The student will learn to discuss and analyse conflicts in the Eastern European and post-Soviet countries over the interpretation of historical events, most notably over the history of the Soviet Union. Taking the region of Eastern Europe as a case study, this course explores the nexus between Foreign Policy Analysis/International Relations and politics of memory. In Memory Studies, scholars study how various political actors compete over the meaning of past events embodied in various memory sites such as monuments, commemorations, museums, and history textbooks. Scholars of International Studies, on the other hand, study the external relations of a state. Therefore, we will learn how the foreign policy of a state is enacted through the memorialization of particular historical events. The production of historical narratives often serves as a mechanism of national identity construction that defines the relation of a state to other national or supranational entities.

Text summary (25%), a (group) project (25%), and a course paper (50%). A course plan including a detailed reading list and key questions will be distributed in the first session of the course.

Eric Langenbacher and Yossi Shain, eds., Power and the Past. Collective Memory and International Relations (Georgetown University Press, 2010)

Erica Resende and Dovile Budryte, eds., Memory and Trauma in International Relations: Theories, Cases and Debates (London: Routledge, 2013)

Jessica Auchter, The Politics of Haunting and Memory in International Relations (Routledge, 2014)

Duncan Bell, Memory, Trauma and World Politics - Reflections on the Relationship Between Past and Present (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).

Compulsory preceding studies: POLPOP01 Introduction to International Relations, or equivalent studies at sending institution (exchange students).