In this course, students visited with guest lecturer Dr Grit Wesser Berlin from 27 to 30 May 2024 to explore how the past is imagined, constructed and remembered by focussing on diverse narratives and representations of the former East Germany (GDR) in the capital city. During this four-day excursion, they went on a Cold War walking tour, visited the Stasi Museum, the East Side Gallery, the Stasi Archive (now part of the Federal Archive), and the GDR-Museum to explore first hand issues of representing and researching the past. After their return from this fieldtrip, they reflected together on their impressions and experiences to assess these in terms of methodological and epistemological challenges in which such representations and narratives can inform, enable or limit how this past is imagined or understood. They also critically engaged with their own knowledge and preconceptions of the GDR to reflect on what they have learned during the semester. As a collaborative venture, they were tasked to create a podcast for a non-academic audience with support of the Centre for Audiovisual Production (ZAP). The result is the podcast The Past is a Foreign Country in reference to the historian David Loewenthal’s seminal book.
Listen to the podcast below:
We would like to thank the DAAD for its financial support that made this fieldtrip possible. Thanks also to Jonny Whitlam, the Stasi Museum, the GDR Museum, and especially to our guide Nina Ziesemer at the Stasi Archive in Berlin. We are grateful for the support of the JGU’s Centre for Audiovisual Production (ZAP) in creating our very first podcast.
