Documentary screening of ‘The Return - Old Hatreds in New Times'

Films at the Faculty presents: A documentary screening of ‘The Return - Old Hatreds in New Times'

This South African documentary explores the aftermath of the Holocaust and antisemitism, as well as apartheid, colonial violence, contemporary racism, and the Israel/Palestine conflict through the interwoven stories of South African and German interviewees involved in a range of memory struggles. It highlights fractures and connections between ideologies and structures and explores the return of ‘white supremacy’ and fascism today. Using Heidi Grunebaum’s family story as a portal, the film explores these wider issues as it moves between South Africa and Germany and from there to the controversial significance that Israel has for the German politics of remembrance.

During the after talk we will be joined by co-producer of the film: Heidi Grunebaum.

Logistics: This event is free to attend for anyone inside or outside the university (no registration needed)
Language: English

About the speakers:

Heidi Grunebaum is an Associate Professor and immediate former Director of the Centre for Humanities Research (CHR) at the University of the Western Cape. Her academic work centers on the social and aesthetic echoes of genocide, war, and mass violence—particularly the Holocaust, apartheid, and the Palestinian Nakba. Her scholarly interests span Holocaust and genocide studies, critical memory studies, postcolonial theory, aesthetics and politics, and public culture.

Ksenia Robbe is a Senior Lecturer in European Culture and Literature (Russian) at the University of Groningen. Her research lies at the intersection of postcolonial and postsocialist studies, with a focus on concepts and practices of memory, time, gender, and feminism in literature, film, and visual art. Her current work explores memories of the transitional period of the 1980s–1990s in both Russian and South African cultural productions.

Karène Sanchez Summerer is Professor and Chair of Middle Eastern Studies. She is a historian of the Modern Middle East whose research and teaching focus on Christian Arab communities in and from the region. Karène’s work engages with the relational cultural and social history of Ottoman and Mandate Palestine, as well as with the experiences of minorities within and in diaspora from the Middle East. She is particularly interested in exploring multilateral and transnational connections—areas that remain understudied in comparison to dominant national historiographies and conventional periodisations.