Plenaries

Jeffrey Olick (University of Virginia): Memory Studies as a Vocation [Simultaneous translation will be provided]

At the end of the First World War, sociologist Max Weber articulated what he saw as the distinct vocations of the scientist and the politician. While Weber's answers may no longer be our own, his questions remain pressing. Like Weber, we too live in a time of enduring crisis, in which activists respond to "the fierce urgency of the now" while scholars struggle to sustain norms of inquiry, interpretation, and critique. Marking the tenth anniversary of the Memory Studies Association, this lecture reflects on the kinds of work memory studies has done over the past decade and asks what its vocation-or, more accurately, its vocations-might be today.

Claudia Feld and Marina Franco (CONICET) - Between Scholarship and Citizen Action: Researching Memories at the Crossroads of the Present [In Spanish; simultaneous translation will be provided] 

Claudia Feld (CIS‑CONICET/IDES) and Marina Franco (IDAES‑UNSAM/CONICET) The notion of memory, in addition to being a mobilizing concept for social action and political discourse, has become the central category structuring a vast field of research in the social sciences. In Latin American countries, since its emergence several decades ago, it has developed as a transdisciplinary field in close dialogue with history, where citizen demands converge and, at the same time, come into tension with academic interests. We therefore ask how this field has evolved and how it is articulated today within this dual logic of convergence and tension. How have these dynamics shifted in response to social demands and historical contingencies, and how have they, in turn, intervened in them? How do we adjust our categories and research questions to study social memories at the crossroads of the present?

Semi-plenaries

The Past in Projects for the Future: Democracy, Memories, and the Progressive Cycle in the Southern Cone of Latin America [In Spanish; simultaneous translation will be provided] 

Speakers: Elizabeth Jelin (IDES-CONICET); Vania Markarian (Universidad de la República); Aldo Marchesi (Universidad de la República); Juan Pablo Luna (McGill University); Eugenia Allier Montaño (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México)

Discussant: Emilio Crenzel (Universidad de Buenos Aires/CONICET) Chair: Valentina Salvi (IDES-CONICET)

Intergenerational Memory Transmission: Current Interdisciplinary Challenges (supported by de Gruyter)

Speakers: Bill Hirst (The New School); Valérie Rosoux (UCLouvain); Mariana Eva Pérez (CONICET); Ana Figueiredo (Universidad de O'Higgins); Carol Gluck (Columbia University)

Chair: Olivier Luminet (UCLouvain)

Memory and the Denial of Self-Determination: Lessons from Palestine

Speakers: Areej Sabbagh Khoury (UC Berkeley/Hebrew University), Nadim Khoury (Inland University, Norway)

Chair: Michael Rothberg (University of California Los Angeles) 

Transregional Panel: The Memory of Democracy under Threat - Lessons from Latin America, South Africa and Eastern Europe

Speakers: Paweł Machcewicz (Polish Academy of Sciences); Marianna Tello Weiss (Espacio para la Memoria La Perla); Heike Becker (University of the Western Cape)

Chairs: Aline Sierp (Maastricht University), Maria Kobielska (Jagiellonian University in Krakow) 

Memory and the Digital: Politics and Epistemologies

Speakers: Jordana Blejmar (University of Liverpool); Motti Neiger (Bar-Ilan University); Silvana Mandolessi (KU Leuven); Victoria Walden (University of Sussex)

Chair: Johanna Vollmeyer (Universidad Complutense de Madrid)

Author meets critics - MSA Wulf Kansteiner First Book Award 

This panel will be the occasion for the awarding of the annual book prize to Astrid Rasch for her book Intimate Afterlives of Empire (2025). This will be followed by a discussion between the author and invited colleagues about the award- winning book.

Chairs: Heather Proctor (PEC)

Special Events:

MSA at 10: Reflecting on the Past, Shaping the Future

In 2026 the MSA can look back proudly on 10 years since it was founded in Amsterdam in 2016. This round table is there to celebrate that first decade, assess its achievements but also look to the future. How far have we come in realizing the mission formulated ten years ago: https://www.memorystudiesassociation.org/about_the_msa/. What do we want the field of memory studies and our association to look like in 2036? What challenges did we face and what challenges will we have to face in the future?

The round table will bring together discussants from different generations, regions and disciplines to address these questions while also leaving plenty of time for general discussion. 

Speakers: Kar-Yen Leong (National Chung Cheng University), Ben Ratskoff (Occidental College), Alicia Noemi Salomone (Universidad de Chile), Joanna Wawrzyniak (University of Warsaw), Jenny Wüstenberg (Nottingham Trent University)

Chair: Aline Sierp (Maastricht University)

Memory Studies with Wulf Kansteiner: A Tribute 

This panel is dedicated to the work and memory of Wulf Kansteiner, former MSA president, who died suddenly almost a year ago on 8 August 2025. A panel of colleagues will reflect on his intellectual legacy in the field of memory studies and, by engaging with some of his publications, show what we can learn from them today.

Speakers: Tea Sindbæk Andersen (University of Copenhagen), Stefan Berger (Ruhr University Bochum), Joanna Wawrzyniak (University of Warsaw), Silvana Mandolessi (KU Leuven), Ann Rigney (Utrecht University) 

Chair: Jeffrey Olick (University of Virginia)

MSA Book Display and Raffle

We invite all participants to bring a copy of some book they've published so that it can become one of the prizes in the annual book raffle. There will also be a dedicated book display room, where attendees can showcase their recent publications throughout the event. Feel free to stop by, browse the titles, and discover new work from across our community.

You can leave the books next to the registration desks in the main hall when you arrive.

Chair: Aline Sierp (Maastricht University), Maria Kobielska (Jagiellonian University)

MSA Members' Meeting

During the annual Members Meeting those attending will receive updates on the association's activities in the last 12 months, the work of its committees, and the current state of our finances. It will also mark the moment when members of the Executive will step down and we welcome those newly elected. The meeting will close with a Q&A in which all those present are invited to propose new ideas or to raise issues of concern to the MSA.