Democracy as an ideal form of government was interpreted and realized differently across time in various parts of the world. Every attempt to establish democratic institutions in countries or world regions, their relative success, forms of organization and basis of stability, as well as the threats against them, are part of a global democratic history, which connects interpretations of the past with present experiences and future aspirations. 

Memory is a crucial tool for reflecting on democracy, as it involves many different representations of the past, cultures of remembrance and memory sites in museums, memorials and archives. Not only does it awake moral emotions across generations, influencing political and rule making decisions, but it also allows people to think about the past, present and future together. Democracy is remembered, memory affects democracy and, moreover, memories can be made, shared and reflected upon democratically, with an awareness of the variety of perspectives both in space and over time.

In this course, the topic of democratic memories will be discussed in an international and transdisciplinary way, including history, law, political science, education, psychology, sociology, archaeology and cultural studies.

This course aims to make students aware that democratic memory issues do not have simple solutions and demand cooperation between different academic specializations and multiple stakeholders, so that they appreciate how these issues are both contextually embedded and invite comparison as well as interdisciplinary study. 

The contact with researchers and students from different countries where issues of memory and democracy are dealt with differently, will support the development of critical thinking, opening new possibilities for mutual understanding, conceiving of international agreements as well as European and global collaborations.

The course brings lecturers and students together around concrete memory issues, visiting local memory sites and inviting the comparison between familiar and less familiar memories, between familiar and less familiar perspectives. Students are involved as actors and contributors in memory work, by elaborating their own small research projects in international groups under the supervision of our interdisciplinary team of teachers.

The physical mobility part will be running between 8-12 February 2027, in Madrid.

The 30 hour program consists of an opening conference, 5 lectures, a round-table discussion, an Open Lab workshop and 4 sessions of student group-work, where they will be tutored by our transdisciplinary team of lecturers.

This will be complemented by: 

• an expert-guided visit to urban neighborhood of Tetuán, where traces of Spanish colonialism in northern Morocco can be found; 
• a related short visit to Casa Árabe, a cultural center of reference for the diffusion of Arabic culture in Spain; 
• an expert-guided visit to Madrid city center exploring the material traces of Spanish colonialism in the Americas; 
• an expert-guided fieldtrip to Madrid's Sierra de Guadarrama, where the students will visit the Bustarviejo archeological site and the Cuelgamuros monument, both bearing powerful witness to Spain's recent past of political conflict.

The virtual part will be running between 1 December 2026 - 31 March 2027.

The online sessions will introduce the students to the transdisciplinary field of memory studies and problematize the relation between memory and democracy. The three course themes - Changing Memories, Memory and Coloniality and Memory and Political Conflict - will be introduced. The students will become more familiar with sociopsychological, political and legal philosophical issues in memory, as well as the research methods used in these fields: interviews, surveys, discourse analysis. Finally, they will receive a group tutoring session, to orient them on the small research project they will develop during the week in Madrid.

Virtual sessions: Wednesdays, 18:00-20:00

• 2 December: Floor van Alphen and Laura Beck (UAM) - CIVIS Course presentation. Lecture: ‘Introduction to Memory Studies as a transdisciplinary field: Changing Narratives.’
• 9 December: Konstantinos Kornetis (Department Modern History, UAM, member of ‘Comisionado 50 Años de Libertad’). Lecture: ‘Memory and Transitional Processes in Comparative Perspective’
• 16 December: Laurent Licata (Centre for Social and Cultural Psychology, ULB). Lecture: ‘Social psychological approaches to collective memories of colonialism’

- Winter Break -

• 13 January: César López (Psychology, UAM). Lecture: ‘Interrogating national narratives about the troubled colonial past in Spain’
• 20 January: Irene Martín Cortés (Political Sciences, UAM). Lecture: ‘Public opinion and memories of conflicts of the past’
• 27 January: Cristina Sánchez (Philosophy of Law, UAM). Lecture: ‘Holocaust, evil and collective responsibility’
• 3 February: group tutoring session, orientating the students on possible research subjects and methods with our interdisciplinary CIVIS team of teachers.

- 8 - 12 February: Physical mobility week in Madrid -

- 17 February: independent group work (no session)

• 24 February: Floor van Alphen and Laura Beck (UAM): Student’s paper presentations/ Follow-up session. The other lecturers of the course are invited to attend.
• 3 March: Floor van Alphen and Laura Beck (UAM): Student’s paper presentations/ Follow-up and final session of the course.