The Whitney Seminars Coordinator
Jay Winter (History) (300E HGS, 432.1395)
The Whitney Seminars, a yearlong graduate course inaugurated
in 2002–2003, are sponsored by the Whitney Humanities
Center in association with the Department of History. Designed
to speak across disciplinary lines and to broad public and
intellectual issues, the format of the program includes both
the weekly seminar and a series of coordinated public lectures
on history, memory, and European identities. The lectures,
open to the Yale and local community, follow the seminar meetings.
Seminars
WHIT 97oa, When Was Europe? The Whitney Seminar
on European Identities. Paul Freedman, Paula Hyman,
Jay Winter. W 4–6, Lect. W 7
This seminar examines the idea of Europe from the Middle
Ages until now. Topics include European identity in relation
to Christian and Roman foundations, the mythology of nationalism
and the misuse of history (romantic and nationalist theories
of historical origins), the rhetoric of Enlightenment and
Progress, the impact of Marxism and liberalism on notions
of Europe, and unification and Balkanization in the late twentieth
century. This seminar examines the notion that “Europe”
was as much a shifting discursive field as it was a shifting
territorial one. The boundaries of both discourse and territory
remain contested and fluid to this day. Also HIST 970a.
WHIT 971b, History and Memory: The Whitney Seminar on
European Identities. Jay Winter. W 4–6, Lect. W 7
The seminar explores facets of the historical literature
surrounding issues of individual memory, collective memory,
and commemoration. The focus is on modern Europe, though the
literature surveyed addresses issues beyond the confines of
Europe. After a survey of interdisciplinary approaches to
the field, focusing on social agency, representations, trauma
studies, and cognitive psychological research, two different
kinds of evidence are examined. The first relates to historical
sites (monuments, ruins, battlefields, landscapes) as well
as social spaces (families, trials, museums); the second,
to representations and languages of remembrance, through the
narratives of trauma, fiction, memoir, testimonial literature,
photography, and film. The focus is on civil society rather
than primarily on the manipulation of commemorative forms.
Also HIST 971b.
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