Book Launch: Struggling with Anti/Fascism

Struggling with Anti/Fascism: Contested Art, Politics, and Memory in the Recent European Past

Edited by Rebecka Katz Thor, Gal Kirn, and Cecilia Sjöholm.

Published by De Gruyter (August 2026) in the Media and Cultural Memory series.

Abstract:

The dialectical movement between the destruction, neglect, and removal of antifascist monuments and the creation of new nationalist ones is connected to what is called right-wing historical revisionism—the altering of narratives surrounding the past in order to promote political gains in the present. In a parallel movement, the simple equation between history, identity and nation is being actively questioned through the anti-fascist expressions of memory culture. Transcending the distinction between regional and transnational, anti-fascist practices and objects often dispute simplified notions of nationalism, heroism and symbolisms of identification.
This collection traces the tenets of an emerging antifascist memory culture today. Taking examples predominantly from an Eastern and South European context, the anthology contributes to a critical grammar of mnemonic wars, engaging in new artistic and philosophical perspectives on the politics of aesthetic historicizations.

Contributors: Guido Bartolini, Marcia Cavalcante Schuback, Uroš Čvoro, Panagiotis Dafiotis, Mathias Danbolt, Rebecka Katz Thor, Zoltán Kékesi and Máté Zombory, Gal Kirn, Yiannis Mylonas, mirko nikolić, Daniel Palacios González and Iker Ibarrondo Merino, Cecilia Sjöholm.