International Conferences & Workshops

Monday, June 17 to Tuesday, June 18, 2024 

The definitions, uses, policies, and norms of testimony continue to be debated, with discussions fueled by a large scientific literature; works of philosophy and aesthetics (Frosch, & Pinchewski, 2009, Goutte, 2016, El Madawi, 2020, Détue, 2022) explore the relationship between filmed oral testimonies and historical facts, the narrative processes created by this medium in the Era of the Witness, the contours of truly cinematic testimonies, and even of testimony as a new documentary form (Leimbacher, 2014, Katz, 2018). At the intersection of Trauma Studies, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, and Memory and Media Studies, scholars have conducted research into audiovisual productions about the Holocaust as well as repressions in Latin America, the Middle-East, North Africa, and Asia (cf. the selected bibliography). These works are characterized by a constructivist perspective and an interest in the role of documentary filmmakers in the writing of history.

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Wednesday, May 29 to Friday, May 31, 2024

This hybrid conference seeks to bring together artists, activists, and scholars from a range of perspectives, disciplines, modalities, and methods to explore how we can revolutionize the way we care. Care is an emerging and contentious focus across the disciplines emphasizing historical and contemporary contradictions and exclusions in care realities–such as the lack of economic and social support for some care relations, the denial of care, the weaponizing of care, the exploitative conditions of care work, and the privileging of normative hierarchies across the globe. But activist, artistic, and intellectual formations also point to transformative possibilities in the dismantling and rebuilding of care infrastructures and caring relations.

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From the 21st to the 23rd of June 2023, The American University of Paris will host an international conference to provide researchers with an interdisciplinary platform to investigate and debate the question of contemporary interruptions of political violence and to unique into the different responses intended to counteract violence.

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The Museum of Jewish Art and History, Paris

Co-organized with Malena Chinski (FMS-EHESS). Judith Lindenberg (MAHJ) and Simon Perego (INALCO-CERMOM)

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Co-organized with Tal Bruttman (the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales), Sarah Gensburger (the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), Christoph Kreuzmueller (the Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz) and Jonathan Zatlin (Boston University).

You can now view the individual lectures on Akadem

The George and Irina Schaeffer Center for the Study of Genocide, Human Rights and Conflict Prevention is honored to announce the international conference The Photography of Persecution: Pictures of the Holocaust.

Photographs play a central role in representations of the Holocaust. A few photographs have become so widespread and well-known that they are used in popular discourse as metonymic reminders of the genocide. And yet, often enough these iconic photographs do not actually depict what it is claimed that they depict. Instead, they are incorrectly attributed, mistakenly identified, and most importantly underanalyzed. This uncritical approach to the photography of persecution has resulted in significant misrepresentations of the Holocaust, especially in the popular imagination. 

Rather than treating photographic images taken under Nazi rule as self-explanatory, immediate, and self-contained, this conference invites interested scholars to approach photographs as they would other documents – by treating photographs as objects of historical inquiry and interrogating the political interests authorizing their creation, the material conditions under which they were produced, the editing process out of which they emerged and were displayed, and the uses to which they were put. The conference will focus on the photographic record of the persecution of Jews in Nazi-dominated Europe, including its overseas possessions from 1933 to 1945.

This conference is organized in partnership with the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, the Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz, and Boston University.

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Co-organized with Sanja Bojanic (University of Rijeka), Nadege Ragaru (SciencesPo), Philip Golub (AUP), Eileen Lallier, Zona Zaric (ENS), Vera Mevorah (The Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade) and Dragana Stojanovic (The Faculty of Media and Communications, Belgrade).

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Co-organized with Patrice Bensimon (Yahad-In-Unum), Wolf Gruner (USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research), Boris Adjemian (AGBU Nubar Library) and Alexandra Garbarini (Williams College).

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International Conference in collaboration with AUP Professors Waddick Doyle, Claudia Roda, Cary Hollinghead-Strick, Philip Golub, Oliver Feltham and Miranda Spieler.

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Co-organized with Sarah Gensburger (CNRS/ISP), Isabelle Backouche (EHESS/Centre de Recherches Historiques) and Eric Le Bourhis (FMS/ISP).

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Co-organized with Emmanuel Debono (ENS Lyon / USC Shoah Foundation). Read more here.

Co-organized with AUP Professors Miranda Spieler, Philip Golub and Susan Perry. Read more here. 

Organized by the Center. Read more here. 

Co-organized with Marta-Laura Cenedese and Helena Duffy (University of Turku). Read more here.

Led by Emilie Kempton and Wolf Gruner (USC Shoah Foundation). 

Co-organized with Sharon Kangisser Cohen (Diana and Eli Zborowski Centre for the Study of the Shoah and Its Aftermath, Yad Vashem Jerusalem). Read more here. 

Co-organized with Malena Chinski, Simon Perego and Miriam Schulz. Read more here. 

Roundtable discussion with Tim Cole, Sharon Kangisser and Ruthellen Josselson. Read more here. 

Organized by the Schaeffer Center, with Emilie Garrigou-Kempton (Center for Advanced Genocide Research) and Colin Keaveney (USC). Read more here. 

Co-organized with historian Tal Bruttman (EHESS).