Workshop: Migration and Memory in Postwar and Contemporary Europe
This cross-disciplinary one-day workshop brings together six invited scholars and experts to examine the interlinkages of migration policies and European discourses over historical memory. We interrogate how competing historical narratives (of World War II-era genocide and expulsion, postwar labor migrations, Communism, decolonization, and/or EU expansion) shaped elite and popular attitudes toward migration policy in Europe. In so doing, papers in the workshop consider linkages between migration controversies in Europe, colonial legacies and the study of race, gender, and sexuality from an interdisciplinary focus.
Opening Remarks (9:00)
Panel 1 (9:15-10:45): Regulating Migration and Asylum
Moderator: Mai See Thao
- Phi Hong Su and Lea Obermüller, “Remaking Fortress Europe: Mechanisms of Inclusion and Exclusion toward Vietnamese, Afghan, and Ukrainian Migrants”
- Christopher Molnar, “Holocaust Memory and Pro-Migrant Activism in Germany, c. 1978-1993”
- Liina-Ly Roos, “Narratives of Migration, Memory, and Chronic Unwellness in Sofi Oksanen’s Novels Stalin’s Cows and Dog Park”
Panel 2 (11:00-12:30): Placemaking and Displacement
Moderator: Zachary Fitzpatrick
- Ayşe Parla, “Fractured Geographies of Survival: Vartan İhmalyan, Communism, and the Afterlives of Genocide in Cold War Europe”
- Brandon Bloch, “German Expellees, the United Nations, and the Birth of the ‘World Refugee Problem’”
- Nana Osei-Kofi, “AfroSwedish Places of Belonging”
*Lunch will be available for registered participants, register here.
Panel 3 (2:00-3:30): Challenging Racialized Paradigms
Moderator: Kathryn Ciancia
- Benjamin Mier-Cruz, “Embodied Memory in Swedish Visual Activism”
- Michelle Kahn, “Racism in Hitler’s Shadow: Turkish Challenges to West German Holocaust Memory Culture in the 1980s”
- Leonie Schulte, “Remembering and Forgetting in the Integration Classroom: Language and the Politics of Newcomer Belonging in Germany”
Concluding Discussion (4:00-5:15)
Featuring:
Brandon Bloch [UW-Madison, History]
Michelle Khan [University of Richmond, History]
Liina-Ly Roos [UW-Madison, GNS+]
Benjamin Mier-Cruz [UW-Madison, Nordic Studies]
Chris Molnar [University of Michigan-Flint, History]
Nana Osei-Kofi [Oregon State University, Nordic Studies]
Ayşe Parla [Boston University, Anthropology]
Leonie Schulte [UW-Madison, Anthropology]
Phi H. Su [Williams College, Sociology]
Sponsored by:
UW-Madison Center for German and European Studies
UW-Madison Department of History
UW-Madison Department of German, Nordic, and Slavic+
UW-Madison Department of Anthropology