MANCENT

The Manchester Continuing Education Network

History

Autumn 2011

The course at a glance:

Europe between the Wars (1919-1939)

Racism and Genocide in the Twentieth Century

DAYSCHOOL: Great Manchester Outsiders

DAYSCHOOL: Filming the Revolution - Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin

DAYSCHOOL: Fritz Lang's Metropolis

Europe between the Wars
(1919-1939)

Andrew Jones, Martin Jervis, Alan Sennett,

1 The Versailles Peace Settlement    (AJ)
2  Weimar Germany                        (MJ)
3  Lenin and the Russian Revolution (AJ)
4  Mussolini and Fascist Italy            (MJ)
5  Britain and the Spanish Civil War   (AS)
6  Hitler and Nazi Germany               (MJ)
7  Stalin and the Revolution from above (AJ)
8  The road to War                             (MJ)

Tea and coffee are provided
N.B.  Parking is available

Day: Wednesdays          Time: 1.30-3.30 pm

5 sessions, starting 5th October - 23rd November, 2011

Venue:
Emmanuel Church,
The Old Rectory
Barlow Moor Road,
Didsbury
M20 6TR
(near the junction with Wilmslow Road)

TO BOOK YOUR PLACE
Please Contact Andrew Jones 0161 491 2874
Please be aware that places are limited
Book early to avoid disappointment
 

Racism and Genocide in the Twentieth Century

Alan Sennett and John Cochrane

This six week course examines the experiences of and explanations for racism and genocide in the 20th Century.  Using concrete case studies we will focus upon the ways in which historians and social scientists have approached questions of racism, its mobilisation for political purposes, and attempts to explain the major instances of genocide in the twentieth century.  Starting with ideas about “race” in the late 19th Century we cover several of the key instances of “eliminationist racism”, looking for parallels, differences and explanations.  We draw upon some of the most recent work in this field from a range of disciplines and approaches.  Although we will illustrate our sessions with handouts (maps, diagrams and some primary source documents), we will not be using atrocity pictures or audio-visual depictions.  Our aim is to seek understanding and explanations for some of the most important events and processes of modern times.  There will be ample opportunity for discussion and questions.

• Eliminationist Racism and Racial Thought in the late 19th and early 20th Century: from eugenics to “life unworthy of life”.    [John]

• Race and Empire – The first genocide of the 20th Century?  German, British and Belgian colonialism in Central and Southern Africa.     [Alan]

• War and Genocide - the Holocaust. “Europe cannot find peace until the Jewish Question has been solved. [This means] the annihilation of the Jewish race.” (Hitler, 30th January 1939)      [John]

• Pol Pot and Cambodia. Making society “legible” and then eradicable. [John]

• The Bosnian genocides 1941-45 and 1992-95.  [Alan]

• Getting history and society wrong, again!  The Rwandan genocide and western ideas of African society today.   [Alan]

Date: Mondays Time: 2.00pm – 4.00pm.

6 sessions, starting 31 October 2011.

Venue:
Friends Meeting House
6 Mount Street,
Manchester
M2 5NS.

Send booking to:
Alan Sennett
Flat 5, 36 Oak Road, Withington, Manchester M20 3DA
email: a.sennett@open.ac.uk Tel: 0161 4380309

DAY-SCHOOL:
Great Manchester Outsiders

Andrew Jones, Martin Jervis, Chris Makepeace, Alan Sennett,

1   Ernest Rutherford         (AJ)
2    Frederick Engels          (AS)
3   Charles Halle                (CM)
4    Annie Horniman           (AC)

Saturday, 22nd October 2011, Time: 10am - 3.30 pm

Venue:
Opportunities and Activities
Union Chapel,
Wellington Road,
Fallowfield.

TO BOOK YOUR PLACE
Please Contact Andrew Jones 0161 491 2874
Please be aware that places are limited
Book early to avoid disappointment

Dayschool: Fritz Lang's Metropolis

Alan Sennett

This day school looks at Fritz Lang’s 1927 Expressionist masterpiece.  We will consider the film’s production history and locate it in its context of the high point of Weimar Germany, using the newly restored and reconstructed version with the recently discovered missing scenes and the original orchestral score by Gottfried Huppertz composed for the Berlin premiere. We will look at various interpretations of the film, as a piece of early science fiction cinema; as commentary upon Weimar Germany’s explosive labour relations; as anticipator of the rise of Nazism.  Why did Lang come to dislike his own creation and Goebbels find so much to admire in it?

Date:Monday, 24th October 2011. Time: 10.30am – 4.30pm.

Venue:
Friends Meeting House
6 Mount Street,
Manchester
M2 5NS.

Send booking to:
Alan Sennett
Flat 5, 36 Oak Road, Withington, Manchester M20 3DA
email: a.sennett@open.ac.uk Tel: 0161 4380309

Dayschool: Filming the Revolution – Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin

Alan Sennett

This day school examines Sergei Eisenstein’s classic Soviet propaganda film from 1925, setting the film in its historical context and discussing it both in terms of the revolutionary events of both 1905 and 1917.  Using the recent restoration of the film that includes hitherto missing scenes and Edmund Meisel’s original orchestral score for the hugely successful 1926 Berlin screenings of the film, we will consider the history of the film itself.  We will consider the reasons why the film was not seen in the director’s original version after the mid-1902s. Why, for instance, was the opening quote from Leon Trotsky replaced by one from Lenin? Why were German soldiers forbidden from seeing the film in 1926?  How did the film become associated with Shostakovich’s music and why was the original score lost for over 50 years? Why was the film banned from theatrical screening in Britain until the 1950s?  The day school will also make use of clips from other Soviet classics of the 1920s.

Date:Monday, 17th October 2011. Time: 10.30am – 4.30pm.

Venue:
Friends Meeting House
6 Mount Street,
Manchester
M2 5NS.

Send booking to:
Alan Sennett
Flat 5, 36 Oak Road, Withington, Manchester M20 3DA
email: a.sennett@open.ac.uk Tel: 0161 4380309