PI Dr. Johana Wyss and her MemPop team organized a fantastic exchange of ideas among a small group of researchers from all over Europe at the beautiful Villa Lanna in Prague’s Bubenec neighborhood. Lani Hartikainen was very excited to have the opportunity to take part, presenting an early draft of an article on pseudohistory and populist movements co-authored with fellow HEPPSter Zea Szebeni. She was fortunate enough to get feedback from Dr. Petra Guasti, the discussant of her panel.
MemPop takes a bottom-up, anthropological view on the relationship between populism and memory and how people interact with and shape both, and the papers presented at the conference largely reflected this perspective. The intimate environment and shared interests fostered deeper conversations among the participants. The presentations featured an exciting range of topics, from the so-called "Sudeten card" in the Czech Republic to Caucasian shepherd dogs in Hungary today to visual populism and architecture in Serbia.
In addition to MemPop, two other ERC projects were also represented there: Recycling the German Ghosts (PI dr hab. Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska) and REVENANT—Revivals of Empire: Nostalgia, Amnesia, Tribulation (PI Dr. Jeremy F. Walton). It is exciting to envision years of future collaboration with the researchers in all three projects and beyond, all of whom are doing fascinating work on the topics most near and dear to HEPP.