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Center News

Scripting the Shoah presented by Aomar Boum now Available to View on line

On April 11, 2013 Professor Aomar Boum presented an overview of his research dealing with the Holocaust in Moroccan official and public discourses. The recording of this presentation is now available for viewing on the CHGS YouTube channel. You can access the video by clicking here.
The lecture was a collaboration between CHGS and the Center for Jewish Studies.
Using archival material and ethnographic interviews, Professor Boum argued that North African and Moroccan perspectives about the Holocaust are part of what he calls the durable structures of acceptance and minimization. Using Bourdieu's habitus, Boum claims that Moroccan debates about the Holocaust have been framed and ossified in a context of social and political pre-dispositions of minimization of the Holocaust generating typological and conflicting scripts. Therefore, when individuals go against the grain and question this habitus, they are perceived as going against the principles of regular continuity that has governed the Arab/Moroccan critique of Israeli policies towards Palestinians.
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Eric Harkleroad PhD Candidate in Anthropology to Present at CHGS Workshop

Workshop for Graduate Students and Faculty Holocaust, Genocide and Mass Violence Studies
Thursday, May 9
3:30 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
710 Social Sciences
Eric Harkleroad will present "Warfare and Society: Archaeology's Contribution to the Discussion."
Eric's research focuses on situating warfare within the social sphere to examine its changing place in the daily life of Iron Age people in Southern Britain. His dissertation takes a regional look at how warfare, or the symbolic representations of warfare, is distributed across the landscape at different sites and how this changes through time. The work he is presenting uses a different scale focusing on one site and trying to understand how warfare fits into society at one specific site. Additionally he will address the relevance of Anthropology and Archaeology to the interests of the HGMV workshop.
This the last workshop of the 2012-2013 school year. The workshop will resume in September of 2013. For more information on how you can participate next year please email Alejandro Baer at abaer@umn.edu.
Special thanks to Shannon Golden for facilitating and organizing the workshops this year.
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Holocaust and Genocide Courses Being Offered for Summer and Fall

Registration for University of Minnesota's summer and fall semester is now open with a number of courses that fall within the Center's interdisciplinary approach to the study of the Holocaust and genocide.
Please register for the University of Minnesota Course offerings below at the One Stop Home Page.
For a complete list of potential courses click on the following link: Holocaust and Genocide Courses Offered at the University of Minnesota.pdf
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Wahutu Siguru awarded Badzin Fellowship

The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the Department of History, are pleased to announce the Bernard and Fern Badzin Graduate Fellowship in Holocaust and Genocide Studies has been awarded to Wahuta Siguru.
Siguru's research interests are in the Sociology of Media, Genocide, Mass Violence and Atrocities (specifically on issues of representation of conflicts in Africa such as Darfur and Rwanda), Collective Memory, and perhaps somewhat tangentially Democracy and Development in Africa.
Siguru was born and raised in Mombasa, Kenya and attended Moi University Law School from 2003-2007 and moved to Minnesota in 2007 completing a double major in Sociology and Global Studies at the University of Minnesota in 2010.
He spent a year doing research with Professor Tade Okediji, (University of Minnesota Applied Economics) on ethnicity and ethnic group formation in Africa, which resulted in a co-authored paper presented at the 2013 Africa Conference in Austin Texas. The paper will also be presented at the African Studies Association Conference in Baltimore Maryland later this year.
Siguru began coursework towards a PhD in Sociology at the University of Minnesota in 2011 and is currently analyzing data collected in the summer of 2012 in Johannesburg and Nairobi which has resulted in a co-authored paper with Professor Joachim Savelsberg on Representations of Darfur in Western and African Media; this will be presented at the 2013 American Sociological Association Conference in New York.
The Badzin Fellowship pays a living stipend of $18,000, and the cost of tuition, mandatory fees and health insurance. An applicant must be a current student in a Ph.D. program in the College of Liberal Arts, currently enrolled in the first, second, third, or fourth year of study, and have a doctoral dissertation project in Holocaust and genocide studies.
The fellowship is awarded on the basis of the quality and scholarly potential of the dissertation project, the applicant's quality of performance in the graduate program, and the applicant's general scholarly promise.
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Alejandro Baer to Present at USHMM Symposium

Alejandro Baer, CHGS will participate in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Symposium, Sephardic Jewry and the Holocaust: The Future of the Field
April 28-30, 2013
University of Washington, Seattle
The symposium is part of the year long commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the opening of the Museum. Co-organized through the Sephardic Studies Initiative of the University of Washington's Samuel & Althea Stroum Jewish Studies Program and the Museum's Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, this symposium explores the unique history of Sephardic Jewry and the Holocaust.
Professor Baer will present The Voids of the Sephard: the Memory of the Holocaust in Spain.
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Hiromi Mizuno professor in the Department of History to present at next CHGS workshop

Workshop for Graduate Students and Faculty Holocaust, Genocide and Mass Violence Studies
Thursday, April 25:
3:30-5:00 p.m. 710 Social Sciences
"When Crimes Cannot Be Punished: the Comfort Women Issue and International Human Rights Law"
Hiromi Mizuno, Associate Professor, Department of History and CHGS advisory board member will present on her latest research.
If you are interested in participating in the workshop please contact Shannon Golden at golde118@umn.edu.
Remaining Workshop Schedule:
May 3: Friday, 12:00-1:30 p.m. (710 Social Sciences)
Courtney Gildersleeve
May 9: Thursday, 3:30-5:00 p.m. (710 Social Sciences)
Eric Harkleroad

