Frame and Preparation
Conceptual Frames and Background
- DDR
- Post-Wende reunified Germany
- Material cultures
- Memory culture
- Places and spatial culture
- Identity
- German history
- Trauma
Preparation
- As a collection of very short stories and vignettes, there are many options to choose from depending on what one wishes to teach. My personal preferences are “Palast der Republik,” “Krempel,” and “Warschauer Ghetto.”
- Depending on the stories chosen, students may need help with some of the historical and material references, such as to specific people and places in Berlin/Germany as well as consumer items referenced by their brand names.
- Many, if not all of the stories are ruminations on major moments in German history, such as the Wende, World War II, and the Holocaust. Depending on the story, historical context may be necessary for students to meaningfully engage the text.
Text and Discussion
- How do the various narrators in the stories feel about the past and the present? What words, emotions, moods are used and evoked?
- How do material objects store memories? Do they have their own memories? How do they interact with the user or owner of them?
- What is the relationship between individual and social/cultural memory, one that is personal and one that is shared? Is there even a difference in these stories?
- In the stories, how do memories constitute the identities of people?
- From your readings, what can we say about the memories of things, places, or peoples who have “disappeared” or that are no longer here? What kind of memories are these and what are their effects on us?
- What is the difference between trauma and memory? Do they ever overlap in the stories?
- What do the stories tell us about the role memory, both historical and personal, plays in German history?
- From the stories, can we glean a definitional difference between history and memory? Is there one?
- Describe the sorts of relationships the people in these stories have to former East Germany.