Holocaust Studies has given the editors permission to include creative work for the first time in the journal.
In this special issue, we aim to further examine the ‘material turn’ of Holocaust studies through the lens of creative practices, which remains an understudied area of this movement. As Marianne Hirsch (2019) notes: “Commemorative artistic practices can themselves function as the connective tissue between divergent but related histories of violence and their transmission across generations. The arts offer a fruitful platform to practise the openness and responsiveness that allow such connections to emerge for the postgenerations”. Our scope includes contemporaneous and non-contemporaneous artistic, cultural, and literary works, established by those with and without a direct connection to this history. We are particularly keen to include contributions from creative writers and artists experimenting with and reflecting critically on their own creative processes, working, for instance, with line, genre, textiles, objects, images, or sound as an ephemeral artefact; and from critics showing how survivors or their descendants have represented the Holocaust through these materialities. One theme might be re-purposing, repackaging or even ‘recycling’ of materials: a material intended for one purpose which has been used or examined for other ends. Another concern might be the role of creativity in the phenomenology of viewing and interpreting historical materialities, or of creativity in the effort to recover, or reconstruct, lost or stolen objects. A perennial concern is the researcher-artist’s role in relation to the archive.
Abstracts should be no more than 300 words, with a short biography (150 words max). Please send your proposals (or any questions) via email to: holocaustmaterialities@gmail.com by 1st September 2024 (extended submission date). We expect final submission of the journal issue to be in 2025.
If you are submitting creative work, please specify in your abstract how many images and approximate word count for any creative writing you expect to include as part of your final submission .
Normal word count for the journal’s critical essay submissions is 8-12k. For creative work, your final submission should include at least 2K words of critical reflection on your creative practice/contextual information. For the creative element, there is no minimum word count; however, the 12k word limit remains.
The following approximate guidelines might be useful: 1 image = 250-500 words. 50 lines of poetry = 1,000 words.
Contact Information
Hannah Wilson and Jay Prosser
Contact Email
holocaustmaterialities@gmail.com
Publishing in the Archives Profession 