Event Highlights: White Supremacist Violence and Collective Memory in Germany
On Wednesday, October 27, the Center for the Study of Europe hosted a virtual lecture by Anna Meier, Assistant Professor in the School of Politics & International Relations at the University of Nottingham, on “White Supremacist Violence and Collective Memory in Germany.” The event was moderated by Jessica Stern, Research Professor at BU’s Pardee Schoo
Meier’s lecture is based on her early stage research exploring remembrance culture in Germany and whether Germany could serve as a model for the United States and the larger project our country faces of fighting white supremacist violence. Some of the questions Meier is grappling with are: What is the relationship between current violence and the stories we tell about past violence? What does it mean to “remember” violence and why do we use the language of “remembrance” (versus, say, “reckoning”)? How do our answers change when we are talking about violence linked to sites of hegemony versus violence that challenges hegemony? Meier notes that remembering the past is not the same as reckoning with it.