Content creators on YouTube have turned to documenting their visits to the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in vlog form. This increasingly popular social media format has made it possible for influencers to take up the role of popular historian, endowing their trips with a sense of moral responsibility. This talk argues that it is necessary to apply critical tools not only to content analysis but also to metadata and various methods of curating visibility on the platform. In addition to this, it delves into mechanisms of self-promotion and the fate of official narratives of commemoration in an era of user-generated content. Is this new cohort of popular history practitioners a welcome development in the field of commemoration?
Tomasz Łysak, University of Warsaw, received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the Polish Academy of Sciences. His work focuses on representations of the Holocaust in relation to trauma studies and psychoanalysis. He has held fellowships at the University of Washington, Seattle, the University of Edinburgh, and the University of Chicago. Łysak has published on documentary, artistic and fiction film, graphic novel, photography, trauma studies, Polish critical art in a number of collections of essays and journals (Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, Kwartalnik Filmowy, Teksty Drugie, East European Jewish Affairs, Obieg).
The talk will take place on Zoom, on Thursday, June 24, 6.45pm CEST.
To receive your Zoom session key, please register at contact(at)digital-americas.at
