Research conducted in this group aims at furthering our understanding of how communities and individuals deal with social change, conflict and trauma through remembrance and commemoration as well as forgetting in the arts.

For early modern Europeans, the past was a measure of most things, good and bad. For that reason it was also hotly contested, manipulated, and far too important to be left to historians alone.

Rising geopolitical tensions are causing states and national elites to innovate their use of the past for present-day political ends. This is certainly true for the People’s Republic of China, which prepares to celebrate its 75th anniversary in 2024 amid mounting superpower rivalry, ideological tensions…

In Dutch society’s discussions about remembering the colonial past, voice is often used as a metaphor for empowerment ('we must raise our voices'), whereas silence is often used as voice’s negative counterpart, signifying a loss or lack of power ('we will no longer be silenced'). Yet, silence is expressive:…

Iraqi-Kurdish student of Middle Eastern Studies Bareez Majid has been nominated for the ECHO Award. ‘She has a strong personality, though she may appear unassuming at first,’ was the comment from one of her lecturers.

Yra van Dijk obtained a NWO 'Internationalisation in the Humanities' grant. Together with Ernst van Alphen she will collaborate with 8 European and Israelian partners in researching 'Digital Memory of the Holocaust'.

Sara Polak, PhD researcher and lecturer at LUCAS, has won a Fulbright scholarship to work on her research on Franklin D. Roosevelt at Yale University from September 2014 till February 2015.

The NWO has awarded Sara Polak a Rubicon grant. In September, she will start a 12-month period of research at the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture at Justus-Liebig University in Giessen, Germany.

No criticism is allowed in Turkey of the mass murder of Armenians that took place a century ago. PhD candidate Alaettin Carikci examined how contemporary artists, authors, film directors and museums have nonetheless found indirect ways of expressing their criticism.

Lecture