Practices of Commemoration and Memorialisation

This event is a Centre for Public History event and also part of the University of Essex's Holocaust Memorial Week event programme. Find out about other events taking place during Holocaust Memorial Week 2025. For more information on the Centre for Public History, visit their website.

This workshop-panel explores what existing modes of Holocaust commemoration reveal about the nature of public memory and commemorative practices, what questions they pose for those that produce them and those that receive them, and their relevance for commemorating present-day human rights issues such as refugee and migrant deaths.

Some key issues we will reflect on include:

• the idea of “living memorials” that emerged after the Second World War
• the Stolpersteine project and its role within a wider body of ground-based artworks that commemorate political violence
• the memoir as a genre of intimate and public memorialisation and commemoration
• creative approaches to counter-mourning such as the Gegendenkmal movement
• other topics that the audience may bring to discussion

The session’s goal is to foster a dialogical, interdisciplinary space that reconsiders the wider stakes of commemoration in the face of gross human-rights violations today.

Meet the Panel:

• Professor Sanja Bahun, Executive Dean (Arts and Humanities)
• Professor Jonathan Lichtenstein, Professor, Department of Literature Film and Theatre Studies
• Professor Lucy Noakes, Director of the Centre for Public History
• Dr Michael Tymkiw, Reader, School of Philosophical, Historical, and Interdisciplinary Studies

The event is free to attend but booking is required. Book to attend.

Important notice, there are currently roadworks around the Clinghoe Hill area so please allow extra time to get to campus.

For complimentary car parking, enter your car registration number when prompted during registration.