My Family History: Practicing Cultural Memory in Archives, Exhibitions, and Classrooms
Mari Autumn McCarville (Author), Arne Höcker (Degree supervisor)
Over the past eight decades, people around the world have been grappling with how to remember the atrocities of World War II. Many countries have invested in archiving objects, designing exhibitions, and teaching school children about the war in hopes of never allowing something like it to happen again. This process of collectively documenting and (re)telling stories from the past is what historian Jan Assmann calls "cultural memory." In this thesis, I explore new ways of practicing cultural memory through a three-part project. Specifically, I reflect on how I 1) created a digital archive about my great grandfather and his family who fled Austria just before World War II, 2) built a digital exhibition with objects from this family history, and 3) incorporated these archival objects into teaching materials for German language classes. I begin my reflection of this project by discussing how objects in digital archives and digital exhibitions help people (re)construct their understandings of the past. Then, I use educator Brian Tomlinson's method of "content and language integrated learning" (CLIL) to demonstrate how language teachers can best embed digital, archival objects into their lessons. Finally, I conclude that digital, archival objects not only support students' language skills but also allow them to practice cultural memory in the classroom. This practical exploration of cultural memory aims to lay the foundation for future interdisciplinary projects that combine history, pedagogy, and the digital humanities
Thesis, Dissertation, English, 2024
Masters Abstracts International
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, Ann Arbor, 2024