Diana Popescu’s research focuses on contemporary public history and public reception of violent histories, particularly of the Holocaust. Her research is focusing on questions related to the ethics and the aesthetics of mediating racial violence through a wide range of media, particularly contemporary art, immersive technologies, and museum exhibitions. It also investigates questions of public engagement and impact, using qualitative methodologies to understand and evaluate how the public engages with and responds to a wide range of public history projects, and memory spaces commemorating difficult histories.
Diana is the editor of Visitor Experience at Holocaust Memorials and Museums (Routledge, 2022), and co-editor of the volumes Performative Holocaust Commemoration in the 21st Century (Routledge, 2021) and Revisiting Holocaust Representation in the Post-Witness Era (Palgrave, 2015).
Diana was a Research Fellow on the AHRC project ‘Modes of Engagement: Comparing ‘real’ and ‘virtual’ platforms for Holocaust learning’ at the University of Nottingham (October 2021-October 2022), and a Swedish Research Council Early Career Fellow at the Institute from June 2015 to August 2019.