The Kindertransport 80 Years On: Critical Approaches to Kindertransport Research and Historiography
Date: 23-24 January 2019
Venue: UCL Institute of Advanced Studies, London, UK
The eightieth anniversary of the scheme that permitted over 10,000 unaccompanied, mostly Jewish, children to enter the UK in 1938-39 seems a fitting time to approach a new, critical assessment of the Kindertransport and its origins, rationales, enactment and outcomes. This interdisciplinary conference welcomes papers that examine the Kindertransport with critical scholarly rigor, exploring less well-known aspects of the scheme as well as fresh perspectives on the more familiar Kindertransport themes. Presentations are anticipated to be 20-25 minutes grouped into panels, with questions to follow each segment. Participants will be invited to submit their papers after the symposium for a collected edition on the Critical Approaches to Kindertransport Research, Historiography and Representation.
This conference is being organised by Professor Michael Berkowitz, Dr. Jennifer Craig-Norton, Anita Grosz, Dr. Andrea Hammel and Lesley Urbach. We are inviting contributions from a variety of academic disciplines. Topics may include but are not limited to:
- Critical Approaches to Kindertransport Research, Historiography and Representation
- Individuals and refugee organisations
- Kindertransport carers — their motivations & roles
- The parents — their perspectives, feelings and fates
- Issues of gender, age and identity
- Memory, representation and testimony
- The challenges of Kindertransport archival research
- Language, education, work and cultural adaptation
- Individual communities and the Kindertransport
- Kindertransport sub-groups i.e. national, religious, Youth Aliyah, etc.
- The Kindertransport and religion
- Evacuation and the Kindertransport
- Kindertransport and the media, film and literature
- Journey narratives
- Artistic representations, memory and material objects
- Kindertransport memorials and museum representation
- Comparative studies with other countries
Abstracts (250 words) and a short biography (100 words), in digital form, should be sent to: KT80Symposium@gmail.com by
1 October 2018.
Sponsored by:
- University College London Institute of Advanced Studies
- Parkes Institute, University of Southampton
- Aberystwyth University
- Wiener Library
- Second Generation Network
- The Kindertransport Association