Topics: World War II and Its Aftermath Through History,
Film and Literature – HIS 195
OR
Rites of Thematic Passage – ENL 270
Date: May
10-24, 2008 Faculty: Bob Cowgill, Assistant Professor of English and
Jacqueline de Vries, Associate Professor of
History
Location: Germany/ Poland/ Czech Republic
Application deadline: February 1, 2008
Updated cost (12/17/2008):
Day Students: $4,900
WEC Students: $5,400
Adorno famously remarked that after Auschwitz there could
be no more poetry. In light of this lacerating insight (often misunderstood and
attacked), and in light of transformed "new-century" Eastern European cities
like Berlin and Prague in the post-Soviet, post-modern era, disturbing questions
can be raised about the changing nature and value of historical consciousness
and memory. How does a culture pay homage to a horrific past in an age that
makes a commodity of place identity? How should the memory of the past be
embodied in everyday life? What happens to the work of artists and writers
haunted by the past when experience of the events in question begins to pass out
of living memory, even while the events themselves seem to be firmly entrenched
in mass culture through seemingly endless and often misleading representations
of film and literature?
This interdisciplinary course will blend the methodologies
of the historian, the literary theorist, the artist, and the humanely conscious
moral person. Students will take a moral and critical journey to Eastern Europe
- one never to be forgotten - guided by some of the most insightful texts of the
last century that explore the uses of WWII for the purposes of art and
construction of received memory. It will be offered in the Spring WEC schedule,
and includes a 2-week travel component to important World War II sites in
Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic.
Jacqueline de Vries
Jacqueline de Vries received a
B.A. from Calvin College and an M.A. and Ph.D. from The University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign (1996). She has taught at Augsburg for 8 years and currently
serves as Department Chair. She has also served as Augsburg's Coordinator of
Women's Studies, and is now the Director the Women's Studies Program of the
Associated Colleges of the Twin Cities (ACTC). Her courses cover a range of
topics in 19th and 20th century European social and cultural history. Her
research is focused primarily on British cultural life in the early 20th
century. She is currently revising a book-length manuscript titled “A New Heaven
and Earth: Feminism and Religion in Great Britain, 1880-1930,” which explores
the relationship between women's emancipation in Britain and the changing place
of religion in modern public and private life. In her leisure hours, Jacqueline
likes to cook French and Italian food, raise heirloom vegetables and flowers,
read novels, and train for 10K races.
Bob Cowgill
Professor Cowgill received his Ph.D. in English from the
University of Minnesota and is Assistant Professor of English at Augsburg
College, where he uses his experience in the producing arts to enhance his
courses. As a dramaturg for the Guthrie Theater, he trained under the emerging
traditions of European theatrical performance. This experience informed a study
abroad course he taught on contemporary theater in London, as well as an
academic journey to Berlin to study a four-day long post-modern production of
Goethe’s Faust. Professor Cowgill’s academic interests include film and
theatrical performance styles, the effects of the machinery of cultural
production on the aesthetics of individual artists, and evolving theories of
authorial intention.
