Summer School in Holocaust Literature and Cinema Contemporary Perspectives and Approaches (Wrocław, Pologne)

The University of Wrocław, in partnership with the University of Edinburgh, invites applications for Fellowships to attend the Summer School in Holocaust Literature and Cinema. This intensive, interdisciplinary programme welcomes undergraduate and postgraduate students, postdoctoral researchers, early career scholars, and Holocaust educators from around the world. The Summer School will take place from 8 to 12 September 2025 at the University of Wrocław, located in the vibrant and historically rich city of Wrocław, Poland. Home to a Jewish community since the early Middle Ages, Wrocław offers a unique setting for Holocaust studies, with numerous sites of memory including Jewish cemeteries and the beautifully restored White Stork synagogue.

Participants will engage with a range of contemporary novels and films that narrate the Jewish experience during the Holocaust, alongside critical theoretical approaches to its cultural representation. Key themes will include: the ethical and epistemological challenges of Holocaust representation; contemporary perspectives in Holocaust studies (e.g. bystanders, the dispersed Holocaust, the Holocaust in Ukraine, children’s perspectives, environmental and animal Holocaust studies); and critical methodologies such as trauma studies, ecocriticism, and zoocriticism. The programme also addresses pedagogical and communicative dimensions of Holocaust memory, including how to teach the Holocaust effectively and how to write about it for younger audiences. We look forward to welcoming a diverse group of Fellows committed to deepening their understanding of Holocaust literature, film, and memory.

Fellowships 

We are delighted to offer 30 Fellowships that cover the full participation fee and include several additional benefits: selected meals, a group dinner at a local Jewish restaurant, an excursion to the Gross-Rosen Museum in Rogoźnica, and a guided tour of Jewish Wrocław. For Fellows travelling from outside Wrocław five nights’ accommodation will be provided. These Fellowships are generously funded by the IDUB programme at the University of Wrocław.

To apply, please email Helena Duffy (helena.duffy@uwr.edu.pl) by 20 June 2025.