2012

This ninth symposium was centered around the theme of revisiting the field of Holocaust studies as we approach a time when the last of the survivors are beginning to leave us. We realized this goal by: 1) revisiting four classical texts in order to see what they mean to us in 2012; 2) revisiting the links between Genocide and the Shoah; 3) rethinking Holocaust humor; 4) revisiting issues connected to the rise of the Third Reich; 5) examining  the “new antisemitism” of the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries; 6) revisiting the call of activism (the summons to tikkun or the repair of the world) ; 7) rethinking the present by examining the role of memory in constructing dialogical pedagogies, what we call “pedagogies of the in-between”; 8) revisiting the film “Shoah” after 25 years. We also conducted a session on contemporary issues in Jewish-Christian relations, a session on mass graves in Ukraine and the Belarus, and a session on new research on rape during the Holocaust. Bob Skloot directed a reading of the play “The Model Apartment.”