International Digital Workshop | Lichtenberg-Kolleg Göttingen & Leo Baeck Institute London

ABSTRACT

Following Aleida Assmann’s description of the archive as potential memory or as material precondition for future cultural memories, the workshop seeks to combine perspectives from memory studies, archival science and Jewish history.
While unlocking the potentials of archival sources, scholarship on European-Jewish history in the 20th century is confronted with the challenge of transferring scattered, forgotten or otherwise inaccessible archives into scholarly and public discourse. Ambitious projects like the complete edition and English translation of the Ringelblum-Archive from the Warsaw Ghetto attest to this challenge. Our workshop addresses questions that arise from these transfer processes between archive and memory.

What are the criteria and the agents involved in selecting and interpreting the documents? Which (scholarly, technical, artistic) means are available to make them accessible? How can the history of scattered Jewish collections be traced back through time and space? What is the relationship between individual contribution and collective memory? To what extend do these studies have a political relevance for current discourses on European-Jewish history?

The workshop is organized by Dr. Weronika Romanik and Dr. Sebastian Schirrmeister, Moritz Stern Early Career Fellows for Modern Jewish Studies, and Prof. Dr. Birgit Erdle, Senior Fellow-in Residence at the Lichtenberg-Kolleg, in cooperation with Dr. Martina Mampieri, Martin Buber Society of Fellows, Hebrew University Jerusalem.

To participate in this workshop, please use the following Zoom meeting registration link: https://uni-goettingen.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEkde2gqjkoHtJmIdDWq0OZt8sLvijNvTjH

Upon completing the registration, you will receive an email with individual access to the meeting.