Twentieth-century fascism was a political ideology encompassing totalitarianism, state terrorism, imperialism, racism, and, in Germany’s case, the most radical genocide of the last century: the Holocaust. Historians of the Holocaust tend to reject the notion of fascism as a causal explanation for its origins. Conversely, scholars of fascism present the Shoah as a particular event that is not central to fascist historiography. In this lecture Federico Finchelstein examines the challenge the Holocaust presents to the transnational history of ideology and politics.

A leading contemporary authority on global fascism, Finchelstein is Professor of History at the New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang College and Director of the Janey Program in Latin American Studies at NSSR. His many publications which have been translated into foreign languages such as Korean, Hungarian and Turkish include Fascist Mythologies: The History and Politics of Unreason in Borges, Freud, and Schmitt (Columbia University Press, June 2022), A Brief History of Fascist Lies (University of California Press, 2020), and Transatlantic Fascism (Duke University Press, 2010).

This event will be held in the Seuss Room at Geisel Library. There will also be a virtual option for those who prefer to join online.

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About the Holocaust Living History Workshop

This event is a part of the Holocaust Living History Workshop (HLHW) series, an education and outreach program sponsored by the UC San Diego Library and the Jewish Studies program. It aims to preserve the memories of the victims and survivors of the Holocaust by offering public events involving witnesses, descendants and scholars and through the use of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute’s Visual History Archive. Past HLHW workshops are now part of the Library’s digital collections and can be accessed online here.

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Sponsor: July Teper Galper

Image credit: The Intercept / Arquivo Pessoal