Nationalism and Memory The ASEN Conference 2024 University of Edinburgh 9th to 11th April A strip of the University of Edinburgh Tartan with a semi-circular cut-out on the left hand side with the purple ASEN logo

Speakers

The plenary speakers at the conference are, in alphabetical order by surname, Leah David, Jeffrey K Olick, and Anastasiya Pshenychnykh.

Lea David

A headshot of Lea DavidLea David is an Assistant Professor at the School of Sociology, University College Dublin. Her work examines the globalization of human rights and memory politics, and their impact on nationalist ideologies in post and in-conflict settings. Her main research and teaching interests cover the interconnectedness of sociology of human rights and memory politics, nationalism and nation-state; human-object relations; ideology; solidarity; historical sociology; qualitative research methods; the Holocaust/Genocide nexus; the Balkan and the Israeli/Palestinian conflicts. She has held various postdoc fellowships including a fellowship in Holocaust Studies, the Fulbright Fellowship, the prestigious Jonathan Shapira fellowship at
Tel Aviv University, the Israeli Council fellowship for outstanding scholars, and a Marie Curie Research Fellowship at the School of Sociology at UCD. Her book manuscript “The Past Can’t Heal Us! The Dangers of Mandating Memory in the Name of Human Rights” published with Cambridge University Press (2020) was shortlisted for the Memory Studies Association best book award, and was awarded the Honourable Mention for the 2021 ASA Sociology of Human Rights Gordon Hirabayashi Award.

Read more about Lea at UCD.

Jeffrey K Olick

OlickJeffrey K. Olick is William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Sociology and History at the University of Virginia. Jeff is also past president of the Memory Studies Association. He has published widely on collective memory, critical theory, transitional justice, and postwar Germany, among other topics, including trauma, tragedy, and theodicy, along with the history of sociological theory. With Stefan Berger (Bochum), he is editor of A Cultural History of Memory, 6 vols,, published by Bloomsbury. Forthcoming books include In the Grip of the Past and The Mnemonic Turn, both with Oxford UP. With Astrid Erll (Frankfurt), he is also editor of the new book series, Studies in Collective Memory (also OUP).

Read more about Jeffrey at UVa.

Anastasiya Pshenychnykh

A headshot of Anastasia Pshenychnych Anastasiya Pshenychnykh is Academic Visitor in Communication and Media division within the School of Social Sciences and Humanities at Loughborough University on Council for At-Risk Academics support scheme. From 2015 till 2022, Dr Pshenychnykh held the position of Associate Professor at V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University in Ukraine, English Philology Department, where she lectured Media Communications and Multimodal Media Analysis. 

Anastasiya’s scientific interests are cognitive, discursive, memory and media studies, multimodal linguistics, the theory of image and perspectives. She has been a researcher of international projects on media – Philosophy and Media project, Higher Education Support Program (2010-2012), Crisis, Conflict and Critical Diplomacy: EU Perceptions in Ukraine and Israel/Palestine (2015-2018), Contested Narratives of Climate Change: Algorithmic Flows and Human Interactions on YouTube (2018) by National Centre for Research on Europe, New Zealand, Contested Heritage. A Multilevel Analysis of the Securitization of Heritage and its Challenges for EU and UN Actorness at Faculty of Arts, KU Leuven, Belgium (2022) and others. At the moment, Anastasiya is researching on the topics of Contested heritage in Ukraine: digital memory wars over monuments on Ukrainian and Crimean Telegram channels and Contested memory in Ukraine and Russia: audience’s receptiveness and perspectives in the context of the ongoing Russian Ukrainian conflict.

Read more about Anastasiya at Loughborough.