Lessons and Legacies 2020
Lessons and Legacies Conference on the Holocaust XVI
The Holocaust: Rethinking Paradigms in Research and Representation 7-10 November 2020 (Saturday-Tuesday)
Ottawa, Canada
Carleton University and University of Ottawa
The Sixteenth Biennial Lessons and Legacies Conference, sponsored by the Holocaust Educational Foundation of Northwestern University, and hosted by Carleton University and the University of Ottawa in Ottawa, Canada, invites scholars to submit proposals for papers, panels, posters, workshops, and seminars. Proposals should relate to recent issues and advances in Holocaust scholarship and pedagogy and conform broadly to the conference theme, “The Holocaust: Rethinking Paradigms in Research and Representation.” We welcome submissions that utilize various methodologies and perspectives. Proposals from disciplines in addition to history are strongly encouraged.
What does it mean to develop conceptual paradigms relating to the Holocaust? From its etymological roots, “paradigm” denotes patterns, models, precedents, and examples. How might existing paradigms for understanding, representing, and teaching about the Holocaust benefit from re-examination and reformulation in light of new sources, interpretive methods, and interdisciplinary approaches and conversations? To what extent can debates in the study of the Holocaust pertaining (but not limited) to modernity, colonialism, antisemitism, racial and gender discrimination, and sexual violence, as well as conceptions of trauma, memory, testimony, and representation, connect the Holocaust to discussions of nationalism, imperialism, and mass atrocity more broadly? In what ways can experiences of the Holocaust constructively be invoked to call attention to human rights crises? What are the limits and perils of invoking such experiences? This conference aims to deepen our understanding of the Holocaust by recognizing that the uniqueness and specificities of the Holocaust should neither prohibit nor be lost in the process of drawing historical analogies. Holding the conference in Canada also offers an opportunity to think anew about specific lessons of the Holocaust for criminal acts against indigenous populations.
Submission Deadline: 1 December 2019