In her new book Yellow Star, Red Star: Holocaust Remembrance after Communism (Cornell University Press, 2019) Jelena Subotić asks why Holocaust memory continues to be so deeply troubled―ignored, appropriated, and obfuscated―throughout Eastern Europe, even though it was in those lands that most of the extermination campaign occurred. As part of accession to t ... Show More
Aug 10
Dalit Studies with Ramnarayan Rawat, K. Satyanarayana and Sanal Mohan
This episode featured a conversation with Ramnarayan Rawat, K. Satyanarayana, and Sanal Mohan, three scholars in the burgeoning field of Dalit Studies. We began with the significance of the 1990s as a point of departure for new work in this field and segued to the interventions m ... Show More
1h 7m
May 3
Arely M. Zimmerman, "Contentious Citizenship: Salvadoran Activism and Belonging Across Borders" (U Arizona Press, 2026)
Contentious Citizenship: Salvadoran Activism and Belonging Across Borders (U Arizona Press, 2026) reshapes how we understand belonging, identity, and political participation in the context of migration. Drawing on decades of Salvadoran activism from the 1980s solidarity movement ... Show More
23m 24s
Aug 2023
Esra Özyürek, "Subcontractors of Guilt: Holocaust Memory and Muslim Belonging in Postwar Germany" (Stanford UP, 2023)
At the turn of the millennium, Middle Eastern and Muslim Germans had rather unexpectedly become central to the country's Holocaust memory culture—not as welcome participants, but as targets for re-education and reform. Since then, Turkish- and Arab-Germans have been considered as ... Show More
43m 11s
Feb 2023
Galina Oustinova-Stjepanovic, "Monumental Names: Archival Aesthetics and the Conjuration of History in Moscow" (Routledge, 2022)
Monumental Names: Archival Aesthetics and the Conjuration of History in Moscow (Routledge, 2022) asks us to consider: what stands behind the propensity to remember victims of mass atrocities by their personal names? Grounded in ethnographic and archival research with Last Address ... Show More
1h 12m
Feb 2024
Genocide of the Germans in Yugoslavia
Following up from last time, On today's episode, we set the dive deeper into ethnic cleansing and subsequent genocide of the "Danube Swabian" Germans living in Yugoslavia after world war 2. Importantly, we paint a picture of the brutality of the third reich towards the Yugoslavia ... Show More
1h 35m
Sep 2023
Elyse Semerdjian, "Remnants: Embodied Archives of the Armenian Genocide" (Stanford UP, 2023)
Foremost among the images of the Armenian Genocide is the specter of tattooed Islamized Armenian women. Blue tribal tattoos that covered face and body signified assimilation into Muslim Bedouin and Kurdish households. Among Armenians, the tattooed survivor was seen as a living et ... Show More
1h 24m
Sep 2025
Chelsi West Ohueri, "Encountering Race in Albania: An Ethnography of the Communist Afterlife" (Cornell UP, 2025)
Encountering Race in Albania: An Ethnography of the Communist Afterlife (Cornell University Press, 2025) is the first book to interrogate race and racial logics in Albania. Chelsi West Ohueri examines how race is made, remade, produced, and reproduced through constructions of whi ... Show More
51m 10s
Mar 2024
An Unfinished History of the Holocaust
<p>The Holocaust is much discussed, much memorialized, and much portrayed. But there are major aspects of its history that have been overlooked.</p> <p>Spanning the entirety of the Holocaust, this sweeping history deepens our understanding. Dan Stone—Director of the Holocaust Res ... Show More
1h 36m
Nov 2019
Daniel Reynolds, "Postcards from Auschwitz: Holocaust Tourism and the Meaning of Remembrance" (NYU Press, 2018)
Millions of tourists visit Holocaust museums and memorials every year. Holocaust tourism is a thriving industry and plays a crucial role in Holocaust memorialization and remembrance. However, Holocaust tourism is not without criticism. Some argue that sightseeing at sites of geno ... Show More
57m 35s