Authenticity and Victimhood in Twentieth Century History and Commemorative Culture. Historical Experience and the Construction of Victim Identities in International Comparison

Authenticity and Victimhood in Twentieth Century History and Commemorative Culture. Historical Experience and the Construction of Victim Identities in International Comparison

Veranstalter
Institut für Zeitgeschichte München-Berlin, Munk School of Global Affairs Toronto, Leibniz-Forschungsverbund „Historische Authentizität“, Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam, Georg-Eckert-Institut für internationale Schulbuchforschung Braunschweig, Topographie des Terrors Berlin
Veranstaltungsort
Stiftung Topographie des Terrors, Niederkirchnerstraße 8, 10963 Berlin
Ort
Berlin
Land
Deutschland
Vom - Bis
11.12.2014 - 13.12.2014
Deadline
17.11.2014
Website
Von
Institut für Zeitgeschichte München-Berlin

The distinction between perpetrators and victims has provided a key framework in understanding the history of the violent twentieth century and in coping with its troubled legacy. Identifying one’s self as a victim or as belonging to a group of victims appears to be one of the most important strategies in gaining recognition – and influence – in the culture of commemoration.

This conference aims to explore the experience and construction of victimhood as well as the related narratives in different national cultures. Is there a global trend towards a post-heroic understanding of history, and what roles do the narratives of victimhood play in that trend? What consequences do the competing interests of different victim groups have for the conception of national history, collective memory, and identity?

Bearing in mind these central questions, the conference asks first how societies and social groups have constructed victims’ identities. Second, we will investigate the ways in which victims balance their experience as individuals with aspects of collective victimhood. The conference will also seek to examine the activities of various victims’ organizations and to explore public discourses regarding commemoration. Finally, we will consider the influence of state politics, legislation, and justice in the process of constructing victims’ identities.

Our main focus will be placed on the history of the 1930s to the 1950s in Europe and Asia as well as the legacies that resulted from that period. More specifically, we will seek to place German and European historical experiences in a broader global context.

The conference will be held in English.

Programm

Thursday, 11.12.2014
14.00-14.30 Welcome (Magnus Brechtken, IfZ München-Berlin)

14.30-18:00 Panel 1: Victims of genocide, massacres and war crimes

Chair: Martin Sabrow (ZZF Potsdam)

Ingo Loose (IfZ München-Berlin): Eastern European Shoah victims and the problem of group identity

Tatiana Voronina (European University, St. Petersburg): "Heroes or Victims": The politics of memory in Blokade associations in Russia.

Daqing Yang (George Washington University, Washington D.C.): Japanese War Atrocities and the Construction of Victim Identities in China

Satoshi Nakano (Visiting Scholar George Washington University, Washington D.C.): The Death of Manila in World War II and postwar commemoration

Jürgen Zarusky (IfZ München-Berlin): History on Trial before the Social Courts: Holocaust-Survivors, German Judges and the Struggle for „Ghetto Pensions“

19:00: Public Lecture (Simultaneous translation)
Introduction: Andreas Nachama (Stiftung Topographie des Terrors)

Andreas Wirsching (IfZ München-Berlin): Vom Heldentod zum leidenden Opfer? Überlegungen zur "postheroischen" Erinnerungskultur

Public reception

Friday, 12.12.2014
9:00-12:30 Panel 2: Forced migration

Chair: Randall Hansen (Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto)

Mathias Beer: Rhetorics of victimization. German forced migrants after World War II (IDGL, Tübingen)

Brigitte Neary (University of South Carolina Upstate): „Herstory“ – The Traumata of East European German Women Towards and Following the End of World War II

Moritz Florin (University of Erlangen-Nürnberg): The Chechen and Ingush in Central Asia (1944-1956). Victim narratives and identities

Sören Urbansky (Universität München): „Are they all the same? The production of victim narratives in memorials in North East China“

Lori Watt (Washington University St. Louis/Missouri): Post-World War Two Repatriations in East Asia in History and Memory

14:00-15:00 Topography of Terror - Guided Tour through the exhibition

15:30-17:30 Panel 3: Aerial bombing

Chair: Magnus Brechtken (IfZ München-Berlin)

Randall Hansen (Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto): Allied perpetrators, German victims? The Bombing war 1942-1945

Yuki Tanaka (Hiroshima City University): Juxtaposing the Atomic Bombing of Japan and Japanese War Atrocities during World War II

James Orr (Bucknell University, Lewisburg/Pennsylvania, USA): Victimhood in Japan

18:00-19:30 Panel 4: Images of victims in educational media

Chair: Markus Otto (GEI Braunschweig)

William B. Niven (Nottingham Trent University): Multidirectional Memory? Flight, Expulsion, and the Holocaust in West and East German TV and cinema

Barbara Christophe (GEI Braunschweig): Representation of Lithuanian post-war partisans in educational media and practice

Denise Bentrovato (GEI Braunschweig): Representing genocide: education and the politics of victimhood in present-day Rwanda

Saturday, 13.12.2014

9.00 – 11:00: Panel 5: Narratives of victimization in popular cinema and documentaries

Chair: Thomas Lindenberger (ZZF Potsdam)

Michael Berry (University of California Santa Barbara): Shooting the Enemy: Photographic Attachment in Nanjing Massacre Cinema and the Curious Case of Scarlet Rose

Liliana Ruth Feierstein (Humboldt University of Berlin): Echoes from Europe. Jewish and Catholic narratives in films about the desaparecidos in Argentina

Peter Carrier (GEI Braunschweig): De- and Recontextualising the Holocaust in Curricula and Textbooks. A Report by UNESCO and the Georg Eckert Institute

11:30-13:30 Panel 6: Methodological and Theoretical Approaches and Final Discussion

Chair: Jean-Michel Chaumont (University Louvain)

Jie-hyun Lim (Hanyang University Seoul): The Contested Victimhood in Transnational Memory Space

Svenja Goltermann (ETH Zürich): Can the victim speak? A history of knowledge perspective on suffering and recognition

Michael Schwartz (IfZ-München-Berlin): Victim Identities in the Public Sphere: Patterns of Shaping, Ranking and Reassessment

Kontakt

Agnes Bresselau von Bressensdorf
Institut für Zeitgeschichte München-Berlin
Leonrodstr. 46b
80636 München
authenticity@ifz-muenchen.de


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