The 2025–26 academic year was a busy and rewarding one for CIMS, marked by new conversations, strengthened partnerships, and a wide range of events bringing together colleagues and postgraduate researchers from St Andrews, across Scotland, elsewhere in the UK, and internationally.
Throughout the year, CIMS continued to develop its existing relationships while also establishing new connections with researchers working in Memory Studies. These included colleagues at the Glasgow Memory Lab, Nottingham Trent University and the Memory Studies Association, Newcastle University, the Frankfurt Memory Studies Platform at Goethe University Frankfurt, Johns Hopkins University, and Charles University Prague, one of the University of St Andrews’ strategic partner institutions.
Conversations Across Memory Studies (Seminar Series)
Our seminar series once again brought scholars from a range of disciplines and institutions to St Andrews, creating opportunities to explore different approaches to memory, commemoration, resistance, identity, and cultural transmission.
The series began in November with Craig Lamont’s talk, “When Age Speaks, Youth Listens (Sometimes)”, which reflected on the importance of Memory Studies across his interdisciplinary work in Scottish Studies.
In March, Kateřina Králová joined us to speak on “Homecoming: Identities and Memory of the Holocaust Survivors and Greece”, examining the complex meanings of return, belonging, and identity for Jewish Holocaust survivors from Greece.
Later that month, Paul Leworthy presented “Screening and Intervening: Documenting and Doing Memory Work in Das deutsche Volk”, exploring Marcin Wierzchowski’s 2025 documentary on the 2020 racist terrorist attack in Hanau and its aftermath.
April brought Kevin Simpson’s talk on “Football under the Swastika: Survival and Resistance During the Holocaust”, which examined sport in Nazi concentration camps and ghettos as a lens through which to consider survival and resistance.
We concluded the year’s seminar programme in May with Virginia Jewiss and “Four Plaques and a Column: Rethinking Resistance”, which invited us to reconsider how resistance is remembered, represented, and made visible.
Building the CIMS Community at St Andrews (Brown Bag Talks)
Alongside our external seminar programme, CIMS continued to strengthen connections within the University through our Brown Bag talks.The Brown Bag series provides an informal space for colleagues across St Andrews to share work in progress, test ideas, and discover points of connection across disciplines.
This year’s programme began with Kristen Treen’s talk on “U.S. Civil War Monuments: Forms, Feelings, Futures”, which introduced the Commemorative Cultures project and explored literary and cultural responses to Civil War monuments.
This was followed by Abigail Karas’s “It’s More Like a Village Here: Rural Identities in Contemporary Chișinău and the Limits of Urban Transformation”, examining the relationship between memory, identity, and the changing urban landscape.
In semester two, Kamila Oles discussed “Memory Crafted in Glass and Stone: The Polish Soldiers’ Mosaic in St Andrews as a Material Representation of Collective and Mediated Memory”, placing local Scottish–Polish heritage within broader questions of collective memory.
The series continued with Lydia Maria Roth’s talk, “‘We Created a New Memory Culture’: Remembering the Victims of Right-Wing Terror in Hanau”, which explored the evolving practices of remembrance surrounding the 2020 Hanau attack.
Postgraduate Collaboration Across Borders (PG Symposium)
Postgraduate activity remained central to CIMS throughout the year. A particular highlight was our international postgraduate symposium, organised in collaboration with postgraduate researchers from the Memory Studies Platform at Goethe University Frankfurt. Under the theme “Memory as a Future Practice,” the symposium brought together emerging scholars working across disciplines and institutions to think about how memory can be understood not simply as a relationship to the past, but as a practice that actively shapes possible futures.
The symposium was a valuable opportunity for postgraduate researchers to present their work, exchange ideas, and build connections beyond their own institutions. Alongside our masterclasses and the reading group, it formed part of our continuing commitment to supporting early-career researchers and creating spaces for intellectual exchange.
Towards a Scottish Memory Studies Network
One of the most significant developments of 2025–26 was CIMS’s role in spearheading the establishment of a Scottish Memory Studies Network. The Network held its first event in semester two and is intended to create new opportunities for collaboration, exchange, and networking among researchers working on memory across Scottish higher education institutions.
We hope that it will become a particularly valuable space for postgraduate researchers and early-career colleagues, while also strengthening connections among established researchers across Scotland. The initiative builds on relationships developed during the year, including our engagement with Craig Lamont and the Glasgow Memory Lab, and opens up exciting possibilities for future collaboration.