Hegemonic Memory Culture and Postmigration: How to Remember the Past in Diverse Societies
On Friday, November 7, 2025, the Leiden Jewish Studies Network together with the Leiden Interdisciplinary Migration Seminars (LIMS) and the MA Programme Governance of Migration and Diversity invited the German-Jewish writer, curator and activist Max Czollek to a conversation on his work.
Under the title “Hegemonic Memory Culture and Postmigration: How to Remember the Past in Diverse Societies” Czollek presented core ideas of his work on pluralistic societies and how to organize new kinds of memory culture. He argued for an insertion of new stories, experiences and memories – including those of migrants – into the ways we tell our past and present to enable a dialogue over both shared and individual experiences of grief, loss and trauma.
Subsequently he entered a conversation with students on ways to create spaces in which such stories can be shared. We also discussed the challenges and pitfalls of inserting new stories into established ways of telling the past. Max Czollek visited Leiden as part of a book tour of his new book Alles auf Anfang: Auf der Suchen ach einer neuen Erinnerungskultur which he presented together with his co-author Hadija Haruna-Oelker at the Goethe Institute in Amsterdam, where Rebekka Grossmann served as a moderator, too.
