SDP lecture “Memory, Narrative Ethics and the Holocaust”
- VID Library, Campus Oslo, Diakonveien 18, 1st floor
- 2. september 2025, 14:00 – 15:30
Welcome to the SDP lecture “Memory, Narrative Ethics and the Holocaust” by professor of English literature, Jakob Lothe, University of Oslo.
In this lecture, Jakob Lothe will give a talk based on his recent book: Memory and Narrative Ethics: Holocaust Testimony, Fiction and Film (Oxford University Press, 2025). In the book, Lothe explores the ethical dimensions of the Holocaust through various narrative forms.
After the lecture, there will be a conversation between Lothe and professor Oddgeir Synnes, SDP, followed by a Q&A session at the end.
Jakob Lothe
Jakob Lothe is professor of English literature. He was associate professor of comparative literature at the University of Bergen 1987–1992 and professor of English literature at the University of Oslo 1993–2020. He has been an invited visiting scholar at St. John’s College, University of Oxford (1996–1997), Harvard University (2005), University of Cape Town (2010), and Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford (2017–2018).
Lothe’s main research interest is narrative theory and analysis. He has developed a method that combines constituent elements of classical narratology, rhetorical narrative theory, narrative hermeneutics, memory studies, and studies of the narrative ethics of fiction and film. In his current work, Lothe aims to improve our understanding of the ethics of storytelling, while at the same time highlighting the key role of the ethics which readers and viewers take with them to the act, and experience, of reading and viewing. His books include Conrad’s Narrative Method (Oxford UP, 1989; paperback ed. 1991), Narrative in Fiction and Film (Oxford UP, 2000; also published in Chinese by Peking UP, 2011), and, as editor or co-editor The Art of Brevity (South Carolina UP, 2004; paperback ed. 2011), Literary Landscapes (Palgrave, 2008), Joseph Conrad (Ohio State UP, 2008), Franz Kafka (Ohio State UP, 2011), After Testimony: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Holocaust Narrative for the Future (Ohio State UP, 2012), Narrative Ethics (Rodopi, 2013), Time’s Witnesses: Women’s Voices from the Holocaust (Fledgling Press, 2017; also published in Chinese by Shanghai Joint Publishing Company, 2021), The Future of Literary Studies (Novus Press, 2017), Research and Human Rights (Novus Press, 2020), Nordic and European Modernisms (MDPI, 2021) and Nordic Travels (Novus Press, 2021).
He was elected to The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in 1999 and to the American Philosophical Society in 2018.