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School of History

Indescribable: Narrating Violence and Atrocity 

When: Wednesday, September 7, 2022 - Friday, September 9, 2022, 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Where: Queen Mary University London (further details to follow)

How do we make sense of seemingly senseless acts of violence and atrocity? How do we impose narrative structure upon complex and chaotic events that lack clearly defined beginnings and ends? What are the possibilities and limitations of the evidence that we rely upon? Is it possible to tell the story of massacres and atrocities through a single analytical vantage-point? What are the innovative techniques that allow us to tell difficult stories in analytically rigorous yet accessible ways? How do we recover the silenced voices of the victims of violence and atrocity? How does material culture help us venture into the death world of violence and mass atrocity? 

 

This interdisciplinary two-day workshop hosted by the School of History at Queen Mary, University of London, brings together academics, writers and artists to explore different approaches to examining, understanding, and narrating acts of mass violence.

Over the course of two days of conversation, one around research, one around communication (teaching & public dissemination), participants will discuss topics such as: use of photography, narrative, memory & trauma, teaching ethically, public dissemination and sensationalism.

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