Religion, Holocaust, and Genocide Unit

Tension between Holocaust studies and genocide studies

The study of religion is essential for understanding how genocides happen and how people engage in practices of justice and healing after genocide. Religious identity and religious structures of both victims and perpetrators have long been analyzed by scholars of the Holocaust and other genocides. Often these scholars have been in conversation with each other, including the Religion, Holocaust, and Genocide Unit at AAR. Indeed, methodological approaches in religious studies lend themselves particularly well to studying disparate religious, political, geographical, and temporal contexts. Over the past two years, however, tensions between the fields of Holocaust and Genocide studies have made it difficult to be in conversation. This panel seeks papers that engage comparative approaches and/or highlight methodological approaches from religious studies that might reinvigorate these fields.  

Session on practical strategies for teaching on genocide

Our current political polarization—especially given the U.S. administration’s attacks on higher education—can make the teaching of genocide precarious for instructors. How do scholars and instructors do their work when government agencies are threatened by it? How do we teach genocide when the family of our students are either victims or perpetrators of genocidal violence? We seek papers that explore pedagogical strategies in broaching how to balance government surveillance and student trust when teaching about contemporary genocides. 

Navigating the memory of complicity 

It has long been acknowledged that people and organizations connected to events of mass violence do not always fit neatly into roles of victim, perpetrator, and bystander. There may, in particular contexts, be more complex forms of complicity. The legacies of such complicity for future generations can be challenging and contested. We seek papers that explore the intersections between religion, complicity, mass violence, and memory. How have religious institutions variously participated in or obstructed attempts to expose and reflect upon past complicities? Or how has the historic complicity of religious ideas, institutions, or individuals been subsequently ignored, interrogated, or weaponised? Proposals that explore such dynamics in relation to any episode of genocide are welcomed. 

Interreligious and Interfaith Engagement After Gaza

Cosponsored call with Interreligious/Interfaith Studies Unit. The events in Gaza have profoundly reshaped academic discourse and interreligious engagement both nationally and internationally. Communities across diverse religious, political, racial, and generational lines have been compelled to confront questions of solidarity, moral responsibility, and public witness in unprecedented ways. While many groups have deepened their collaborative efforts in response to the humanitarian crisis, others have experienced heightened tensions, fractured partnerships, or significant reevaluations of their approaches to dialogue and shared action. 

College and university campuses have been particularly affected. Differences in generational perspectives have become more pronounced, and institutions have struggled to navigate the ethical, political, and pastoral complexities raised by student activism, administrative responses, and a variety of external pressures. These dynamics have placed interfaith initiatives under extraordinary strain.

For this session, we invite papers that critically and constructively examine intra-and- interfaith and interreligious work in the wake of the annihilation of Gaza. Possible themes include, but are not limited to:

How previously disparate communities or traditions have found common cause or forged new alliances

Cases in which longstanding interfaith partnerships have faltered, dissolved, or required significant reframing

The role of generational, racial, and political differences in shaping interfaith engagement around this topic

The impact of institutional, governmental, or public pressures on interfaith programs, discourse, and leadership

Internal tensions within interfaith spaces as participants negotiate competing commitments, narratives, and expectations

We seek contributions that draw from empirical research, theological or ethical analysis, historical perspectives, or practitioner experience. Our aim is to foster a nuanced, rigorous conversation about how interreligious engagement is being transformed by the ongoing crisis, and what possibilities and challenges lie ahead for interfaith work in this shifting landscape.

Rituals and mass violence

Cosponsored call with the Ritual Studies Unit: We invite papers that explore the intersections between ritualization and mass violence. Approaches to this topic may include themes such as rituals and victimhood, rituals and perpetration, and rituals and memories of mass violence. For example, how do communities facing violent persecution maintain rituals in situations of extreme disruption or develop rituals as a form of resilience and resistance? How do the perpetrators of large-scale violent acts ritualize their behaviours? What rituals develop for collective memory of violent histories and how do they draw on earlier traditions and/or create new innovations in community practice?