Irish Navvy: the diary of an exile (1964)
- Bibi Inder Kaur (1917-96), oral testimony
Additional readings:
Various extracts and articles – supplied online.
Teaching and learning methods
Classes, with particular
emphasis on reading primary and secondary texts, oral discussion
and developing proficiency in English.
Remarks
Objectives: To give
students a working knowledge of recent academic debates and
methodologies connected with life-stories, oral history and memory;
to explore interdisciplinary approaches – historical, social,
psychological and cultural – to the study of life-stories, oral
histories and ‘memory work’; to foster analytic skills, critical
thinking as well as written and spoken expression by the close
reading and discussion of various sources.
Content: The sessions are arranged around discussion of three questions:
how life-story sources (autobiographies, convict testimonies, oral histories) are created, recorded and circulated; how such sources are used psychologically, socially and ideologically; how ‘observer’ accounts (journalistic, ethnographic, filmic and photographic) tell life-stories.
Learning: By critical analysis of various primary sources, including autobiographies (sometimes extracts), convict testimonies and interviews as well as visual materials, including film; by group discussion of issues raised in the sources, by discussion points which the course tutor raises; finally, by tutor and student presentations.
Life-story, oral history and the archive of memory will be taught in weeks 37-44, four hours/week.
Content: The sessions are arranged around discussion of three questions:
how life-story sources (autobiographies, convict testimonies, oral histories) are created, recorded and circulated; how such sources are used psychologically, socially and ideologically; how ‘observer’ accounts (journalistic, ethnographic, filmic and photographic) tell life-stories.
Learning: By critical analysis of various primary sources, including autobiographies (sometimes extracts), convict testimonies and interviews as well as visual materials, including film; by group discussion of issues raised in the sources, by discussion points which the course tutor raises; finally, by tutor and student presentations.
Life-story, oral history and the archive of memory will be taught in weeks 37-44, four hours/week.
Workload
- Category
- Hours
- Class Instruction
- 28
- Preparation
- 176,75
- Total
- 204,75
Exam (Module 1, 2 or 3, 2013 curriculum)
- Credit
- 7,5 ECTS
- Type of assessment
- Other
Criteria for exam assesment
http://hum.ku.dk/uddannelser/aktuelle_studieordninger/engelsk/
Course information
- Language
- English
- Course code
- HENK00024U
- Credit
- 7,5 ECTS
- Level
- Full Degree MasterFull Degree Master choice
- Duration
- 1 semester
- Placement
- Autumn
- Schedule
- See schedule
- Study board
- Study board of English, Germanic and Romance Studies
Contracting department
- Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies
Course Coordinators
- Peter Leese (5-6f68687668436b7870316e7831676e)
Saved on the
26-04-2017