The Forensic Turn in Holocaust Studies?

In Holocaust Studies, a new turn seems to advance: after the era of classical written source based historiography and ‘the era of the witness’ characterised by the paradigmatic role of survivor testimony in Holocaust research and remembrance, a forensic approach comes to the foreground nowadays. In recent years, the sites of the former concentration and extermination camps, as well as the mass graves at the ‘killing sites’, have become the objects of archaeological research contributing to the development of ‘Holocaust archaeology’ as a new subdiscipline. Centred on material traces of genocidal violence, such as spatial structures, physical remnants, mass graves and human remains, the ‚forensic turn‘ could be seen as a response to the gradual passing away of Holocaust victims. At the same time, it reflects broader changes in practical and conceptual approaches to legacies of (genocidal) violence across cultures and geographies brought about by the urge for historiographical, historical, ancestral and personal clarifications, quests for justice or processes of reconciliation in its aftermath.

While acknowledging its unquestionable importance for fostering historical research on post-Holocaust landscapes, this workshop seeks to investigate the theoretical, methodological, political and practical implications of the ‘forensic turn’ for their investigation, memorialisation and experience. Taking as a vantage point debates surrounding archaeological research at post-Holocaust landscapes, the workshop also aims to provide a comparative view of Holocaust and genocidal archaeologies within a broader framework of the ‘forensic turn’ in Europe and beyond. The interest in materialities and spatialities of genocidal violence opens, therefore, space for new theoretical and ethical questions, methodological perspectives and research topics.

Programme

Abstracts & CVs