What Went Wrong? The Politics of Memory and the Return of the Xenophobic Right


Discussion: What Went Wrong? The Politics of Memory and the Return of the Xenophobic Right


Lecture
Thursday, Jun 9, 2022, 3:30 PM

Valentina Pisanty

What Went Wrong? The Politics of Memory and the Return of the Xenophobic Right

Two facts are there for all to see: In the last decades the Shoa has been the object of widespread commemorative activities throughout the Global North. In the same lapse of time intolerance and racism have increased dramatically. Are these facts unrelated, or is there a connection? How can societies combat the current waves of ultra-nationalism and xenophobia? And what does it take to investigate the reasons for the failure of contemporary memory culture to fulfil its universalistic pledge, based on the simplistic equation Never Forget = Never Again?

Valentina Pisanty is a professor of semiotics at the University of Bergamo. She has published essays on Holocaust denial, fascist racism, the rhetoric of memory-making and the semiotics of testimony. Her publications include The Guardians of Memory and the Return of the Xenophobic Right (2021).

The event will be held in English