Inaugural Lecture of Erkko Visiting Professor Molly Andrews
"The promise and limits of Political Forgiveness"
Inaugural Lecture by Jane and Aatos Erkko Visiting Professor Molly Andrews on 22 October 2019. "The promise and limits of Political Forgiveness" Although there is widespread agreement with the argument that Hannah Arendt made more than half a century ago, that forgiveness is ‘one of the human faculties that make social change possible’, beyond this, there is little consensus of what it means. Applying a narrative structure to this discussion, there is a lack of clarity around questions of who, what, where, when, and why to forgive. The lecture will explore the politics of forgiveness in East Germany, where these issues have been hotly contested for more than twenty-five years. The data examined suggest that the fraught process of forgiveness embodies not consensus but contest, as people disagree on key questions such who has the right to forgive whom, for what, how long the window for the opportunity of forgiveness stays open, and even why these questions matter, not only for individuals but for the whole of society.
Keynotes
July 2023
“I think I am a different person today”: Methodological reflections on a thirty-year conversation” Open University, Research Day of the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education, and Language Studies.
December 2022
“Temporality, Ethics and Political Narratives” Difficult Political Narratives: theoretical, methodological, ethical and aesthetic challenges, Memory and Human Rights Interdisciplinary Research Program Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Santiago, Chile.
September 2022
“It takes time: The Politics and Practice of Slow Research” British Academy Conference of Tracing Invisible Inequalities.
May 2022
“’We had the dream’: Narrating a life of activism in Hindsight” Restorying Aging: Older Women and Life Writing, University of Galway.
April 2022
“East Germany’s Peaceful Revolution, the Far Right’s Cooptation of Language, and the Rewriting of History” The New Dynamics of Democracy, British Psychological Society Political Psychology Section, Liverpool.
October 2021
“COVID-19 and the Failure of Narrative Imagination” Institute of Cultural Research on the topic of memory, literature, and trauma” organized by the Nordic Baltic Network of Life Writing. University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia.
June 2021
"We’ve been talking almost half my life”: Scholarship and Long Conversations in East Germany” International Society for Ethnology and Folklore (SIEF), Helsinki, FI.
November 2020
“’I am a child of my time’: The (in)conceivability of a country that is no longer” Generation, Migration and Memory, University of Latvia.
June 2020
“COVID-19 Pandemic and the Failure of the Narrative Imagination” The Psychology of Global Crisis; digital conference organized by 10 universities, led by American University of Paris.
June 2020
“COVID-19 Pandemic and the Failure of the Narrative Imagination” European NetIAS Lecture Series.
October 2019
“The Promise and Limits of Political Forgiveness” Jane and Aatos Inaugural Lecture, Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki, Finland.
September 2019
“Personal Narratives and Social Change” Narrare (Centre for Interdisciplinary Narrative Studies) Interdisciplinary Autumn Seminar University of Tampere, Using Personal Narratives to Study Social Change.
May 2019
“Personal Storytelling and Social Change: The Story of the Dangerous Book” Orienting Ourselves in the World, University of Manchester.
August 2018
“Activist Lives Over Time” Nordiskt Sommaruniversitet, Faro, Sweden.
August 2018
“The Narrative Architecture of Political Forgiveness” Nordiskt Sommaruniversitet, Faro, Sweden.
June 2018
“Personal storytelling and Social Change: The Mystery of the Dangerous Book” Narrative Sense-making and Prospective Social Action’ VIVE The Danish Centre for Social Science Research.
June 2018
“Hearing, representing and performing the pain of others: Tensions of ethical scholarship” Writing Voice and Speaking Text: An Interdisciplinary Enquiry into Diachronic and Synchronic Aspects of Speech, The Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, Helsinki Finland.
March 2018
“The Narrative Architecture of Political Forgiveness” 2nd NEST (Narrative Enquire for Social Transformation) International Conference, University of the Witwatersand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
August 2017
“Narrating the Self: Temporality, Imagination and Possibility” SINS 17 (Summer Course in Narrative Studies), Aarhus University, Sonderborg, Denmark.
August 2017
“Narrative, Time and Forgiveness: Apology and the Statue of Limitations” SINS 17 (Summer Course in Narrative Studies), Aarhus University, Sonderborg, Denmark.
January 2017
“Speaking Another’s Pain: Narratives and Ventriloquism” Conference on Patients’ Stories in Context, The University of the Artic, Tromso, Norway.
