cfp.english.upenn.edu

Trauma & Memory: the Holocaust in Contemporary Culture

12 & 13th July 2013
University of Portsmouth, UK

Confirmed Keynote Speakers:
Phyllis Lassner, Northwestern University, USA
Sue Vice, University of Sheffield
Alan Marcus, University of Aberdeen
Shonaleigh Cumbers, Storyteller

This two-day interdisciplinary conference hosted by the Centre for Studies in Literature at the University of Portsmouth aims to explore the impact of the Holocaust on contemporary culture. Over the past decades, the memory of the Holocaust has not only become a common cultural consciousness but also a cultural property shared by people all over the world. As the critic Terrence Des Pres puts it, ‘the image of the Holocaust is with us – a memory which haunts, a sounding board for all subsequent evil – in the back of the mind … for all of us now living: we, the inheritors.’ In addition to the accounts of the survivors, the trauma and memories of the Holocaust are now explored in a wide variety of ways: in literature, in film, in Social, Historical and Cultural Studies. The conference aims to assess the role of Holocaust remembrance in contemporary culture. Topics under discussion might include:

- Memory, Postmemory, Prosthetic Memory
- Trauma Theories
- Perpetrator Writing
- Second- and Third-Generation Engagement with the Holocaust
- the Holocaust in Literature and in Film
- Teaching the Holocaust
- The ‘Institutionalization’ of the Holocaust through Museums and Memorials
- German Väterliteratur and Second-Generation Guilt by Association

Please send abstracts of 250 words by 10th March 2013 to Christine Berberich, Christine.berberich@port.ac.uk

Conference Website: http://www.port.ac.uk/research/csl/literatureevents/conferences/traumaan...