The Dead: Ten Bodies and Their Legacies in the Making of Modern Europe, 1793-Present Day

The dead are not with us anymore, but they are just as present. In the past two-hundred and fifty years, the European continent has undergone extensive political, cultural, and social change. Using the dead as vehicles for analysis, this course moves along chronological and thematic axes to explore how modern Europe has understood itself through its dead. How did societies commemorate or forget the bodies at the time of death, and what does that mean for the living and how they live their lives? This course will not only look at the bodies historically, but their legacies today. How do societies remember the dead, and how has their meaning changed amidst the background of a volatile European geopolitical climate? What can their contemporary memories suggest about the state of Europe today?