MISSION AND STATEMENT
The last years saw an unexpected proliferation of studies on a piece of 20th century history that had seemed to be obsolete for decades. Indeed, the very establishment of our field, memory studies, coincided with—and contributed to—the decline of antifascism as a paradigm of postwar memory and, on the other hand, the rise of contemporary Holocaust memory. As a result, antifascism became a blindspot for memory studies, especially when it came to understanding and tracing the emergence of postwar memory cultures. In the course of the last several years, however, scholars interested in a variety of fields, including Leftist internationalism, fascism studies, Jewish studies, and Holocaust studies, Cold War studies, global history, started to rediscover the legacy of what Eric Hobsbawm once called “the hinge of the twentieth century.”
We believe that a re-assessment of antifascism opens up new ways to revisit established genealogies of memory (studies) and helps us re-examine critically present-day presumptions about the memory & politics nexus. That way, it contributes to some of the core debates of our present. The working group brings together scholars and practitioners working in the field of transnational antifascism studies as well as related areas of memory studies interested in a reassessment of historical and contemporary expressions of antifascist memory.
HISTORY AND ACTIVITIES
The Antifascist Memory Working Group grew out of a series of conference panels and roundtable discussions, including “Off Limits. A Roundtable Discussion on Memory Culture and its Challenges” (Central European University, Budapest, 2021); “Dreams Un/abducted. Antifascist Memory Reconsidered” (5th Annual Memory Studies Association Conference, Warsaw, 2021); “Why Antifascism? New Perspectives on a Forgotten Paradigm” (7th Annual Meeting of the Memory Studies Association, Newcastle, 2023); “New Antifascism Studies: Recovering Memory in an Age of Crisis” (European Social Science History Conference, Leiden, 2025). For more information on past events, please click here.
CO-CHAIRS
Zoltán Kékesi is historian at the Centre for Collective Violence, Holocaust and Genocide Studies at University College London. He holds a PhD from ELTE, Budapest. His research interests include modern Central and East Central Europe history, Jewish history, memory studies, Holocaust research, fascism and antifascism studies. He has held visiting fellowships in the United States, Germany, and Israel. He is the author of two books in English, Agents of Liberation. Holocaust Memory in Contemporary Art and Documentary Film (2015) and Memory in Hungarian Fascism: A Cultural History (2023).
For more information on his work, please visit: www.zoltankekesi.com or click here.
Email: z.kekesi@ucl.ac.uk.
Máté Zombory is associate professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Eötvös Loránd University, and senior research fellow at the Centre for Social Sciences in Budapest. He holds a PhD in sociology, his doctoral research was published as Maps of Remembrance. Space, Belonging and Politics of Memory in Eastern Europe (2012). In his recent book, entitled Traumatársadalom. Az emlékezetpolitika történeti-szociológiai kritikája [Trauma Society. A Historical-Sociological Critique of the Politics of Memory] (2019), he examined the memory political agenda and the trauma paradigm from a critical perspective, focusing on post-Cold War Europe. His current research interests include 20th century internationalisms, social movements, and history and memory of antifascism. He is finishing a book on historical documentation as a response to fascism in 20th century Hungary.
For more information on his work, please click here.
Email: zombory.mate@tatk.elte.hu