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 Prof Astrid Erll (Goethe University Frankfurt).

Prof Erll presents a talk entitled ‘Coronavirus and Collective Memory’. In her talk and in the discussion that follows, Prof Erll reflects on the interrelation of collective memory and the pandemic, reviewing her mid-pandemic thinking with two years’ hindsight.

The talk in this episode (10.50-52.28) is a lightly edited version of the lecture Prof Erll delivered as the keynote at the Connecting Memories 2020 online symposium, which can also be viewed at https://youtu.be/C3HXF5ZoEA0. All other material is new.

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?’