Join UPAST for a lecture given by prof. Michael Rothberg, UCLA/Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, author of "Multidirectional Memory" (2009) and "The Implicated Subject (2019).

What is the status of Holocaust memory eighty years after the end of World War II? In my lecture, I will approach this question from the perspective of what I call “comparison controversies.” Comparison controversies consist of impassioned public debates that emerge from provocative historical comparisons or from the use of historical analogies to describe contemporary crises. Since October 7, 2023, political speeches, artworks, essays, and videos, among other phenomena, have generated controversy by connecting recent events in Israel and Gaza to National Socialism and the Holocaust. Such controversies are by no means novel occurrences, however. While the core of my talk will focus on post-October 7/Gaza examples, I will consider those examples in relation to a larger context of comparison controversies and in a longer trajectory of Holocaust memory. Surveying a number of examples from different realms will allow us to begin sketching the dynamics and stakes of contemporary Holocaust memory.