#1 Forum Discussion: One Day in Auschwitz Documentary

After watching the required viewing, One Day in Auschwitz documentary this week about the experience of the concentration camps during the Nazi regime , (this was the biggest death camp and crematorium in Poland), you can post a brief reaction, commentary, response and/or feedback here on Kitty’s experience. You can post any questions, associations, remarkable observations, things you are curious about. This forum will count as extra credit and will engage discussion with the class.

Trigger warning: the documentary tells the story of an Auschwitz survivor and it is told in a very user-friendly manner- However, it narrates events that affect human sensibility and viewer discretion is advised. (This is material that is typically used in high-schools and colleges and is geared for educational purposes).

#2 Forum 4: What is Collective trauma? What is Cultural Trauma? (Alexander et al) – Weekly Forum Team 9

This week we will focus on Jeff Alexander’s (one of my brilliant mentors at UCLA, presently at Yale, master of Cultural Sociology in the United States) chapter on Cultural Trauma and Identity (2004). How can we study the memory of historic trauma? What are the tools and perspectives? (I will engage the piece in my weekly discussion- please review my slides/audiovisual commentary). If you want to know a bit more about collective memory and its sociological masters, read the NYT review Kai Erikson’s (son of developmental psychologist Erik Erikson) classic 1976 work on disaster sociology on the Buffalo Creek man-made disaster (supplementary reading). It is still remarkably insightful and prescient, especially for those of you interested in effects of natural disasters/climate change nowadays. What is cultural trauma– how do we define it in order to conduct our own explorations/scholarly research/professional practice? What is cultural trauma? How is it different than collective or social trauma? Why is this important? How might we approach the study of the socio-cultural cases we are interested in? (thinking of your own project ahead)

Please follow Workbook 4 questions and reflect briefly on your own responses to the readings in this forum.

#3 Journal 4 (Workbook 4)

1) Identify and briefly discuss a historical-cultural experience of trauma and 2) identify one cultural expression, representation or manifestation ( post examples on Forum 4 post).

3) write a brief reflection on how you have come to (re) understand these experience/s as collective and/or cultural trauma. Explain how the example/s you chose and their cultural representations you know of may help remember and transmit the story.

Write a brief sentence or statement about your ACTS OF KINDNESS/Acts of Solidarity practice (at least 2-3 days) on the outcome here 4.

sources:

https://nextbigideaclub.com/magazine/stay-hopeful-everyones-cynic-bookbite/51504/

https://www.nytimes.com/1977/02/20/archives/everything-in-its-path-more-was-broken-than-a-dam-everything.html