The Impact of WWII on European Society and Culture

< zurück3 /14 Terminevorwärts >

The Impact of WWII on European Society and Culture

Veranstalter
UCL European Institute
Veranstaltungsort
University College London
Ort
London
Land
United Kingdom
Vom - Bis
23.06.2016 - 24.06.2016
Website
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/european-institute/events/2015-16/war-europe/
Von
Uta Staiger, University College London

The genocidal Second World War in Europe is notable for the distinction – made in radically varying ways by different people – between what was perceived as ‘legitimate’ violence, and what went ‘beyond’ the kinds of violence that might be expected during wartime.

Overstepping boundaries, whether through collaboration, ‘excess’ brutality, wilful profiting from the distress of others, or in a myriad of other ways, was a widespread phenomenon, both among Germans and Soviets and those living in societies under occupation. Many sought to justify acts that in other moral universes seem reprehensible; others claimed they were mobilised or constrained to act in certain ways, raising key questions about structures of power and individual agency.

Moreover, this genocidal war had significant long-term consequences for societies across Europe – interpersonal relations, emotions, and attitudes, as well as material and political positions – that underlie continuing tensions and unease about a past that still haunts us today.

This international conference addresses questions of individual responsibility in collective violence. And it explores how historians, journalists and literary scholars think and write about such events, was well as reflecting on their own role in relation to past and present.

Programm

Thursday 23 June
1.30-2.15pm Registration
2.15-2.30pm Welcome, opening remarks

2.30-4.00pm I. Borders of complicity and collusion: German society at war

Nicholas Stargardt (University of Oxford) - National defence and genocide: what were Germans fighting for in WW2?

Christina Morina (Duitslandinstitut Amsterdam and Jena University - From social war to total war: interpersonal relations in wartime Germany

4.00-4.30pm Tea break

4.30-6.30pm II. Boundaries of victimhood and collaboration: societies under occupation

Jan Grabowski (University of Ottawa) - The role of Polish 'blue' police in the extermination of Polish Jews, 1939-45

Tatjana Tönsmeyer (University of Wuppertal) - Examples from Eastern and Western Europe

Jochen Hellbeck (Rutgers University)- Experiences of occupation in the Soviet Union (title TBC)

6.30-7.30pm Reception

7.30-9.00pm Public roundtable: Overcoming war among neighbours: current debates and history today

Anna Bikont
Jan Grabowski
Alexandra Senfft
Chair: Mary Fulbrook

Friday 24 June

10.30-12.30pm III. The cultural mediation of violence

Susanne Knittel (Utrecht) - Shallow graves: the politics of perpetrator representations

Stephanie Bird (UCL) - Cultural mediations of emotions and self-justification (title TBC)

Mischa Gabowitsch (Potsdam) - Soviet war memorials 1939-45: From Berlin to Pyongyang

12.30-1.30pm Lunch

1.30-3.30pm IV. Boundary transgressions: Understanding perpetration

Stephen Reicher (St Andrews)- Psychological approaches to understanding perpetration (title TBC)

Felix Römer (German Historical Institute London) - How it feels to be an occupier: violence and paternalism on the eastern front, 1941-44

Mary Fulbrook (UCL) - Systemic violence and the visition of guilt, or: The mystery of the disappearing perpetrator

3.30-4.00pm Tea break

4.00-5.00pm V. Writing the past: Roundtable discussion
How do we as scholars and as human beings address this past; and how is our own positionality implicated in the ways we explore and represent the violent past?

5.00-6.30pm Book launch: Reverberations of War in Germany and Europe since 1945
Stephanie Bird, Mary Fulbrook, Julia Wagner, Christiane Wienand

Kontakt

Uta Staiger

UCL European Institute, 16 Taviton Street
London WC1H 0BW

u.staiger@ucl.ac.uk

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/european-institute/events/2015-16/war-europe/
Redaktion
Veröffentlicht am
Autor(en)
Beiträger
Zitation ⇓