Call for papers open now
Collecting the Holocaust: Ethics, Memory, and Materiality offers cultural heritage sector professionals and scholars from various disciplines an opportunity to explore the assembly of material and immaterial, human and non-human agents involved in collecting and managing materials related to the Holocaust and to engage in discussions about ethics, methodological challenges, and political dimensions of Holocaust heritage.
Note! More information will be updated shortly.
Important dates
- Deadline for Proposals: February 15
- Notification of acceptance: March 15
- Registration opens: April 15
The Holocaust's shifting and competing meanings in contemporary society highlight the importance of discussing ethical and sustainable methods for collecting, curating, and presenting Holocaust memories and underline the challenges associated with ensuring responsible accessibility and use of these materials to the public and researchers. The conference addresses the ethical implications of collecting and curating materials related to the Holocaust for museums and other heritage institutions. It will focus on three thematic topics:
- The Ethics of Curating Holocaust Materiality
- Methodological Challenges in Collecting the Holocaust
- Political Dimensions of Holocaust Heritage
Keynote speakers
- Dr Rebecca Jinks, Senior Lecturer in Modern History at the Department of History at the Royal Holloway University of London & Dr Christine Schmidt, Deputy Director, and Head of Research at The Wiener Holocaust Library.
- Dr Robert M. Ehrenreich, Director of Academic Research and Dissemination at Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
- Erica Lehrer, sociocultural anthropologist and curator, presently Professor in the History Department at Concordia. She currently directs the international team project, Thinking Through the Museum. A Partnership Approach to Curating Difficult Knowledge.
Panel:
The list of panelists will be published shortly.
Conference venues and programme
The opening night and inaugural keynote will be held at the newly established Swedish Holocaust Museum, allowing attendees to view its exhibitions. The main part of the Conference on November 26–27 will take place at the Swedish History Museum: Presentations, additional keynotes, panel, and a poster session with invited museum partners of the network project “On Collecting the Holocaust, ethics, museums and materiality”. On the final day, a panel featuring museum professionals and scholars will address the “Challenges of Collecting the Holocaust”. The conference dinner for presenters of papers and posters will be held at the Royal Armory Museum near the royal castle.
The conference is organized by three research projects funded by the Swedish Research Council: “Collecting the Holocaust in Sweden: Collections and Ethics”(Dnr: 2022-06183); “The Ethical Dilemmas of Digitalization: Vulnerability and Holocaust Collections” (Dnr: 2021-01428), and “Swedish Remembrance of the Holocaust. Museums, materiality, and Politics” (Dnr: 2022-02011). Organizers: Britta Z. Geschwind (SMF & LU); Markus Idvall (SU); Liv Nilsson Stutz (LnU); Fredrik Nilsson (ÅA) and Malin Thor Tureby (MaU).
The complete program will be published here shortly.
The registration will open as soon as the papers have been selected. There will be a modest conference fee. More information on that will be published before the end of March.
Call for papers
We invite contributions from a diverse range of disciplines, including, but not limited to, history, archaeology, ethnology, museology, sociology, religious studies, and anthropology, from both universities and research environments affiliated with museums and archives. The conference sessions will focus on three main topics. The issues outlined under each topic serve as examples; your submission may address these questions or explore other related aspects as long as they are connected to the overarching themes.
The Ethics of Curating Holocaust Materiality
We welcome papers focusing on material traces of the Holocaust and related events that identify and discuss specific ethical challenges regarding curating objects and collections. These include museum decision-making processes and the curation of physical and digital exhibitions, from selecting the display and scope to crafting the narrative presented to the audience. We especially invite scholars who have worked in different ways with artifacts related to “difficult materiality,” dark heritage, affect, and memory.
Suggested Topics:
Authenticity, affect, and emotion
How does materiality matter? Problematizations of the physical object as a resource for creating affect and emotion and addressing the possible challenges inherent in various understandings of matter and authenticity linked to the Holocaust.
Contextualization and intertextuality: objects, images, and texts
Curating exhibitions physically or digitally, from selecting the display and scope to crafting the narrative presented to the audience: Exploring multimodal aspects of displaying and framing Holocaust-related collections and the challenges of intertextuality between objects, documents, images, and texts.
Power dynamics and perspectives
Problematizing relational views and positions. For example, focusing on perspectives, objects, and narratives that are/have been dominant and are/have been left out of curators' practices. Intersectional analysis on who has an agency or not? Of what kind? Whose view dominates?
Methodological Challenges in Collecting the Holocaust
We invite scholars, practitioners, and researchers to contribute to an interdisciplinary discussion on the methodological challenges inherent in collecting, cataloguing, digitizing, preserving, and interpreting Holocaust-related materials. This theme critically examines how historical, ethical, and practical considerations shape Holocaust collections and their use in education, memorialization, education, and scholarship.
Suggested Topics:
Selections and Demarcations in Collecting and Preserving:
Challenges when deciding how and what to collect, digitize, preserve, and prioritize in Holocaust archives and museums.
Contextualizing and Metanarratives on Collecting and Collections:
How do larger cultural and historical metanarratives influence the formation and interpretation of Holocaust collections and archives? What is the role of institutional frameworks in shaping public memory? Including ethical challenges in practices of collecting, cataloging and digitizing.
Working with Minorities:
What ethical considerations emerge in collecting, preserving and/or digitizing materials, stories, and testimonies from minority groups?
Accessibility and Vulnerability:
How can Holocaust collections be made accessible while respecting the vulnerability of survivors, witnesses, and descendants? Examples and discussions on innovative practices that address the balance between openness and protection.
Political Dimensions of Holocaust Heritage
We welcome papers problematizing how collections linked to the Holocaust are used and re/presented in different public spaces and situations in contemporary diverse societies. The proposed papers may critically discuss the challenges of cultural politics, identity politics, racism, antisemitism, laws, and regulations linked to heritage and memorialization.
Suggested Topics:
The use and misuse of collections for political agendas:
How Holocaust-related collections may become charged, uncharged, and re-charged in different temporal and spatial contexts and under different political and normative circumstances. How archives and museums navigate Political landscapes, memory laws, and regulations.
Symbolic representations of the Holocaust:
The ethics of translating sources into artistic representations in the present. For example, artistic interpretations and representations and how collections work as sources of knowledge behind commemorative monuments and/or counter-monuments in the public space of cities, regions, and nation-states. Museums, memorials, and the Holocaust industry.
Affective anachronism:
The pedagogic use of the Holocaust materialities to understand and battle racism, antisemitism, and genocides in the present.
Conflicting expectations about Holocaust heritage:
How museums and other memory institutions work with various stakeholders, dealing with competing victimhood, activism, and meaning-making practices of the Holocaust and related events in the present.