The Second Generation: Theoretical Concepts of the Lived Experience

David Clark’s seminar takes as its main protagonists the Second Generation, children of survivors or refugees of the Holocaust, and focuses on four theoretical concepts which are interwoven in a dynamic and constantly evolving manner in the lived experience of the Second Generation. These concepts are the transmission of transgenerational trauma, identity in a fluid society (Bauman, 2003 and 2007), postmemory and commemorative events (Hirsch, 2012) and the process of grieving and mourning. In the course of his talk, David Clark uses examples from his own life as well as illustrative examples from the anthology, The Journey Home: Emerging Out of the Shadow of the Past (2021).
Dr David Clark read anthropology at McGill University and holds a PhD from London Metropolitan University, writing on Jewish museums in Italy. Both his parents were child refugees from Berlin, and Clark spent his formative years in Rome, Vienna, and London. He has carried out research on housing and employment in ethnic minorities and taught courses in  leisure and tourism. Now retired, he is a research associate at Uzhhorod National University, Ukraine, and is on the editorial committee of Exiled Ink, a magazine devoted to works by exiled and refugee writers based in the UK.

Author: Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies

Speaker(s): David Clark (London); Chair/moderation: Jana Buresova (Research Centre for German & Austrian Exile Studies, IMLR): Additional Discussant: Linda Dubrow-Marshall

Organisations: Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies

Event date: Wednesday, 27 April 2022 - 6:00pm

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