Participants:

Kenshi Fukumoto (Kwansei Gakuin University), Reading the Texts of Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski

Kenshi Fukumoto is Assistant Professor at Kwansei Gakuin University. Now he is preparing doctoral thesis, "Medical Doctors Toward Social and Ethnic Problems in Poland 1905-1919". Recently he has published Robotnicy Łodzi drugiej połowy XIX wieku. Nowe kierunki badawcze (Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, 2017), with Kamil Śmiechowski and Marta Sikorska-Kowalska. He is also researching the discourse over 'the massacres in Volhynia' in 1943 to analyze the relationship between Poland, Ukraine and Russia in memory politics.

Hisashi Shigematsu (University of Tokyo), Evaluations Unsettled: Historical Views of the Genocide Centre and the International Commission in Lithuania

Hisashi Shigematsu is a doctoral student at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the University of Tokyo. He specializes in modern and contemporary history of Lithuania and area studies. He is now writing a Ph.D. dissertation dealing with political movements and Jewish minority in Lithuania from the 1930s to the 1940s.

Commentators: Dr Zuzanna Bogumił, Institute of Philosophy and Sociology APS, Prof. Dr hab. Tomasz Stryjek, Collegium Civitas, Dr Joanna Wawrzyniak, Institute of Sociology UW

Chair: Dr hab. Małgorzata Głowacka-Grajper

Date and venue: 19 September 2017, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw

Organisers: Małgorzata Głowacka-Grajper (IS UW), Małgorzata Pakier (ENRS), Joanna Wawrzyniak (IS UW), Karolina Wigura (IS UW)

The Genealogies of Memory seminars are organised by Social Memory Laboratory of Institute of Sociology UW and European Network Remembrance and Solidarity

Over the past decade, the book "Multidirectional Memory. Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization" by Professor Michael Rothberg from the University of California, Los Angeles, was the most widely discussed study devoted to the question of memory. The Polish translation of the book was published by Wydawnictwo Instytut Badań Literackich last September.

The author sheds new light on the contemporary cultural memory of the Holocaust by way of numerous parallels – geo-political, cultural and historical. He compares how the Holocaust is remembered in Germany, France, Warsaw, Israel and the United States. He ponders on how this memory is appropriated and transformed by other cultural and ethnic groups in order to commemorate their own history, especially the injustice suffered in the era of colonization.

More importantly, Rothberg rejects the interpretation of the appropriation and references as a rivalry of who suffered more. Instead, he proposes the notion of “multidirectional memory” which appeals to cooperation and solidarity. In light of contemporary debates on multiculturalism, immigrants and integration, as well as the challenges that Europe faces today, the book seems more relevant than ever before.

Will Michael Rothberg’s ideas gain recognition in Poland, internally divided and antagonized over the thorny issue of its own history? The question is all the more telling as Warsaw, the Warsaw Ghetto and the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes all play a significant role in the author’s ruminations.

The participants in our discussion included: Professor Michael Rothberg, Dr Katarzyna Bojarska, culture expert who translated the book into Polish, and Professor Adam Lipszyc from the Polish Academy of Sciences.

Chair: Dr Małgorzata Pakier (POLIN Museum & ENRS).

Date and venue: 14 December 2016, POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews

Organisers: POLIN Museum, Social Memory Faculty at the Institute of Sociology of the Warsaw University, European Network Remembrance and Solidarity and Kultura Liberalna

Participants:

Zuzanna Bogumił, Chłopska pamięć wojny – na przykładzie fotografii Feliksa Łukowskiego

Michał Łuczewski, Metoda międzygeneracyjnych badań nad pamięcią. Przykład Żmiącej

Anna Wylegała, Doświadczenie i pamięć: wokół reformy rolnej z 1944 roku

Date and venue: 27 October 2016, Institute of Sociology University of Warsaw

Organisers: Małgorzata Głowacka-Grajper (IS UW), Małgorzata Pakier (POLIN Museum, ENRS), Joanna Wawrzyniak (IS UW), Karolina Wigura (IS UW)

