Victoria Grace Walden is a teaching fellow at the University of Sussex. Her research specialisms are Holocaust and genocide non-fiction and animated films, digital memory in museums, and film-philosophy. Her most recent book Cinematic Intermedialities and Contemporary Holocaust Memory was released earlier this year. She is currently developing an e-book edited collection and online platform entitled The Memorial Museum in the Digital Age. She has worked for the Holocaust Educational Trust, the IHRA, and volunteered for the Wiener Library and Jewish Museum, London.

‘Debunking Digital Myths: Holocaust Memory for the Future’

Abstract of presentation for Holocaust Studies in the Digital Age. What’s New? on 2 July 2019

When we think of the digital, there are a list of words that come to mind: ‘virtuality’, ‘immateriality’, ‘digital natives’, ‘interactivity’, ‘immersion’ and ‘distraction’. In this talk, I want to interrogate these ideas to propose potential ways in which the digital can be used in productive ways to encourage Holocaust memory. I will consider both digital and physical examples of virtual memory, consider the ways the digital might enable us to confront problems related to objects standing in for a past characterised by loss, review the assumption that young people are more advanced in their knowledge of the digital than us, explore how interactivity and immersion are not specific to the digital only, and look at more positive ways of thinking about the digital beyond discourses of distraction.

Victoria Walden
University of Sussex, School of Media, Film and Music
v.walden@sussex.ac.uk