Online Seminar

Online Seminar, Fall 2020

In November 2020 the four research units of ViCTOR-E organised an international online seminar for students from the universities of our project (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Università degli Studi di Udine, Italy and Sorbonne Panthéon, France).

 

Visual Culture of Trauma, Obliteration and Reconstruction in Post-WWII Europe

World War II left Europe, its countries and its citizens shattered by an overwhelming experience of loss, violence and destruction, while also in urgent need to start anew, imagining and building a new future from the ashes of this recent, traumatic past. In the decade that saw the reconstruction of the entire continent (1945-1956), media and especially non-fiction films (documentaries, Kulturfilme, newsreels, amateur films) played a key role in representing and shaping the cultural forms and the socio-political discourses of such an epochal process. They are now primary historical sources, made more and more available by film archives in digital form and on the web.

ViCTOR-E is a European research project that aims at exploring this filmic heritage and its complex relations to its socio-cultural-political backgrounds in four countries (Germany, Czech Republic, France and Italy) in a transnational, comparative perspective. Within this frame, we  invited students from four different European universities to join an international online seminar. The seminar  offered a unique opportunity to take part in an ongoing cross-disciplinary project, to get in touch with an international network of scholars and for discussions among students from across Europe.

The seminar focused on issues of film and media history, visual culture, curatorial practices, trauma studies, archive platforms and digital humanities, presenting case studies from the ongoing project. Each class of the seminar included screenings and debates, with additional weekly readings for the students to ground their active participation and deepen their knowledge and competences. Students have the chance to complete the seminar with their own curatorial project.

The seminar was held in English and will take place online (via Zoom).

For question please contact: Andrea Haller (Project Coordinator, Frankfurt)

Please find the detailed schedule, a reading list and links to the shared folder with literature and screening links below