This page will be a central location for students to find Calls for Papers, Conference Announcements, Funding Opportunities, and other resources.
 
Additional information can be sent to chgs@umn.edu for posting. 
 

Calls for Papers, Conferences, and Journals

Call for Papers: Beyond Camps and Forced Labour: Current International Research on Survivors of Nazi Persecution.

Eighth international multidisciplinary conference, to be held at Birkbeck, University of London, and The Wiener Holocaust Library, London, 7-9 January 2026.

This conference is planned as a follow-up to the seven successful conferences, which took place at Imperial War Museum London in 2003, 2006, 2009, 2012, 2015 and at Birkbeck, University of London, and The Wiener Holocaust Library in 2018 and 2023. It will continue to build on areas previously investigated and open up new fields of academic enquiry.
 
The aim is to bring together scholars from a variety of disciplines who are engaged in research on all groups of survivors of Nazi persecution. These will include – but are not limited to – Jews, Roma and Sinti, Slavonic peoples, Jehovah’s Witnesses, LGBTQIA+, Soviet prisoners of war, political dissidents, members of underground movements, people with disabilities, the so-called ‘racially impure’, and forced labourers. For the purpose of the conference, a ‘survivor’ is defined as anyone who suffered any form of persecution by the Nazis or their allies as a result of the Nazis’ racial, political, ideological or ethnic policies from 1933 to 1945, and who survived the Second World War.
 
In response to recent scholarly debate and feedback we have received from the last conference, for this eighth conference we are keen to encourage in particular papers on:
– Testimonies and ego-documents
– Digital humanities methodologies
– Antisemitism and racism after 1945
– Survivors of the Roma and Sinti genocide
 
As previously, we also warmly welcome new research in the following areas:
– DPs in post-war Europe 
– Former forced labourers in central, east and south-east Europe
– Early post-war Holocaust research
– Yiddish studies, including Yiddish sources
– Relief and rehabilitation
– Reception and resettlement
– Comparative experiences of Jewish and non-Jewish survivors
– Jewish returnees from the Soviet Union
– Literary representation of survival
– Survivors in ‘grey zones’, including kapos
– Victimhood and survival in changing public discourse
– Soviet and other prisoners of war
– The legacy of euthanasia and medical experiments
– Exiles, émigrés and refugees in the reconstruction process
– Rescuers and liberators
– Child survivors
– Gender and survival
– Physical and psychological consequences
– Trials and justice
– Reparation and restitution
– Visual representations and ethics of new technologies
– Museums, exhibitions and memorials
– Archives and record-building
 
We particularly encourage early career scholars and PhD candidates to apply; and we are pleased to announce that the Center for Holocaust Studies (Munich), the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies (Yale University), and the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies (Vienna) will financially support a number of speakers.
 
Please submit an abstract of 200-250 words together with a biography of 50-100 words through our online application form by 31 March 2025: https://forms.gle/PY4r8KDHH7WXg3Kg8
 
If you have any trouble with this form, please contact Christine Schmidt: cschmidt@wienerholocaustlibrary.org
 
All proposals are subject to a review process. The organisers aim to respond to all applications received by summer 2025.
 
Fee: GBP 120 for speakers. The fee includes admission to all panels and evening events, lunches and refreshments during the conference. Further information and registration details will be made available in due course.

 

Funding Opportunities

We are pleased to offer MVHR graduate students funding support for travel to present their research at academic conferences, which includes an exciting new partnership with the UMN Libraries:

CHGS / HRP travel awards funded by the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the Human Rights Program

Library Archives travel awards: the Kautz Family YMCA Archives HGMV Graduate Award and the IHRC Archives HGMV Graduate Award

Funding for both types of awards will be provided to graduate students in the form of reimbursement for travel costs and registration fees for conferences, symposia, workshops, and meetings where they will present their work.

Topics must be relevant to the Holocaust, genocide, mass violence, and other systemic human rights violations. Applications accepted on a rolling basis; first consideration will be given to those students who have presented or are scheduled to present their work in the HGMV workshop.

Library awards require prior consultation with an archivist and incorporation of archive research in the paper.  Archivists are always available for consult via ihrca@umn.edu and ymcaarch@umn.edu

Funding Opportunities from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities Immigration History Research Center:

The Immigration History Research Center (IHRC) and our partners at the Immigration History Research Center Archives (IHRCA) invite applications for the Michael G. Karni Scholarship and the Grant-in-Aid Award.

The Michael G. Karni Scholarship supports visiting scholars utilizing the IHRCA, with a preference for projects using the Finnish American collections or the Baltic American collections. This scholarship supports up to $2,000 to help defray travel- and research-related expenses.

The award is a memorial to Michael Karni, a pioneering historian and publisher of Finnish American ethnicity, who was chiefly responsible for the initial development of the Finnish American collection at the IHRCA. The fund has been made possible through gifts from friends and members of the Karni family along with other supporters of Finnish American scholarly activity.

Grant-in-Aid Awards support a visit to the University of Minnesota Libraries in order to conduct research in the IHRCA collections. This $2,000 award is open to researchers from all disciplines and levels of training and is intended to support a research visit of 5 days. Awards are available through co-sponsorship by the IHRCA ethnic and general funds, and the Immigration History Research Center.

Both awards will give priority to applicants who identify as people of color or as a member of groups historically excluded or underrepresented in academia and archives.

Deadline for Submissions: Deadlines are rolling; page will be updated with new deadlines.

Find Additional Information Here: Michael G. Karni Scholarship | Immigration History Research Center | College of Liberal Arts (umn.edu)

Contact ihrc@umn.edu with questions

The USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research is accepting applications for research fellowships from any discipline for research related to the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive. Fellowships during the academic year will be awarded to outstanding advanced-standing Ph.D. candidates from any discipline for dissertation research with innovative approaches focusing on testimony from the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive and other USC resources. There are three available fellowships:

Greenberg Research Fellowship

Katz Research Fellowship in Genocide Studies

Breslauer, Rutman, and Anderson Research Fellowship

The African Studies Initiative (ASI), through a Title VI grant in African Studies from the U.S. Department of Education, is able to provide travel support up to $1,500 to the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, faculty, and instructional staff. The Travel Grants are intended for projects that enhance the University’s undergraduate and graduate curriculum in African Studies and for projects that support the building of sustainable educational partnerships with institutions abroad on African Studies.

The ASI accepts applications on a rolling basis but does require that all applications be received at least 2 months before the departure date.