Saturday 19 December 2015

Conf on Mass Violence & Memory under SSRE Holocaust Awareness Campaign

Society for Social Regeneration & Equity (SSRE) in collaboration with Jindal Global University and the Middle East Institute New Delhi and in association with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum organised a two-day-multidisciplinary-international Conference on Mass Violence and Memory as part of its Holocaust awareness campaign with the objective of generating Indian scholarly interest in Holocaust (Shoah) studies. The conference was held at the Jindal Global University in Sonipat, Haryana, near Delhi, on 18th and 19th May 2016 and was jointly convened by:
The conference attracted participants from thirteen countries. 

Mass Violence is an ineluctable truth of world history, in fact there has never been a time without it. While the international community continues its efforts to prevent it till today, its deterrence has varied immensely from one decade to another and from one geographical region to the other. What causes mass violence and how it can be prevented are questions that continue to trouble us. The varying scales and magnitudes of mass violence have attracted a range of definitions and nomenclatures, like genocide, ethnic cleansing, pogrom, etc., and triggered debates about their usage. The aftermath of mass violence is just as troubling as mass violence itself for it raises the questions of acknowledgement of the event, rehabilitation of the survivors, reconciliation between the perpetrator and the victim, and coming to terms with the harsh reality of memory politics.  Papers from different academic disciplines were presented at the conference to help us comprehend mass violence and memory with reference to the sub-themes listed below, but certainly not limited to them. Papers that underscore the need for Holocaust and Genocide Education in India were in sharp focus. The sub-themes covered at the conference were the following:

Causes
Warning Signs
Propaganda
State’s connivance or inaction
State’s response
Complicity
Hateful or Inflammatory Speech
Role of the Press and Mass Media
Memorialization
Conflicting Narratives
International Response
Role of the Academia
Cinematic Responses
Literary Responses
Judicial Response
Justification of Violence

Comparative Studies
Denial or Minimization
Trauma
Reconciliation
Genocide Education/Mass Violence Studies
Resistance to Genocide Education/Mass Violence Studies
Displacement
Rehabilitation
Holocaust/Shoah as point of reference
Mass Atrocities
Challenges of Definition and Nomenclature
 
One can read more about the conference on its blog.

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