Join the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre and the Goethe-Institut Johannesburg for a talk on

Colonial Violence, the Holocaust, and Contested Politics of Memory in Germany with Prof Carola Lentz

In which direction should German state policies of memory develop? What is the future of Holocaust remembrance in an increasingly multi-ethnic, post-migrant society and in the face of the death of the last survivors of the Shoah? Which place should colonial crimes have in public remembrance? These and related questions have been, and continue to be, subject of intense debate in Germany. Tracing important stages of the politics of memory since the Second World War, the presentation will focus on the contestations surrounding recent attempts to engage with Germany’s colonial past.

Carola Lentz is a Senior Research Professor in the Department of Anthropology and African Studies at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, and the President of the Goethe-Institut. Her current research interests include ethnicity and nationalism, colonialism and decolonisation, politics of remembrance, middle classes in the Global South and educational biographies. She conducted field research first in South America and, since 1987, regularly in West Africa. Carola Lentz is a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and of the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. She is also a member of the advisory board of the German Federal Cultural Foundation, the German Language Council, the board of trustees of the German Academy for Language and Poetry, the board of #1014 New York, the board of trustees of the Giesecke & Devrient Foundation and the board of trustees of the Anne Frank Education Centre.

RSVP is essential here

16 September, 17:30 for 18:00