Call for Papers: The Future of Holocaust Testimonies V

 

Call for Papers:

The Future of Holocaust Testimonies V: An International Conference and Workshop

March 11-13, 2019 

The Holocaust Studies Program of Western Galilee College, the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research, University of Southern California, and the Center for Judaic, Holocaust and Peace Studies, Appalachian State University, announce the fifth international interdisciplinary conference and workshop on The Future of Holocaust Testimonies to be held on 11–13 March 2019 in Akko, Israel.  

Survivors and their testimonies have been central to Holocaust research and memorial culture, but as fewer and fewer survivors remain among us, we need to consider how and in what forms Holocaust scholarship and the memory of the Holocaust will continue. One critical focus will certainly be the legacy that survivors leave behind in the forms of written, audio, and video testimonies, as well as in the transmission of their testimony to their children and grandchildren, who have their own stories to tell, as well as to researchers. In addition, those who are not survivors or their descendants seem destined to play an increased role in the transmission of the history and memory of the Holocaust. 
 
We welcome proposals for papers on any aspect of the future of Holocaust testimonies, including, but not limited to, the following topics:  

-methodological and theoretical issues

-"Holocaust testimony”—renewed analysis of conceptualization and meaning of the term

-limitations and boundaries in the use of Holocaust testimonies

-testimonies and historical context

-testimony classification and categorization by profession, occupation, age, gender, place, and time 

-re-reading and reinterpreting early testimonies

-multiple testimonies by one and the same survivor

-second- and third-generation testimonies

-history, memory, and testimony

-post-memory 

-intergenerational transmission of trauma and resilience

-how to remember what we did not experience

-the role of video-testimony in the future

-film as testimony

-the responsibilities of the scholar of the Holocaust  

Scholarly work on survivor testimony is done today in many academic disciplines including history, literary analysis, linguistics, cultural criticism, psychology, neuroscience, anthropology and sociology. The rich and varied corpus of testimonies requires the collaborative efforts of researchers across disciplines to enable us to hear the voices of survivors articulated through their testimonies.

We aim for the conference to contribute both to Holocaust research and to public discourse. Therefore, one day of the conference will be open to the public, and two days will be for researchers only. The conference will be conducted in English. During the public day, presentations and discussions will be held in English and Hebrew with simultaneous translation.

Please send a one-page proposal and a short CV to: TestimonyConf@wgalil.ac.il. Doctoral candidates, please add a letter of recommendation from your advisor.

Speakers will be provided full hospitality – hotel and meals; travel will not be covered.
 
Deadline for submission of proposals: August 5, 2018.
 
For further inquiries, please contact a member of the Steering Committee:
 
Dr. Boaz Cohen, chair, boazc@wgalil.ac.il   
Dr. Miriam Offer, miriamoffer@gmail.com
Holocaust Studies Program, Western Galilee College, Akko
 
Dr. Wolf Gruner, gruner@usc.edu
Dr. Martha Stroud, mstroud@usc.edu
Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research, Los Angeles
 
Dr. Thomas Pegelow Kaplan, thomaspegelowkaplan@appstate.edu 
Dr. Rosemary Horowitz, horowitzr@appstate.edu 
Center for Judaic, Holocaust and Peace Studies, Appalachian State University, North Carolina