June 2016
“Activism, Age and Everyday Life: A Long-term View” Activism on the Edge of Age, ERC Connectors Study and the Centre for Innovation and Research in Childhood and Youth, University of Sussex.
May 2016
“‘How Quickly History Disappears’: The Search for an Authentic East German Identity” Conference on Narrative Selves in Art and the Everyday, The Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies.
June 2015
“’Me and Europe’: Narrating European Identity” Symposium on A UK Referendum on Europe: Could the Public Decide, The Open University, Camden.
June 2015
“Generational Effects on East German Identity” Family Narratives/Nation(alistic) Narratives, Gender Studies, University of Zurich.
June 2015
“Le récit, l’imagination, élargir les horizons du possible” [“Narrative, Imagination, and Extending Visions of the Possible”] Les Journées du CEAQ – Socialité Postmoderne XIV. L’ Université Paris Descartes –Sorbonne.
June 2015
“Popular representations of East Germany: Whose History is It?” Ethics of Storytelling: Historical Imagination in Contemporary Literature, Media and Visual Arts, University of Turku, Finland.
June 2014
“Knowledge, Reason and Imagination: Narrating the Self Over Time”, Narrative Matters: Narrative Knowing/Récit et Savoir, University of Paris Diderot, Paris.
May 2014
“Too Late?:Time, Forgiveness, and Accountability” The First International Symposium on Narrative Criminology, University of Oslo.
May 2013
“Exploring Political Narratives” NOVELLA symposium on Political Narratives, University of Warwick.
October 2012
“’An elementary transformation of one’s existence’: Narrating moments of acute political change” Narration and Narratives as an Interdisciplinary Field of Study, Örebro University, Örebro Sweden.
June 2012
“Traumatic Narratives and the Problems of Limits” After the Crisis: An Interdisciplinary Conference on Narrative of Traumatic Events, University of Agder, Krsitiansand, Norway.
May 2012
“Shifting Perspectives and the Provisional Past” Inaugural Lecture, University of East London.
May 2012
“Social Transformation and Political Narratives” Constructing Narratives of Continuity and Change, Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury.
December 2011
“Narrative, Apology and Time” Keynote address. The Oral, the Written, and Other Verbal Media. Testimony, Witness, Authority: The politics and poetics of experience. Victoria University, Melbourne Australia.
December 2011
“Political narratives: Personal stories and social change” Personal stories, public statements and political consequences: Exploring the places between. Symposium organized by Australian Narrative Network. Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia.
December 2010
“Understanding life backwards: The shifting ground of interpretation” Oral History and Fieldwork: The (Re)use and Interpretation of Research Materials symposium hosted by the Finnish Literature Society in collaboration with the Finnish Oral History Network (FOHN) and The Academy of Finland.
June 2010
“Inconvenient data and ‘the problem of politics’” ESRC Seminar Series – Activism, Volunteering and Citizenship’ Seminar 5 ‘Biographies of Activism and Social Change.’ Newcastle University.
December 2009
“Narrative Analysis and Political Psychology” Building Bridges - The state of North American and European political psychology today. Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
July 2009
“Unexpecting old age” Time to Move ’09: A national conference celebrating older people dancing, Taunton.
May 2009
“Studying political lives: Dilemmas for committed researchers,” Qualitative Methods for Social Critique, Graduate Centre, City University of New York.
May 2009
“Learning from stories, stories of learning”; Marginalized Youth and Contemporary Educational Contexts, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto.
July 2008
“‘Trafficking in human possibilities’: Political narratives and the moral imagination” Festschrift honouring the work of Helen Haste, Bath University.
June 2007
“Beyond narrative: Beginnings and endings of traumatic testimony” 3rd Tampere Conference on Narrative: Knowing, Living, Telling. June 27-30, 2007. University of Tampere, Finland.
June 2006
“Flirting with failure? Counter-narratives of successful aging” Tilda Gaskell Memorial Lecture, British Society of Gerontology Scotland Biennial Conference, Glasgow Caledonian University.
May 2003
“Conversations through the years: Reflections on age and meaning” 4th International Symposium on Cultural Gerontology; Tampere, Finland.
July 2002
“Grand national narratives and the project of truth commissions: A comparative analysis” International symposium on narrative, trauma and memory – Working through the Southern African armed conflicts of the 20th century; University of Cape Town.