Wednesday 16:00-16:30 Laurie Taylor discusses the latest social science research.
26 December 2007 repeat 30 December
THE GHOSTS OF BERLIN - in association with The Open University
Berlin is haunted by histories: the twentieth century brought defeat in the First World War and the abdication and exile of the king; it brought a Nazi government, war with much of Europe, a holocaust and the devastation of the German capital. It also brought a division which left one half of the city in Communist control and the other half marooned in a foreign country.
Memories of these histories are carved into the infrastructure of modern Berlin. As the process of unification develops, what is remembered and what is forgotten, what is re-used and what is demolished, bedevils and divides the capital of Germany as it tries to position itself for a global future.
A classic sociological work, The Ghosts Of Berlin by Brian Ladd documented the unique challenges for the changing Berlin since unification in 1990. In association with the Open University, Laurie Taylor goes to Berlin to update the story and discover how successful Berlin has been in taming or exorcising its unruly ghosts.
Laurie talks to Bruno Flierl, a former Urban Planner from the East of the City; Professor Werner Sewing; Professor Lena Schulz zur Wiesch and Professor Gabi Dolff-Bonekämper to discover how memorials can paradoxically serve to isolate difficult memories.
BERLIN EXTRA: Extra material from our partnership with the Open University
Additional information:
Brian Ladd, Historian
The Ghosts of Berlin: Confronting German History in the Urban Landscape Publisher: University of Chicago Press; New Ed edition ISBN-10: 0226467627 ISBN-13: 978-0226467627
The Companion Guide to Berlin Publisher: Companion Guides ISBN-10: 1900639289 ISBN-13: 978-1900639286
Bruno Flierl, German architect and urban planning expert
Professor Dr. Werner Sewing, Professor and lecturer in Urban Sociology and Architecture at Technical University Berlin
