Konference: The Politicization of Xenophobia in Transatlantic Contexts: Past and Present
Organizers:
Jonathan Wiesen (University of Alabama at Birmingham)
Angéla Kóczé (Romani Studies Program at the Central European University in Vienna)
Kateřina Čapková (Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences)
Today, many people have become resigned to the fact that xenophobia is a central feature of the transatlantic political landscape. From the United States to France to Eastern Europe, political movements centered on the rejection of “the other” (immigrants; racial and sexual minorities, and so-called “internal enemies”) have garnered mass followings and have entered governments that were until recently seen as immune to the sorts of populism that marked the first half of the twentieth century. At this conference, participants will discuss politicized xenophobia in the past and today. We hope to bring together themes that: offer comparisons and contrasts between, for example, xenophobic movements in the 1930s and today; offer new perspectives on transnational xenophobia, in particular as they relate to anti-Romani, anti-Black, and anti-Jewish racism; and that show continuities and similarities between the past and the present.
How, we ask, did past xenophobic movements speak to each other across the Atlantic in the past centuries? How have European and American xenophobia and racism in the past informed movements today? What was and is the role of historical memory in the politics of xenophobia? What are the benefits and risks of drawing parallels between the past xenophobic movements and present ones?
Program:
18 May
1:30 p.m.
WELCOME
1:45 – 3:15 p.m. KEYNOTE SESSION
Chair: Kateřina Čapková
Angéla Kóczé: Anti-Roma Racism as a Socio-Historical Consensus: 2008–2009 Neo-Nazi Murders of Roma in Hungary
Jonathan Wiesen: US Racial Violence in the German Imaginary
Break: 3:15 –3:45 p.m.
3:45-5:30 p.m. PANEL I: Transnational Xenophobia
Chair: Jonathan Wiesen
Ann Ostendorf: Anti-Romani Political Racism in the Nineteenth Century United States
Tayla Myree: Remembrance to Reparations: A Study of the Strategies towards the Recognition of Atrocities by Roma and African Americans
Tina Magazzini: Racism or Xenophobia? Tracing the Category-making of Racialized Minorities across the Atlantic and their Consequences
19 May
9:00 – 11:15 a.m. PANEL II: The Holocaust and Holocaust Memory
Chair: Helena Sadílková
Christopher Molnar: Holocaust Memory, Racism, and the Roma Refugee Panic in Reunified Germany
Cristina Teodora Stoica: The Politics of Antiziganim and its shaping of Romania’s Holocaust Historical Memory
Mariana Sabino Salazar: The Politics of Memory: Romanies in Mexican and Brazilian Holocaust Museums
Justyna Matkowska: Pogroms on Roma and Sinti in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II
Break: 11:15-11:45 a.m.
11:45 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. PANEL III: Discrimination and its Legacies
Chair: Martin Fottta
Sunnie Rucker-Chang: The Enduring Impact of School Segregation in the United States and Europe
Michelle Kahn: USA From Nebraska to Berlin, Zagreb, and Beyond: How American Neo-Nazis Shaped the European Far-Right (1970s-1990s)
Dezso Mate: Roma LGBTI Movement – The Politics of Alliance
5:00-6:30 p.m. – Roundtable Discussion hosted by CEFRES, Na Florenci 3
The Politicization of Xenophobia in Transatlantic Contexts
Chair: Angéla Kóczé
Speakers: Tayla Myree, Ann Ostendor, Jonathan Wiesen and Vita Zalar
For more information see the website of the conference.