Seán Williams

Senior Lecturer in German and European Cultural History, School of Languages and Cultures, University of Sheffield, UK

Williams works at the intersection of comparative literature and cultural history, with a special interest in German sources. He is especially interested in the transition from oral and written, personal testimonies to cultural narratives at large, and he has worked on survivorship and stories of hair in comparative contexts (such as cancer). As part of a broader book project on the social figures of the barber and hairdresser, Williams has conducted substantial research into prisoner functionaries and the forced removal of hair in genocidal contexts – primarily in Nazi concentration camps, but also in Soviet Gulags and present-day, disputed cases of internment globally. Hair, and those who worked with it under duress, have become critical to representations and memories of genocide. Williams is a member of the research group “(in)voluntary body modification”, where he has broadened his perspective within body studies to include practices of tattooing.