About the Authors

Dr. Helga K. Hallgrímsdóttir is an Associate Professor in Public Administration and a Research Associate in the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria. Her research interests are primarily in historical sociology, comparative political sociology with a focus on grassroots mobilization and social movements claimsmaking. She currently holds a SSHRC Insight grant as Principal Investigator on the link between austerity policies, economic downturn, and the rise of nationalism in Europe; and the principal investigator on a Jean Monnet Erasmus+ grant and SSHRC Connections grant on memory politics in Canada and Europe.

Dr. Helga Thorson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies at the University of Victoria. She is the Co-⁠Director of the I-witness Field School, a 4-⁠week course on Holocaust memorialization in Europe, which she ran for the first time in 2011. In addition, she is the co-founder of “The Future of Holocaust Memorialization: Confronting Racism, Antisemitism and Homophobia through Memory Work” research collective and one of the co-organizers of the group’s first conference at Central European University in Budapest in 2014, followed by a second international conference at the University of Victoria in 2015. Dr. Thorson has received numerous teaching awards including the Faculty of Humanities Teaching Excellence Award at the University of Victoria in 2012; the Excellence in Teaching for Experiential Learning Award at the University of Victoria in 2017; and most recently a 2019 3M National Teaching Award.