5014303 – Erinnerungskultur-Medienkultur: Representations of Historical Injustice in Media [KuG][MedTP]

As a joint lecture series within EPICUR, lecturers from several partner universities will contribute. The several lectures will deal with Representations of Historical Injustice in Media. Representations of history may serve a lot of different purposes. As a way of divulgation of knowledge produced by historical research they may be seen as a form of science communication. But they have also played a major role in nation building and still do in the formation of collective ‘identities’ of any kind. Therefore they are prone to ideological constructions and superpositions, possibly leading up to territorial claims and justification of aggression. And, last but not least, they help to draw attention to media products and produce aesthetic pleasure with a seemingly growing audience interested in getting to know more about important historical developments in an entertaining way. Particularly interesting and problematic in this context are the dark sides of history, marked by events of war, violation of human rights or even genozide, and especially cases of historical injustice. Together with the acknowledgement of a fact as historical injustice comes the aspect of responsibility which stretches far beyond the actual period in which the fact occurred. A lot of different questions arise: Who can be held responsible – only real persons for their deeds of injustice or also institutions backing their actions, facilitators of these deeds, bystanders who did not act to prevent these acts to happen, etc.? How have these possible agents of historical injustice reacted to what has happened afterwards - did they show remorse, did they try to get in contact to the victims and offer recompensation? How have these agents been treated by their own or the international community – in a range from condemnation to glorification? And, in the long run probably most important, in which way has historical injustice been remembered, privately and publicly, superficially or thoroughly, separatedly between the sides of the agents and the victims or together, or on one or both of these sides perhaps not at all? And what types of historical development can be observed with regard to all of these questions?