Call for Book Chapters: “Memorializing Atrocities: A Study of Public Memory and Commemoration of Mass Violence”

Vernon Press invites book chapter proposals for a forthcoming edited volume, “Memorializing Atrocities: A Study of Public Memory and Commemoration of Mass Violence”.

Mass atrocity events are very much front and center today. The violence against non-combatants is leading to protests, governmental and non-governmental actors' actions, and public discussion. Violence is leading to a rethinking and reshaping of national alliances and the global order. This proposed edited volume brings together essays that look at the public memory and commemoration of mass atrocities around the world. The essays will address how these tragic events are recalled in public commemoration, monuments and memorials, and museums, the study of which has been a growing field of study bringing together public history, heritage studies, folklore and fine art. These essays are not concerned with debating whether or not a given event was a genocide or recounting violent specifics. Instead, these essays focus on public memory and the purpose of memorialization: to invoke specific emotions and institutionalize a past for the present. The narratives that monuments and memorials (and museums) carry reflect the group’s interpretation of an event that initiated their fashion. Oftentimes, the process of memorialization becomes its own story that is decisive in understanding a nation’s identity. This volume seeks those stories of commemoration; different groups’ struggles to construct memorial sites in order to fortify the public memories of violence. At the same time, it aims to understand the formation of public memories through oral history, generational trauma, and external forces determining one’s perspective. The essays will study memorialization’s strength and purpose against denial, too.

The goal of this volume is to bring together new essays that look at the memorialization and commemoration of mass atrocity events. The scope can include everything from physical memorials like statues or landscapes to museums and historical sites. Ceremonies, art projects, performances, and the like all fit under the umbrella of commemoration. On the other hand, we are not looking for essays that exclusively explore the historical dynamics of specific mass atrocity events or essays that explore the debates about whether or not a given event was a genocide—except in so far as those issues are in play in commemoration and memorialization. The essays we seek will fit comfortably into the realms of public history, memory, and memorialization studies. We are looking for the widest scope possible and have a particular interest in moving beyond the highest profile most studied events. The mass atrocity events we are interested in covering can be loosely defined as being the use of state power or something analogous to it to commit what Hersch Lauterpacht defined as crimes against humanity. That marks a distinction between violence enacted by individuals or informal groups on the one hand and actors working in the interest of defined political goals on the other. Seen this way, a street gang would fall outside the scope, but a self-defined militia would be an appropriate focus.

Possible Topics:

Contributors will shed light on commemorations of mass crimes and genocidal conflicts whose memories and memorialization are not well known—moving away from discussing only the Holocaust and slavery. These include Congo’s suffering and destruction in the hands of Belgian King Leopold, the Japanese invasion in East and Southeast Asia and the so-called “comfort women” during the second world war, the United States’ involvement in Vietnam, Plains Indians Wars and the forced assimilation of the Native Americans, the murder of Armenians in Turkey between 1915 and 1923, the Khmer Rouge killing fields in Cambodia, mass killing, sexual violence on women, and forced displacement of Bangladeshis by the Pakistan Army during the 1971 war of independence, the dissolution of Yugoslavia and genocidal war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Hindu-Muslim communal violence during the 1947 Indian partition and the refugee crises, genocide in Rwanda, genocidal conflicts between Sudan and Darfur, the Nigerian civil war, mass killing of suspected communists in Indonesia of 1965-66 and other mass atrocities.

Proposal Submission Guidelines:

• Please submit a 500-word proposal clearly outlining your chapter's focus, methodological approach, and significance to the volume's theme.
• Include a 150-word biographical statement and a selected CV highlighting relevant expertise.
• Proposals (and questions) should be addressed to Dr. Philip Levy (plevy@usf.edu) and Ummul Muhseneen (ummulmuhseneen@usf.edu)
• Proposal deadline: January 15, 2026.

Once we have assembled our authors we will return to the publisher for the next level of approval. With that approval in hand, we will have 12 months for authors to draft their essays followed by six months for editorial review and author revision. All of this means that we will have 18 months to deliver a completed draft to the press. If you have questions now or at any time in the process, please feel free to reach out.