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º£½ÇÖ±²¥ announces new far right research centre

º£½ÇÖ±²¥ is launching the first research unit in Britain dedicated to the study of the far right and its opposition.

The ground-breaking Centre for Fascist, Anti-Fascist and Post-Fascist Studies, part of the School of Arts & Media, will examine the historical development of far right politics and culture since its inception in the early twentieth century. Professor Nigel Copsey and Dr Matthew Feldman will lead the centre which builds upon their reputations as two of the leading UK experts on both historical and contemporary manifestations of fascism and (radical) anti-fascism.

The announcement of the centre comes as º£½ÇÖ±²¥ prepares to mark National Holocaust Memorial Day on 25 January 2013 with a special event on campus – one of the largest events in the country.

Staff, students and the public will be attending the commemoration event which will be hosted by Professor Copsey and Dr Feldman and feature the prominent historian Professor Dan Stone who works on historiographical and philosophical interpretations of the Holocaust, comparative genocide, history of anthropology, and the cultural history of the British Right. He is the author or editor of ten books and over fifty scholarly articles. Keynote speaker Professor Stone, from Royal Holloway, University of London, will be giving an address called ‘The Cheese and the Wurst, Nazism and the Holocaust in Contemporary Culture’. This will be followed by a number of parallel sessions which include ‘The Holocaust on Film’, ‘Writing Holocaust Memoirs’ and ‘Political Religion and the Holocaust’.

There will be a second keynote speech from Professor of International History Frank McDonough from Liverpool John Moores University who will talk about Sophie Scholl, a German student who was executed with her brother for distributing anti-war leaflets – recently voted Germany’s greatest woman for actively opposing the Third Reich.

Professor Copsey said: 'It is excellent to have such eminent speakers converge on º£½ÇÖ±²¥ for an event to commemorate the Holocaust. It will be a great experience for students both from the University and from our partner colleges as well as the public and staff to reflect on this catastrophic period in history that resulted from far-right extremism.

'With Dr Feldman I am also delighted to be able to announce the launch of the new research centre which is the first of its kind in Britain and will be a focal point for those wishing to examine far right extremism.'

Dr Feldman added: 'An important development in radical right activism this century – is, without doubt the turn from anti-Semitism toward anti-Muslim politics. In the aftermath of mass-casualty terrorist attacks by Islamist militants in the US on 11 September 2001; Madrid on 11 March 2004; and the UK on 7 July 2005, the emergence of a potent anti-Muslim politics has offered a crucial hook for a new generation of radical right activists to hang an extremist agenda.

'One of the things we will be looking at is a quantifiable analysis of far right participation in anti-Muslim attacks.'

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