A Postwar Republic of Letters? Gender, Archiving, and Knowledge Production after the Holocaust

Section II (thematic section) of History of Intellectual Culture (HIC), Volume 4, 2025

Edited by Ewa Koźmińska-Frejlak, Victoria Van Orden Martínez, and Christine Schmidt

We invite proposals for contributions to a thematic section of History of Intellectual Culture (HIC), an international and interdisciplinary open-access yearbook for peer-reviewed papers, published by De Gruyter and edited by Charlotte A. Lerg, Johan Östling, and Jana Weiß. The theme, titled A Postwar Republic of Letters? Gender, Archiving, and Knowledge Production after the Holocaust and co-guest edited by Ewa Koźmińska-Frejlak, Victoria Van Orden Martínez, and Christine Schmidt, focuses on the circulation of knowledge via letters and other forms of written communication within and among survivor historical commissions after the Second World War, emphasizing the interplay of gender and other differences in the history of knowledge and intellectual culture in this context.

The history of documentation efforts and knowledge production after the Nazi period is a burgeoning area of research, particularly concerning Jewish collecting efforts. Still, there is little attention paid thus far to the framing of these activities in terms of gender and exploring how gender intersects with class, nationality, ethnicity, sexuality, and other contexts to shape knowledge production and dissemination. Documentation and archives-building are important facets of knowledge production through establishing the historical record of evidence.

We invite proposals for contributions (of up to circa 8,000 words, written in English) that explore how knowledge about these activities was amassed and circulated in national and transnational contexts. We as researchers are particularly interested in forms of ‘unseen labor’ - various forms of work, often ‘administrative’ in nature and therefore primarily conducted by women - that remain underexplored and marginalized in studies of the production, circulation and history of knowledge in this context, as well as of intellectual culture. Therefore, we are particularly interested in case studies of how gender and other differences impacted the circulation of knowledge through written communications about war crimes investigations and postwar trials, the publication and dissemination of scholarly and popular literature, archiving, the collection of oral histories and testimonies, and other outputs.

The proposed contributions can address any aspect of the broad themes outlined above or other, more specific topics that relate to the production and circulation of knowledge, history of knowledge, and intellectual culture. For example, archives and other collections deriving from documentation gathered for postwar justice trials, clinical research on survivors and trauma, and family, private collections, or Jewish communal record keeping. We welcome and encourage collaborative (especially interdisciplinary) articles, comparative studies, etc. We are also very interested in proposals for submissions that focus on North American or transatlantic cases. Below we have listed several framing references:

Circulation of Knowledge: Explorations in the History of Knowledge. Edited by Johan Östling, Erling Sandmo, David Larsson Heidenblad, Anna Nilsson Hammar & Kari H. Nordberg. Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2018.

Collect and Record!: Jewish Holocaust Documentation in Early Postwar Europe. Laura Jockusch. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Cultural Translation and Knowledge Transfer on Alternative Routes of Escape from Nazi Terror: Mediations through Migrations. Edited by Susanne Korbel and Philipp Strobl. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2022.

The Yiddish Historians and the Struggle for a Jewish History of the Holocaust, Mark Lee Smith, Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2019

“Histories of Migrant Knowledge: Transatlantic and Global Perspectives” Bulletin of the German Historical Institute, Supplement 15 (2020). Edited by Andrea Westermann and Onur Erdur. https://www.ghi-dc.org/publication/histories-of-migrant-knowledge-transatlantic-and-global-perspectives

Proposals (in English) should consist of abstracts between 350 and 500 words (including a proposed title), a short biography of the author or authors (approx. 250 words per author), and 3-5 keywords, and be emailed to cfphicsection@gmail.com no later than June 19, 2024.

The guest editors will review all proposals and communicate their decision via email by July 8, 2024.

The final contributions will be up to circa 8,000 words, written in English, and follow HIC style (this will be provided to selected authors).

A rough timeline follows. Please do not submit a proposal if you know you cannot commit to this timing.

CFP Open May 24 to June 19, 2024

Proposal deadline June 19, 2024

Guest editors’ decision July 8, 2024

Complete manuscripts to guest editors August 30, 2024

Suggested edits to authors September 23, 2024

Edited manuscripts to guest editors October 11, 2024

Editors finalize and submit section to HIC October 15, 2024

Peer review process October onwards

Publication date Circa October 2025

Best regards / Med vänliga hälsningar,
Victoria (”Tori”) Van Orden Martínez, Ph.D. (she/her)

Ph.D. Dissertation – “Afterlives: Jewish and Non-Jewish Polish Surivors of Nazi Persecution in Sweden Documenting Nazi Atrocities, 1945-1946” (https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-199378)