Discussants:
Professor Eric Langenbacher
, Teaching Professor, Georgetown University, and Senior Fellow and Director of the Society, Culture, and Politics Program at the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies (AICGS)
Professor Stephen F. Szabo
, Professorial Lecturer of International Affairs, Elliott School of International Affairs, and Senior Fellow at the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies (AICGS)
About the Book
The history and meaning of the Berlin Wall remain controversial, even three decades after its fall. Drawing on an extensive range of archival sources and interviews, this book profiles key memory activists who have fought to commemorate the history of the Berlin Wall and examines their role in the creation of a new German national narrative. With victims, perpetrators and heroes, the Berlin Wall has joined the Holocaust as an essential part of German collective memory. Key Wall anniversaries have become signposts marking German views of the past, its relevance to the present, and the complicated project of defining German national identity. Considering multiple German approaches to remembering the Wall via memorials, trials, public ceremonies, films, and music, this revelatory work also traces how global memory of the Wall has impacted German memory policy. It depicts the power and fragility of state-backed memory projects, and the potential of such projects to reconcile or divide.
Tuesday, November 5, 2019
12:30-2:00 pm
Lindner Family Commons (Room 602, Sixth Floor)
Elliott School of International Affairs
1957 E St NW
