AFTERMATH: THE POLITICS OF MEMORY
THE 2nd DR JAN RANDA CONFERENCE IN HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE STUDIES
5-6 June 2011
Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation, Monash University, Caulfield Campus, Melbourne in association with the USC Shoah Foundation and Jewish Holocaust Centre Melbourne
Keynote speakers include Jan T. Gross, Father Patrick Desbois, Dovid Katz, Stephen Smith (ADC Gandel Orator), Laura Levitt, Na'ama Sheffi and Raimond Gaita.
About the Conference – Aftermath: The Politics of Memory
Memory is contested in all of the nations that have experienced genocide.
At times, memories of the Holocaust seem permanent and monumental but in some European locations, Holocaust memory is under threat from a collective amnesia and ultra nationalism that refuses historical responsibility.
In Australia, the "culture of forgetting" has delayed apologies, reparations, and land rights. Australia's indigenous population retains a fragile grasp on survival and struggles with inherited trauma.
In Rwanda, national memory of the Tutsi genocide is fractured by accusations of a "double genocide" (against Hutu), and the sporadic elimination of eyewitnesses during genocide trials.
This interdisciplinary conference explores the politics of genocide remembrance and its impact on society.
It asks:
- What are the political uses of genocide remembrance?
- How is collective memory constructed?
- After political violence, is politicised memory inevitable?
- Who authorises the truth of a nation?
- Can memories of genocide survive the survivors?
THE FACE OF SILENCE AND APATHY*
* "The Face of Silence and Apathy" portrays the face of every group that stood by knowing what was happening under the Nazi regime in Europe. "I find it difficult to fathom a world that can stand by and let it happen. I find it more difficult to understand that it is happening again in places like Darfur and once again the world community does nothing." -- Aaron Morgan, www.aaronmorgan.com/holocaustseries.html
