Necroheritage
Ewa Domańska (Poznań)
- Beginning:
- Tuesday, 15 July 2025 14:15
On 6 February 2025 we will welcome Ewa Domańska to our Regensburg Research Colloquium. She will give a lecture on "Necroheritage". The lecture will be held in English.
Abstract:
This theoretical talk will outline the main ideas and concepts of “necroheritage,” focusing particularly on remains, artifacts, mass graves, clandestine burial sites, and killing sites as a specific type of cultural-natural heritage. I will introduce the concept of “necrocide” in the context of mass killings and genocides to refer to the mechanical and chemical destruction of remains and graves intended to conceal mass crimes and obstruct or at least impede the identification of victims. The project highlights also the importance of “exhumates,” artifacts and ecofacts extracted from graves during exhumations that serve as evidence of crimes and provide deep insights into the past lives of humans and environmental changes caused by human intervention. I will consider postanthropocentric ethics to address artifacts, ecofacts, and various non-human entities that participate in or bear witness to processes of destruction and decomposition. By integrating heritage, forensics, and ecological studies, necroheritage addresses historical, social, ecological, and ethical considerations, providing critical insights into the ontology of human and non-human remains and things, the ecology of (mass) graves, religious and spiritual aspects of remains and sites, memory, and future-oriented strategies for contemplating, researching, managing, and commemorating mass killing sites.
Ewa Domańska:
Full Professor of Human Sciences at the Faculty of History, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland; a corresponding member of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAS); since 2002, recurring visiting professor at Stanford University (Spring Term). Her teaching and research interests include the theory and history of historiography, comparative theory of the humanities and social sciences as well as the environmental humanities, ecocide and genocide studies. Domańska’s recent publications include: Knowledge in the Shadow of Catastrophe (co-edited with Katarzyna Bojarska, et al., Brill 2024); A História para além do humano [History Beyond the Human], eds. Julio Bentivoglio and Taynna Marino (Rio de Janeiro: Fundação Getulio Vargas Press, 2024). With Jacek Małczyński Domańska is a guest editor of a special issue on “The Environmental History of the Holocaust” (Journal of Genocide Research, vol. 22, no. 2, 2020).
Cooperation:
Leibniz ScienceCampus Europe and America in the Modern World
Venue:
GS OSESUR, Landshuter Straße 4, 93047 Regensburg, room 017 (ground floor)