Workshop 34
Facing the Former Enemy:
Memories of War and
War Crimes
Convenors:
Francesca Cappelletto,
University of Verona
Francesca.Cappelletto@univr.it
Anne Friederike
Müller, King’s College London
Anne-friederike.mueller@kcl.ac.uk
The twentieth century has
often been described as an age of
extreme political violence
on an unprecedented scale. Acts of
brutality have left a host
of horrifying and traumatic memories
in Europe and other parts
of the world. This workshop examines
memories in the aftermath
of war, e.g. recollections of massacres,
forceful displacement,
genocide, and crimes against humanity.
Contributors to this
workshop are invited to explore local faceto-
face situations in which
social or personal memories of
political violence are
confronted. The workshop aims at paying
attention not only to the
perspectives of former victims, but
also to the points of view
of former perpetrators. Under what
circumstances is
forgiveness and reconciliation possible? How is
memory mobilised in
identity politics that sustain animosity? To
what extent are memories of
war and war crimes intertwined
with collective or personal
sentiments of victimhood or guilt?
How are memories reshaped
in official acts of commemoration,
and in what ways do local,
national, and international memories
interact and perhaps
contradict each other? What are the effects
of museums, memorials,
historical writing, literature, works of
art, including popular art
forms such as popular theatre, in the
perpetuation of war-time
memories? Is there such a thing as an
aesthetics of atrocity, and
a tourism of terror? Other questions
that participants might
address are: What effect do judicial trials
have on the local,
nation-wide and international remembrance
of war-time atrocities?
What are the conflicts of memory that
arise within local or
national communities which have to come to
terms with the presence of
former collaborators in their midst?
Young People’s
Perspectives on Armed Conflict/ War and its
Memory
‘It’s Like
This Place Has a Serious, Serious Hangover ...’:
Attempting to Make Some
Sense of Continuing ‘Low’ Level
Violence as Experienced
by Young People in Contemporary,
Urban Northern Ireland
Rosellen Roche, Cambridge
University and Queen’s University Belfast
Transmitting Memory of
Collective Guilt and Personal Innocence:
Contradictory Pictures
of the Holocaust in German Post-War
Teaching
Alexandra Oeser, ENS,
l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales,
Paris and University of
Erfurt
Social Memories of
Violence Committed During the Second
World War
Remembering Gurs
Sandra Ott, University of
Nevada, Reno
Broken Bonds and Divided
Memories: Long-term Effects of War
Atrocities in a Greek
Mountain Village
Riki van Boeschoten,
University of Thessaly
riboush@uth.gr
Remembering Recent
Conflicts
The Salvation of the
City: Competing Visions of Belfast
Molly Hurley, City
University of New York
The Fall of Srebrenica in Community Memory
Esther Cornelisse,
University of Amsterdam
What Now? Towards Better
Inter-Ethnic Relations in Bosnia
and Herzegovina: The
Case of Brčko District
Monika Palmberger,
University of Vienna