What’s in a Name? An Unexpected Researchable Moment
How naming this project's social media profiles provided a 'researchable' moment.
What is Virtual Holocaust Memory?
Abstract As more Holocaust memorial and educational organizations engage with digital technologies, the notion of virtual Holocaust memory has come to the fore. However, while this term is generally used simply to describe digital projects, this paper seeks to re-evaluate the specificity of virtuality and its relationship to memory through the thinking of Gilles Deleuze and Henri Bergson in order to consider how both digital and non-digital memory projects related to the Holocaust might be described as drawing attention to the virtuality of memory because they bring us into critical interstitial spaces between multiple layers of pasts and present in embodied ways that encourage us to consciously recognize the movements towards temporal planes which characterize memory. After reviewing the philosophies of Deleuze and Bergson in light of collaborative Holocaust memory, this article considers a range of digital and physical memorials to assess where we might find examples of virtual Holocaust memory today. I propose that we should see the virtual as a methodology – a particular form of memory practice – rather than a medium. Access the full article here.
Cinematic Intermedialities and Contemporary Holocaust Memory
Abstract This book explores the growing trend of intermediality in cinematic representations of the Holocaust. It turns to the in-betweens that characterise the cinematic experience to discover how the different elements involved in film and its viewing collaborate to produce Holocaust memory. Cinematic Intermedialities is a work of film-philosophy that places a number of different forms of screen media, such as films that reassemble archive footage, animations, apps and museum installations, in dialogue with the writing of Deleuze and Guattari, art critic-cum-philosopher Georges Didi-Huberman and film phenomenologies. The result is a careful and unique examination of how Holocaust memory can emerge from the relationship between different media, objects and bodies during the film experience. This work challenges the existing concentration on representation in writing about Holocaust films, turning instead to the materials of screen works and the spectatorial experience to highlight the powerful contribution of the cinematic to Holocaust memory. The book can be ordered for your institution's library here.
New Ethical Questions and Social Media: Young People’s Construction of Holocaust Memory Online
Originally published in Frames Cinema Journal Introduction Much of the discourse about the ethics of Holocaust representation considers it a sacred event that imposes representational limits. Survivors are often considered “authorities” of Holocaust memory. However, Alasdair Richardson defines the Holocaust as an event “on the edge of living memory”: soon there will be no first-hand witnesses to share their stories.[1] When the last survivor dies, the responsibility to remember will be entirely passed onto a new generation who cannot provide first-hand accounts of events; they did not literally witness this tragic past, but are called to “bear witness” in a more abstract sense as they remember the Holocaust through memorials, education and other media.[2] While debates about the “appropriateness” of Holocaust representation have long-existed, the recent surge in online engagement with it complicates issues further and has led to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) launching social media guidelines for educators.[3] Young people are particularly prevalent users of social media, thus it is not surprising that they might turn to this format to remember the Holocaust. The theme of this issue is conflicting images/ contested realities, and much of the youth-produced material relating to the Holocaust online has been [...]