CFP (Journal): 'Ethics and Expressions of Third-Generation Holocaust Storytelling' (Deadline 1 February 2023)

CALL FOR PAPERS: Ethics and Expressions of Third-Generation Holocaust Storytelling
Ethical Space: The International Journal of Communication Ethics

Presently, the Holocaust dwindles on the edge of living memory. As the last Holocaust witnesses pass away, there is a sense of urgency and gravity for the third generation – that is, grandchildren of witnesses or people who are otherwise at a three-generation remove – who seek to preserve and share these stories, and who are the new custodians of this representative responsibility. Jilovsky defines the third generation as ‘the bridging generation … connecting lived memories of the past with people of the future, born after the last eyewitness has passed away’ (2015, p. 94). The ethical complexity surrounding the representation of Holocaust stories, the building of this figurative bridge between past and future, cannot be overstated.

The new millennium has seen a surge in literature by grandchildren of survivors, who are grappling with the residual lines of trauma, history and memory in their own lives and consciousness. Aarons writes that ‘This is a generation approaching the Holocaust from a position that is precariously balanced between proximity and distance, a position that characterizes this generation, this literature, the discourse about this literature, and the disposition of our time’ (2016, p. xvii). With each passing year the Holocaust recedes further into history, its memory and preservation increasingly vulnerable to denialism, mythology, and forgetfulness.

As a response to this climate of ethical precarity, misrepresentation and shaky ground we find ourselves in, this special issue of Ethical Space seeks to interrogate the ‘Ethics and expressions of third-generation Holocaust storytelling.’

Possible topics include but are by no means limited to:

• Identifiable themes, techniques, or trends in third-generation texts
• The Holocaust in contemporary culture and memory
• The ethics of writing or engaging with survivor trauma
• Artefacts and places as sites of third-generation understanding
• Expressions of the Holocaust in life writing, poetry and/or fiction
• Experiments in Holocaust writing
• The role of postmemory and imagination in third-generation texts
• The ethics of representing the dead 
• Technology and innovation in Holocaust story preservation
• Reflections on third-generation identity and purpose

We welcome abstracts of 250 words for scholarly articles and essays that explore the ethics and intentions of third-generation Holocaust storytelling, as crucial contributions to the global debate around preservation of traumatic histories. 

Submit abstracts by 1 February 2023

Full papers submitted by 1 September 2023. Papers should be 6000-7000 words in length. 

Please send abstracts and any queries to tess.scholfield-peters@uts.edu.au. We look forward to reading all submissions!

Tess Scholfield-Peters
University of Technology Sydney

tess.scholfield-peters@uts.edu.au