This session is an opportunity to engage scholars in a critical, roundtable discussion about the “waves” or “generations” of Holocaust and Genocide Studies in service to exploring fruitful contemporary and prospective lines of inquiry. This includes questioning (1) to what extent such linear conceptualizations of the field are orienting and constrictive, providing a trajectory for the field but also potentially hindering a critical reception of the field’s development and new paradigm constructions; (2) the viability of studying absence, in other words, the study of what does not happen, what is not there, or immediately present as it pertains, for example, to forensic research, mass atrocity predictive models, and holographic testimonies; (3) how turns in scholarship (such as the linguistic turn, post-secular turn, spectral turn, and post-modern turns) communicate and limit accounts of atrocities; (4) how to link various data sets, definitions, theories, and methods from an array of disciplines into a coherent and rich field that encourages interaction across disciplines; and (5) normative commitments about the goals and uses of genocide research that may privilege some voices and perspectives and stifle others, including human and non-human subjects.