Guest Lecture | Julia Gilfert (Tübingen) History that Hurts

Bio | Julia Gilfert is a cultural studies scholar and author of Himmel voller Schweigen. Fragmente einer Familiengeschichte (Dresden 2023, 3rd edition), a book in which she retraces her grandfather’s death as part of the National Socialist euthanasia programme and reflects on family memory. Since 2021, she has been a research associate at the Collaborative Research Centre 1070 “ResourceCultures” and the Ludwig Uhland Institute at the University of Tübingen. She studied European Ethnology/Folklore in Kiel and Würzburg, completing her master’s thesis on human–animal relations in the field of multispecies ethnography.

Her research interests include practices and narratives of contemporary right-wing extremism, cultures of memory, cultural approaches to space, historical cultural studies, and multispecies ethnography. In her current project, she investigates how German memorial sites and documentation centres dealing with National Socialism respond to right-wing and extremist attempts at influence.

Abstract | In her keynote talk, Julia Gilfert will draw on her own experience of researching her family history. She will reflect on how “history” is defined and how she grappled with the fragmentary nature of her sources. More broadly, she will explore how historians and cultural researchers can engage productively with gaps, silences, and unknowns, and how history is always constructed in the present. The talk will also highlight the role of found objects and documents, and consider the particular challenges of conducting research that the scholar is personally and emotionally connected with.

Venue:  Room 226, Sedanstr. 1 (University of Regensburg building) - head up the ramp, take the entrance on the right then either use the lift or take the stairs to the second floor

This talk is organized by 

• Heike Karge (Chair for the History and Anthropology of Southeastern Europe, Institute of History, University of Graz); 
• Ger Duijzings (Professor of Social Anthropology, with special focus on Southeastern Eastern Europe, Institute of History, University of Regensburg)
• Natali Stegmann (Professor of the History of East-Central Europe, Institute of History University of Regensburg)

with financial support from the ScienceCampus, the Faculty of Philosophy, Art History, History, and Humanities (PKGG) and the Zentrum Erinnerungskultur.