Spring 2023, Tuesdays, 4:00-7:00PM; Meets at MIT

Representations of the past are often used as instruments of power. Drawing upon historical narratives and mythologies in the U.S., and South Asia, in this course, we study the ways in which various communicative practices and institutions are implicated in the construction, representation, negotiation, and revision of public memory. We will examine the ways in which visual cultural forms as well as memorials and commemorations are central to the production of official discourses of gendered and sexualized citizenship, and belonging, as well as in the construction of both national and subaltern identities.

Faculty

Elora Halim Chowdhury is Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Director of the Human Rights Minor at University of Massachusetts Boston. Her research and teaching interests include feminist theories of violence, human rights narratives, and decolonial praxis. Her most recent book is titled, Ethical Encounters: Transnational Feminism, Human Rights, and War Cinema in Bangladesh (2022).

Patricia Davis is an Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Northeastern University, where she teaches courses on communication, gender, identity, inclusion, and memory. She has researched, written about and lectured on memory in its various forms, including material and visual culture, performance, speech, and mass media. Her book, “Laying Claim: African American Cultural Memory and Southern Identity” (2016), received multiple awards from the National Communication Association.