The Connecting Memories Podcast

The guest speaker for this episode is Prof Peter Davies (University of Edinburgh).

Prof Davies presents a talk entitled ‘The Holocaust and Translation: a Complex Relationship’. In his talk and in the discussion that follows, Prof Davies thinks about the Holocaust as an essentially multilingual event, considering both the role of translation during the Holocaust and the all-important contribution of translators and interpreters to the memory of the Holocaust.

The guest speaker for this episode is Prof Michael Rothberg (University of California, Los Angeles).

Prof Rothberg presents a talk entitled ‘Debating Holocaust Memory: The Politics of Comparison in Contemporary Germany’ and we discuss the ethics of Holocaust comparisons, Holocaust memory in a postmigrant society, and the recent public debate in Germany known as the Historikerstreit 2.0 (Historians’ Dispute 2.0).

The guest speaker for this episode is Prof Katharina Niemeyer (Université du Québec à Montréal).

Prof Niemeyer presents a talk entitled ‘The Power of Nostalgia’. In her talk and in the discussion that follows, Prof Niemeyer talks about the wide range of scholarly approaches to the idea of nostalgia, its ‘bright’ and ‘dark’ forms, as well as technostalgia, and retro and vintage objects.

The guest speaker for this episode is Prof Max Silverman (University of Leeds).

Prof Silverman presents a talk entitled ‘Impure Memory’ and we discuss the links between memory and identity, the idea that memory is never pure, and the crucial contribution of art to memory cultures.

The guest speaker for this episode is Dr László Muntean (Radboud University Nijmegen).

Dr Muntean presents a talk entitled ‘Memory and Materiality: The Afterlife of the World Trade Center’. In his talk and in the discussion that follows, Dr Muntean thinks about memory materially, charting what subsequently happened to certain of the material remains of the World Trade Center and considering some of the ethical issues surrounding these ‘afterlives’.

The guest speaker for this episode is Prof Marianne Hirsch (Columbia University).

Prof Hirsch presents a talk entitled ‘Acts of Memory and Repair in a Suspended Present: New York City 2022’. In her talk and in the discussion that follows, Prof Hirsch introduces the Zip Code Memory Project community initiative, exploring the affective dimension of the pandemic and the losses it wrought.

This podcast is one of two extended specials to mark the two-year anniversary of the World Health Organisation’s declaration of a global pandemic on 11 March 2020.

The guest speaker for this episode is Dr Sarah Gensburger (CNRS).

Dr Gensburger presents a talk entitled ‘From ordinary memory to extraordinary heritage: a study of the memorialisation of the 2015 attacks in Paris?’

In her talk and in the discussion that follows, Dr Gensburger examines how the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks were remembered and discusses studying the commemoration of these events from the perspective of a sociologist and a resident of the district in which the attacks and much of the commemoration took place.

The guest speaker for this episode is Prof Patrizia Violi (University of Bologna).

We discuss ongoing debates about contested monuments and statues and Prof Violi presents a talk entitled ‘What future for contested monuments?’

The guest speaker for this episode is Prof Ann Rigney (University of Utrecht).

Prof Rigney presents a talk entitled 'The Afterlife of Hope: how the killing of demonstrators is remembered’ and we discuss cultural memory in connection with activism and social movements as well as ways of moving away from thinking about the past in terms of trauma.

The guest speaker for this episode is Prof Anne Fuchs (University College Dublin).

Prof Fuchs presents a talk entitled ‘When did postwar German memory culture end: from divided memory to a pluralistic memory culture’ and we discuss cultural memory in terms of memory contests and scales of implication.

The guest speaker for this episode is Dr Gyorgy Toth (University of Stirling).

Dr Toth presents a talk entitled ‘Memory, performance, and Native American sovereignty rights’ and we discuss cultural memory and activism in the context of Red Power and the Native American rights struggle. 

The guest speaker for this episode is Prof Akiko Hashimoto (Portland State University).

Prof Hashimoto presents a talk entitled ‘Something Dreadful Happened in the Past: War Memories in Japan’ and we discuss the cultural memory of WWII in Japan.

The guest speaker for this episode is Prof John Sutton (Macquarie University).

Prof Sutton presents a talk entitled ‘Distributed Ecologies of Remembering’ and we discuss how things, places and other people are involved when we remember.

The guest speaker for this episode is Dr Leila Kamali (@kamali_leila).

Dr Kamali presents a talk entitled ‘Cultural Memory Past, Present and Future in the work of John Edgar Wideman’ and we discuss the cultural memory of Africa in African American and Black British literature.

The guest speaker for this episode is Prof Bill Niven (Nottingham Trent University).

We discuss Holocaust memorials and the question of relevance and Prof Niven presents a talk entitled 'Reigniting Relevance: Recent Approaches to Memorial Heritage’.

Bill Niven is Professor in Contemporary German History at Nottingham Trent University.

The guest speaker for this episode is Prof Edward Hollis (ECA, University of Edinburgh). 

We discuss what memory means in the context of the built environment and Prof Hollis presents a talk entitled 'Secret Lives, Memory Palaces and Concrete Monstrosities'. 

Edward Hollis is Professor of Interior Design at the Edinburgh College of Art in the University of Edinburgh.  

A PDF of images to accompany Professor Hollis's talk can be found here: http://connectingmemories.weebly.com/podcast.html

In this short preview, Paul Leworthy introduces the Connecting Memories podcasts and sets out what the series hopes to achieve.