Tommaso M. Milani is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Applied Linguistics and Jewish Studies at Penn State; he is also affiliated to the African Studies Program and the Department of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies. Before joining Penn State, he held positions at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa and the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He is currently working on a project about the politics of collective remembering, focusing in particular on the commemoration of the victims of the Shoah in Italy and Sweden. He also collaborates with the Swedish Yiddishist Sarah Schulman (Dos Nisele Förlag,Stockholm) on a project about Yiddish in Sweden.
Structure:
Master Class events are spread over three days. Participants from the University of Bern can register directly for the Workhop on 14 May via KSL (course code: 493369). Participants from outside the University of Bern can register by emailing the CSLS (info.csls@unibe.ch), though space for the workshop is limited. Please register for the workshop by 7 May 2025.
Registration for the Public Lecture on 13 May is only necessary for those wishing to receive ECTS credits for attendance. Attendees from the University of Bern can register for the lecture directly via KSL (course code: 494854).
Those wishing to register for a consulting session must email the CSLS (info.csls@unibe.ch) with a brief abstract/research proposal outlining what they would like to discuss in the session by 23 April 2025. We will do our best to accommodate all requests, but please note that space is limited, and priority will be given to CSLS PhD students and, if space permits, advanced MA students.
Registraton Deadlines:
- for the Consulting Session: 23 April 2025
- for the Workshop: 7 May 2025
- for the Lecture: registration via ksl only necessary for ECTS (UniBern-intern)
Public Lecture Commemoration, affect and politics at Il Memoriale della Shoah in Milan
Date: 13 May 2025
Time: 16:15 - 18:00h
Location: Room 102, Fabrikstrasse 6, Bern
Afterwards, an apéro will be held.
Abstract
In this presentation, I analyze Il Memoriale della Shoah, the memorial of the victims of the Shoah in Milan, which was inaugurated in 2013 and was turned into a night shelter for destitute migrants in 2015. To understand the rhetoric and politics of the Memorial, I bring together the notions of affective practices (Wetherell 2012), découpages du temps (lit. slices of time) (Foucault 1986) and multidirectional memory (Rothberg 2009). This analytic approach allows me to examine the nonlinear shape of remembering, the dialectic relationships between the spatialization of time and the temporalization of space, the ways in which emotions are brought into being semiotically in context, and the ethical questions that these feelings raise. Through detailed multimodal and affective analysis of the affordances of the built environment and its soundscape, the curation of the Memorial, the contextualization of three guided tours (two online and one in situ) and politicized commentary on the Memorial’s decision to shelter refugees, this presentation illustrates the multi-layered character of the relationship between space and time – one in which the past, the present and the future partly overlap and mobilize political action.
Workshop Studying time and language
Date: 14 May 2025
Time: 14:00 - 17:00h
Location: Room 320, Mittelstrasse 43, Bern
Individual Consulting Sessions
Date: 15 May 2025
Time: 9:00 - 12:00h
Location: tba
Doctoral and Master's students of the CSLS will be offered the opportunity to discuss their research topics and projects with Tommaso Milani in groups of two. 40 minutes per group are planned, with a maximum of 6 groups possible - in principle, first come first served, but doctoral students must be given priority.
Important: an abstract/research proposal must be sent to info.csls@unibe.ch by 23 April 2025!
