Michael Rothberg

This made my day.

So ... much... training.

If you’ll recall, the “antisemitism” at UCLA involved primarily campus police allowing Zionist counter protesters to attack the pro-Palestinian camps (incl. many Jewish participants) while they did nothing, and arresting the anti-genocide students & faculty afterwards.

This is also what we call memory activism. A stance required by the very nature of the field. Working on remembrance cannot leave us indifferent to the suffering that politics of memory, infortunately, cannot prevent - but it also reminds us that memory activism is a source of hope and struggle.

Erinnerungskultur: Vernachlässigt Wolfram Weimer den deutschen Kolonialismus? Die Reformpläne von Kulturstaatsminister Weimer beim Gedenkstättenkonzept relativierten deutsche Kolonialverbrechen, so die Kritik. Weimer hatte erste Ideen zu seinen Plänen im Deutschlandfunk formuli...

Dekolonial Erinnern: Gut, dass Deutschlandfunk Kultur nachhakt, welche Bedeutung die Aufarbeitung des Kolonialismus für Weimer @bundeskultur.bsky.social hat. Koalitionsvertrag;„würdevoller Erinnerungsort“.
@mrothberg.bsky.social @mehler.bsky.social

www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/holocaust-ko...

Gee, where have I heard of atrocity deniers who present themselves as "scientific" before?

20250611_GU_FMSP_Rothberg

Colleagues in Frankfurt made a really well-produced video of my lecture there on the intertwined legacies of colonialism and the Holocaust in German memory culture and at the Humboldt Forum.

20250611_GU_FMSP_Rothberg

Colleagues in Frankfurt made a really well-produced video of my lecture there on the intertwined legacies of colonialism and the Holocaust in German memory culture and at the Humboldt Forum.

Meanwhile Brazil has exited the International Holocaust Remembrance alliance, begun by the Swedes in the late 1990s and responsible for much of the legal infrastructure globally and especially in the US equating criticism of Israel with anti-semitism. There really is a major shift afoot globally.

It's so distressing to see the attempts to deny the reality of starvation and genocide in Gaza--even among scholars of the Holocaust. That's why we started this group: to stand against complicity and denial and to create new intellectual and political solidarities.

It's so distressing to see the attempts to deny the reality of starvation and genocide in Gaza--even among scholars of the Holocaust. That's why we started this group: to stand against complicity and denial and to create new intellectual and political solidarities.

Hirsch’s Generation of Postmemory was a strangely cathartic and incredibly formative text for me. When she has something to say, I listen

Rethinking Holocaust Memory after October 7 - Public Books Why continue to teach the Holocaust? Why continue to build and visit Holocaust memorials and museums?

For me too--but don't miss her reevaluation of postmemory after October 7: www.publicbooks.org/rethinking-h...

"The emergency is in front of us. And yet, some prominent scholars of the Holocaust continue to engage in open denialism or outright approval of mass atrocities perpetrated by Israel."

As the grandchild of Holocaust survivors (and daughter of a post-war refugee), prevention of human rights violation has driven everything I do.

My grandparents and mother would never have wanted this violence against Palestinian civilians to persist in their name.

As scholars of genocide, we demand an end to Israel’s atrocities | Open letter Within weeks, 400 colleagues joined our organization. We say: it is not too late to save lives. End the genocide now

Taner Akçam, Marianne Hirsch, and I introduce the Genocide and Holocaust Studies Crisis Network and call for immediate concrete measures to prevent further atrocity crimes and to protect civilians in Gaza.

As scholars of genocide, we demand an end to Israel’s atrocities | Open letter Within weeks, 400 colleagues joined our organization. We say: it is not too late to save lives. End the genocide now

"We have learned from history that there are many ways in which states can take action in response to crimes against humanity."

Int'l law requires ceasefire, withdrawal, humanitarian aid, and Palestinian self-determination--now.

Thank you Taner Akçam @mrothberg.bsky.social & Marianne Hirsch.

Genocide scholars raise alarm about the genocide in Gaza. We don’t preserve the memory of past genocide victims by ignoring this genocide.

As scholars of genocide, we demand an end to Israel’s atrocities | Open letter Within weeks, 400 colleagues joined our organization. We say: it is not too late to save lives. End the genocide now

Taner Akçam, Marianne Hirsch, and I introduce the Genocide and Holocaust Studies Crisis Network and call for immediate concrete measures to prevent further atrocity crimes and to protect civilians in Gaza.

Shame on Columbia.

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/n...

It was a banner day for genocide denial..

‘The voices of our dead have not faded away’: the fight for the memory of genocide in Srebrenica Three decades on, as leaders deny what happened, remains of the thousands killed continue to be identified and buried

‘The voices of our dead have not faded away’: the fight for the memory of genocide in Srebrenica

Highly, and gratefully, recommended: this (casually academic) conversation on the current states of politics of memory between Sherene Seikaly @srseikaly.bsky.social , Michael Rothberg @mrothberg.bsky.social and Per Leo
www.wiko-berlin.de/wikothek/mul...

"A central component of collective identities, memory is necessarily entangled with politics. Remembering & forgetting have shaped the afterlives of slavery and revolution, colonialism & resistance, genocide & war."

@wiko-berlin.bsky.social has posted the video of the discussion in which I was privileged to take part with Sherene Seikaly and Per Leo on "the politics of memory."

www.wiko-berlin.de/wikothek/mul...

Without knowing it, I've been walking past the site of Walter Benjamin's childhood home every weekday morning for the past eleven months. This is where it was: Delbrückstrasse 23 in Berlin-Grunewald. The house itself is no longer standing, but if you squint you can still sense the aura.

I write a lot. It’s never *decisive.* It’s never the argument that changes the minds of the powerful. Nothing I write changes any outcome.

I do it anyway. Because it adds pebbles. If enough people add enough pebbles, then you’ve helped build a mountain. And that’s enough. It has to be.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incitem...

I'm happy to share the video of my Anton Wilhelm Amo Lecture: "From Memory Wars to Memory Work: Relational Remembrance in Pınar Öğrenci’s Aşît (The Avalanche)"

amo-lectures.uni-halle.de/lectures#fro...

‘“The experience of historical trauma does not inoculate subjects against implication in other regimes of power.’ (Rothberg) @mrothberg.bsky.social