Nationalism in the History of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Mass Violence

At the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute

Monday-Wednesday, 10-12 July 2017

 

Nationalism Genocide Many scholars have considered Nazism as a political phenomenon that far exceeded classic national ideologies; that has begun to change in the last decade. The insight that much of the Nazi rhetoric, including its violent imperial component, drew on traditional German national conservatism and even nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century liberal rhetoric, now helps explain the support that the Nazi party and its political projects, including genocide, garnered in German society. Moreover, in many states – France, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and others – the Holocaust unfolded in large part due to the visions, interests, and policies of local governments. In these cases, nationalism played a significant role, far greater than that of Nazi ideology. Furthermore, anti-Jewish violence in these states figured as part of the more comprehensive wartime policies of ethno-national “homogenization” that targeted other groups and “internal enemies.” In some of the colonial and postcolonial genocides and cases of mass violence, the role of nationalism is even more evident, as, for example, in Rwanda.

And one of the debates in the field focuses on the extent to which settler-colonialism – in many cases driven by nationalistic sentiments – is inherently genocidal. This workshop aims to contribute to recent research on the complex links between the emergence of the international system of nation states and modern genocide and mass violence. This discussion is of particular importance in Israel, where national narratives of both Jews and Palestinians frame much of the public and scholarly discussion on the Holocaust and its links to modern genocide and mass violence, including in Israel/Palestine; looking beyond, above, and below these narratives remains an urgent task.

Some thirty scholars from around the world – including advanced graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and senior scholars – will gather to discuss this central issue in Holocaust and Genocide Studies: nationalism and the nation state as analytical concepts in understanding genocides and mass violence (including the Holocaust) and the ways in which collective narratives about genocide and mass violence crystallize in competition, responding to and shaping one another, and, in some cases, framing exclusionary and violent political discourses.

 

List of Participants:

Marzuq Al-Halabi – The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute
Dr. Samira Alayan – School of Education, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem;
David Yellin – College of Education
Dr. Sanjeevini Badigar Lokhande – Visiting Assistant Professor, Temple University
Prof. Omer Bartov – Department of History, Brown University
Prof. Daniel Blatman – The Institute of Contemporary Jewry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Prof. Cathie Carmichael – School of History, University of East Anglia
Prof. Alon Confino – Department of History, University of Virginia; Department of General History, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Prof. Manuela Consonni – Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry and Department of Romance and Latin American Studies The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Dr. Lea David – Jonathan Shapira Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Tel Aviv University
Friedemann Derschmidt – The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
Efrat Even-tzur – PhD Candidate, School of Psychological Sciences, Tel Aviv University
Dr. Yochi Fischer – Academic Director, Advanced Studies Unit, The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute
Dr. Michel Gherman – Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
Dr. Rotem Giladi – Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Dr. Amos Goldberg – Chair, Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Research Fellow, The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute
Dr. Abigail Jacobson – Academic Director, Mediterranean Neighbors Unit, The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute
Prof. Yechiel Klar – The School of Psychological Sciences, Tel Aviv University
Dr. Adam Klin-Oron – The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute
Dr. Ferenc Laczó – Department of History, Maastricht University, Netherlands
Prof. Shai Lavi – Director, The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute
Prof. Tom Lawson – Department of Humanities, Northumbria University, Newcastle
Dr. Shimon Lev – Artist, Curator and Researcher; Department of Photographic Communications, Hadassah Academic College
Dr. Adel Manna – The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute
Roni Mikel Arieli – PhD Candidate, Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Solomon (Sally) Perel – Author
Dr. Mustafa Qossoqsi – Clinical Psychologist, The English Hospital, Nazareth
Dr. Ljiljana Radonić – Austrian Academy of Sciences; Department of Political Science, University of Vienna
Dr. Areej Sabbagh-Khoury – Center for Humanities, Tufts University, Boston; Mada al-Carmel – The Arab Center for Applied Social Research, Haifa
Dr. Raz Segal –Stockton University
Yechiel Weizman – PhD Candidate, Department of Jewish History, University of Haifa

 

Nationalism in the History of The Holocaust Genocide and Mass Violence workshop program

 

 

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