Mondays and Wednesdays
11:15-12:30
Spring 2013
This course provides a broad survey of sociological perspectives regarding the role of media (television, radio, printed press, film, and the Internet) in society. The course will examine historical media developments, theoretical frameworks used to analyze media audiences, producers, and effects, the impact of media in popular culture, their role in shaping social memories and the relation between media and violence, including terrorism and genocide.
Professor Baer is the new director and Stephen C. Feinstein Chair of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. He is a distinguished scholar of Holocaust memory and testimony, and comes to Minnesota after serving on the sociology faculty of the Ludwig Maximilians-Universität-München in Germany.
His books include Holocausto. Recuerdo y representación (Holocaust: Remembrance and Representation) and El testimonio audiovisual. Imagen y memoria del Holocausto (Audiovisual Testimony. Image and Memory of the Holocaust). In addition he has authored numerous articles addressing issues of genocide, memory, and Anti-Semitism. He is currently engaged in research focusing on the uses and abuses of Holocaust history and memory in the Spanish-speaking world as well as the trans-nationalization of memory.
