Centre for Jewish Studies, Univ. of Leeds: Roseanna Ramsden and Helen Finch (Web)

Time: 16.04.2024
Venue:  Leeds
Proposals by: 25.02.2024

How can we trace queer experiences during the Nazi genocide of European Jewry, 1933-1945, the Porajmos and the persecution of other minoritized subjects by the Nazis? In what form were persecuted subjects able to testify to their queer experiences, and how can we approach these sources? How can we account for the diversity of the way that queer experiences were expressed during and after the time of persecution, including the way that ethnicity, class, gender, religion and religiosity, nationality and language affected the recording of queer experiences? What silences have been produced by stigma, shame and homophobia, and how can we trace queer experiences despite these silences? What are the ethical implications of giving voice to silences in the historical record? What inclusive and non-hierarchical methods can scholars use to trace these experiences and to co-produce materials on queer experiences with wider communities outside academia, particularly queer communities and activist scholars? What might studies of queer experiences in the Holocaust reveal – about same-sex intimacy, queer desire, agency, experience, the intersections of queerness, gender, race, class, ethnicity, age, etc. – that can allow for a deeper understanding of the Holocaust to be realised?

This workshop seeks to explore the ways in which victims of Nazi persecution have testified to and have left traces of queer experience. This might include, but not be limited to:
– Queer experiences in video testimony
– Queer readings of Holocaust testimony, such as the interventions made by Amy Elman and Cheryl Hann about Anne Frank’s diary.
– Queer experiences in archival material
– Queer memoir and life writing
– Queer artworks

Recent years have seen a transnational growth of interest in researching queer experiences of the Holocaust. Read more and source … (Web)