Module manager: Dr Roseanna Ramsden
Email: r.ramsden@leeds.ac.uk
Taught: Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) View Timetable
Year running 2025/26
This module is not approved as an Elective
This module addresses debates in literary, historiographical and psychological theory about the ways the legacy of the trauma marked by the historical Holocaust is represented by survivors, historians, sociologists, psychoanalysts, writers, artists and museums. Rather than an historical study of the events of 1933-1945, this module enables you to consider the continuing significance of this disaster in the larger context of European history and the challenges ‘the event’ poses to the ‘limits of representation’ (Friedländer).
The aims and objectives of this module are to consider the continuing significance of the events known as the Holocaust or Shoah as they enter representation. The module aims to enable you to consider the continuing impact of the Holocaust on the lives of its surviving witnessing and their children, to assess efforts to bear witness through films, texts and artworks, and to evaluate current attempts to memorialise and educate in the form of museums and monuments. The module will consider diaries, memoirs, films, testimonies, artworks, monuments, museums, and documentaries. This multidisciplinary cultural approach is designed to enable students to understand both the development of ways of representing the Holocaust from the post-war to the present, and the meaning of cultural memory as social knowledge.
On successful completion of this module you will be able to:
1. Recognise the cultural and historical significance of the Holocaust
2. Examine key concepts used to analyse the Holocaust and its representation and memorialisation
3. Analyse a range of cultural and historical artefacts, and to reflect on their usage
Skills learning outcomes
On successful completion of the module students will be able to:
4. Critical Thinking: ability to weigh up different arguments and perspectives on Holocaust representation, using supporting evidence to form opinions, arguments, theories and ideas.
5. Information, data and media literacies: The ability to find, evaluate, organise and share information across a variety of formats and media, ensuring the reliability and integrity both of the sources that you use and of the ideas that they help you to generate.
Details of the syllabus will be provided on the Minerva organisation (or equivalent) for the module
| Delivery type | Number | Length hours | Student hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seminar | 10 | 3 | 30 |
| Private study hours | 270 | ||
| Total Contact hours | 30 | ||
| Total hours (100hr per 10 credits) | 300 | ||
- One 20-minute PowerPoint presentation to the group on chosen topic. Feedback provided verbally in class and afterwards via email.
- Leadership of one seminar. Feedback provided during the planning stage and following the activity.
- One essay plan, overview or outline, submitted prior to essay. Feedback comments and one-to-one feedback tutorial provided.
- Participation in class discussions
- Participation in group work
| Assessment type | Notes | % of formal assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Coursework | Written | 100 |
| Total percentage (Assessment Coursework) | 100 | |
Normally resits will be assessed by the same methodology as the first attempt, unless otherwise stated
The reading list is available from the Library website
Last updated: 30/04/2025
Errors, omissions, failed links etc should be notified to the Catalogue Team