Partner institutions: Social Memory Laboratory, Institute of Sociology University of Warsaw; European Network Remembrance and Solidarity; POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews

Aim of the workshop was to discuss specificity of the collective memory and research of that memory in Belarus and Ukraine. Memory in Eastern Europe very often equals trauma because of its experience of 20th century two totalitarianisms, genocide, displacement and border changes. What links Ukraine and Belarus in this context is several decades of disruption of the collective memory mechanisms and discontinuance of the identity, caused by the totalitarian political system, blocking transfer of memory. After collapse of the Soviet Union, memory in both countries was suddenly released; new, alternative visions of the past, new national heroes, new victims, and new conflicts and “memory wars” appeared.

During this workshop young scholars from several countries presented their ongoing research projects. The meeting brought together new research on memory and discuss specificity of the Eastern European post-totalitarian memory, but also reflected on methodology and integrate scholars from various countries.

Date and venue: 10-11 June 2014, Staszic Palace, Nowy Świat 72 street, Warsaw

Organisers: European Network Remembrance and Solidarity and Centre for Advanced Research in Humanities and Social Sciences (Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences and Institute of Sociology, University of Warsaw)

The seminar was devoted to the state of memory studies in Russia, main directions and outcomes of sociological research on memory as well as political context of studying past in Russia.

Participants:

Alexey Levinson – sociologist from Yuri Levada Analytical Center, researcher of social memory in Russia

Alexey Miller – historian, professor in Russian Academy of Sciences and Central European University, expert in memory politics and historiography in Central and Eastern Europe Commentary

Włodzimierz Borodziej – historian, professor University of Warsaw, director of the Imre Kertész Kolleg Jena

Moderation: Sławomir Dębski – director of the Centre for Polish-Russian Dialogue and Understanding

The seminar was co-organized with the Centre for Polish-Russian Dialogue and Understanding

The third seminar from “Genealogies of Memory” series took place in March 2013 in Warsaw. Invited guests of the seminar presented the results of the “Memory at War. Cultural Dynamics in Polan, Russia and Ukraine” research project led by the University of Cambridge. The main aim of the seminar was to discuss the recently published book “Remembering Katyn” (Etkind, Finnin et al., Polity Press 2012).

The book “Remembering Katyn”, which explores the legacy of Katyn through the memory cultures of seven countries: Belarus, Poland, Russia, Ukraine and the Baltic States, is a perfect example of the collaborative, analytical work describing the Eastern European social memory processes.

Invited guests of the seminar, participants of “Memory at War” research team:

dr Uilleam Blacker – his interests include researching remembrance, literature and urban space in Poland, Russia and Ukraine

Simon Lewis – author of a doctoral thesis analysing the impact of a painful past in contemporary Belarusian literature

dr Matilda Mroz – resarcher of cinema and visual arts

dr Rory Finnin – researcher of the relation between literature and national identity in the Ukraine, social memory and nationalism

The seminar devoted to memory studies in Nordic region is part of an introduction to the conference “Regions of Memory”. Its aim was to show the regional diversity of memory studies throughout Europe. The researchers from Nordic Network in Memory Studies presented their papers on some aspects of collective memory in Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway.

Speakers:

Barbara Törnquist-Plewa (Lund University), Nordic Memory Studies

John Sundholm (Karlstad University), Finland at War on Screen since 1989: Affirmative Historiography and Prosthetic Memory

Hans-Jorgen Wallin Weihe (University of Stavanger), The Importance of Making the Invisible Visible. The Case of the Invisible Jews of Gudbrandsdal and Lillehammer

Kristian Nilsson (Lund University), Remembering Alien Encounters: Gösta Carlsson and the UFO-monument in Ängelholm, Sweden

Commentator: Joerg Hackmann (University of Szczecin)

Chair: Małgorzata Pakier (POLIN Museum, ENRS)

Date and venue: Friday, 28 September 2012, Warsaw University Library