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Globalized Memorial Museums. Exhibiting Atrocities in the Era of Claims for Moral Universals

Descrizione del progetto

L’olocausto e il genocidio: rappresentazioni delle atrocità

Non sono mai state svolte analisi sistematiche per chiarire se la «globalizzazione della memoria» sia realmente avvenuta e se l’Olocausto sia diventato un evento storico di riferimento in materia di diritti umani a livello globale. Il progetto GMM, finanziato dall’UE, mette alla prova quest’ipotesi prendendo in esame 50 musei della memoria in quattro continenti, concentrando l’attenzione sul periodo della seconda guerra mondiale negli Stati Uniti e in Israele, Europa, Cina e Giappone, e sui recenti genocidi avvenuti in Ruanda e nell’ex Iugoslavia. Il progetto prende in esame diverse tendenze contraddittorie in questo ambito. L’Holocaust Memorial Museum degli Stati Uniti e Yad Yashem vengono spesso citati come modelli di riferimento per la presentazione delle storie di vittime individuali; il concetto tedesco della memoria negativa, legato alla complicità individuale, viene raramente copiato, mentre i genocidi commessi negli anni ‘90 hanno generato nuove attenzioni verso gli scavi forensi.

Obiettivo

The ‘universalization of the Holocaust’ has established the Shoah as an historical reference point legitimizing a global moral imperative to respect human rights. Much has been written about the ostensible ‘globalization of memory’, but as yet no genuinely global comparative study systematically confronting this hypothesis with the actual representations of atrocities exists. GMM breaks new ground by examining memorial museums on four continents, arguing that what is called ‘globalization’ in fact comprises three to some degree contradictory trends:
1) The US Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem are role models for a universal moral orientation that focuses on the individual victim and generates aesthetic ‘standards’ for musealization.
2) The German concept of negative memory, self-critically confronting the crimes committed by her own population, has inspired museums to tackle the question of one’s own complicity in order to challenge collective self-victimization and the externalization of responsibility.
3) The genocides of the 1990s led to a ‘forensic turn’: the investigation of bones & other material evidence of atrocities has changed the way in situ memorial museums deal with material traces of violence. This shift has also impacted ‘old’ memorial sites like Sobibor, which has become a site of archaeological research after 70 years.
GMM examines 50 memorial museums dealing with
- the WWII period in the US, Israel, Europe, China, and Japan;
- recent genocides in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.
Scholars claim that ‘globalized’ memorial museums reflect new moral standards and a new language of commemoration, but what is the price of the attendant de-contextualization in the name of moral universals? GMM’s wholly original global typology of memorial museums has the potential to act as a genuine game changer that challenges the concept of ‘universal memory’ and the notion that memorial museums constitute a globalized space of communication and negotiation.

Meccanismo di finanziamento

ERC-COG - Consolidator Grant

Istituzione ospitante

OESTERREICHISCHE AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN
Contribution nette de l'UE
€ 1 947 513,75
Indirizzo
DR. IGNAZ SEIPEL-PLATZ 2
1010 Wien
Austria

Mostra sulla mappa

Regione
Ostösterreich Wien Wien
Tipo di attività
Research Organisations
Collegamenti
Costo totale
€ 1 947 513,75

Beneficiari (1)