Thursday 29 and Friday 30 October 2026, Utrecht University Organizers: Katherina Kinzel and Robert Vinkesteijn   Conference theme Recent reconceptualizations of historicity—most notably in the work of Walter Benjamin and related thinkers—have challenged the modern ideal of progress by foregrounding historical experiences of loss and destruction. These approaches question the assumption that history unfolds as a…

We are pleased to share our December issue of the Journal of Perpetrator Research with you! This substantial issue brings together both historical examples and contemporary cases, from Nigeria to Romania, showing how the interaction of legal, extra-legal, institutional and ideological regimes and practices define perpetration of mass violence. The issue features four standalone articles,…

The Cultural Afterlives of Louise Michel, Emma Goldman and Sylvia Pankhurst By Clara Vlessing. Remembering Revolutionary Women considers the afterlives of individual revolutionary women and proposes that to understand how they are remembered requires a focus on the active role of remembering subjects and the groups they form; not only asking how memory persists but also why – what motivates…

Memory Work and the Legacy of Abolitionism By Sophie van den Elzen. In this book, Sophie van den Elzen shows how advocates for women’s rights, in the absence of their ‘own’ history, used the antislavery movement as a historical reference point and model. Through a detailed analysis of a wide range of sources produced over the…

By Ann Rigney. How are social movements remembered and how does that memory impact later mobilizations? Does the memory of earlier defeats inspire or inhibit civil resistance? How does forgetting figure in these dynamics? In Remembering Hope, Ann Rigney examines the role of storytelling in transferring hope in social transformation from one generation of activists to…