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Doctoral Research Fellow at the Center for Austrian Studies, Matthias Falter to present at next CHGS workshop

The "Antifascist consensus" and the "club of political correctness." Addressing National Socialism in Austrian parliamentary debates on right-wing extremism
Interdisciplinary Workshop for Graduate Students and Faculty Holocaust, Genocide and Mass Violence Studies
Thursday, April 11
3:30-5:00 p.m.
609 Social Sciences
Matthias Falter is political scientist and BMWF Doctoral Research Fellow at the Center for Austrian Studies of the University of Minnesota. His main fields of research are political theory, especially Critical Theory and the political thought of Hannah Arendt, historic and contemporary antisemitism, right-wing extremism and parliamentarianism. In his dissertation, Matthias Falter examines Austrian parliamentary discourse on right-wing extremism and underlying concepts of political community. On Thursday, he will talk about the memory of National Socialism as point of reference in contemporary Austrian parliamentary debates on right-wing extremism and the related struggles over politics of remembrance.
If you are interested in participating in the workshop please contact Shannon Golden at golde118@umn.edu.
Remaining Workshop Schedule:
April 25: Thursday, 3:30-5:00 p.m. (710 Social Sciences)
Hiromi Mizuno, "When Crimes Cannot Be Punished: the Comfort Women Issue and International Human Rights Law"
May 3: Friday, 12:00-1:30 p.m. (710 Social Sciences)
Courtney Gildersleeve
May 9: Thursday, 3:30-5:00 p.m. (710 Social Sciences)
Eric Harkleroad
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Scripting the Shoah: The Holocaust in Moroccan Official and Public Discourses

Aomar Boum, Assistant Professor, School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies and Religious studies Program, University of Arizona
April 11, 2013
Room 1210 Heller Hall
5:30 p.m.
Since the end of WWII, the Holocaust has been a prominent issue in Arab political and intellectual discourse. Although this issue has largely played out in Egypt, Syria and Lebanon, it has also been an integral part of the North African debate in general and the Moroccan anti-Israeli and Zionist discussions in particular by the early years of Independence.

Using archival material and ethnographic interviews, Professor Boum will argue that North African and Moroccan perspectives about the Holocaust are part of what he calls the durable structures of acceptance and minimization. Using Bourdieu's habitus, Boum claims that Moroccan debates about the Holocaust have been framed and ossified in a context of social and political pre-dispositions of minimization of the Holocaust generating typological and conflicting scripts. Therefore, when individuals go against the grain and question this habitus, they are perceived as going against the principles of regular continuity that has governed the Arab/Moroccan critique of Israeli policies towards Palestinians.

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Illumintated Memory

A group exhibition of student artwork on Holocaust remembrance organized by Kathy Carlisle, Visual Arts Instructor at St. Francis High School in Sacramento,California.

Exhibition Dates
April 2 - 13, 2013
Public Reception
Friday, April 12, 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Quarter Gallery, Regis Center for Art
Gallery hours are 11 am to 7 pm, Tuesday through Saturday.
The project showcases the collective work of Photography One and Two students at St. Francis High School during the Spring semester, 2012. This conceptual photography assignment required students to engage in historical research about the Holocaust and to create symbolic photographic imagery in response to their research. An exploration of artists employing symbolism, metaphor, and allegory in historical and contemporary art established the foundation of the project. Students then began their work by expanding their knowledge of the Holocaust from 1933 to 1945 through personal and collaborative research and class assignments.
The students' creative challenges began as they refined their research to focus on a single personal narrative from a survivor or someone who had perished in the Holocaust. They were asked to personally assess and symbolize the essence of that single person's story through photographic imagery. Students were limited to a palette of sepia or black and white photography, using only tonal value to describe the depth and breadth of their concept. The final step of the project required students to write an artist's statement about their work, explaining their creative process and its connection to their research.
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CHGS Announces Symposium on Representation of Genocide

Representing Genocide: Media, Law and Scholarship
April 5 & 6, 2013
Mondale Hall -The Law School
Friday, April 5, 9:00 a.m.- 6:00 p.m. Room 20
Saturday, April 6, 9:00 a.m. -3:30 p.m. Room 50
Free and open to the public. Registration closed. Walk ins welcome, space is limited. Registration on Friday between 9:00 a.m. and 9:30.
The symposium will address journalistic, judicial and social scientific depictions of atrocities with a focus on cases of the Holocaust, Darfur, and Rwanda. It seeks to explore the intersections between these different discursive fields and case studies to shed light on the increasing tension between the local and global representations and memories of mass murder.
The particular ways in which current genocides are represented have critical consequences for the responses and interventions offered by the rest of the world. This has been evident in both Darfur and Rwanda, where the framing of the events and the labels and definitions used by the media and scholarship to describe them (such as "tribal violence") had a detachment effect and did not favor any sort of intervention to halt the atrocities. Reversely, references to the Holocaust in the representation of contemporary mass atrocities--so-called "metaphorical bridging"--can also crucially impact the process of intervention, as the case of Bosnia has demonstrated.
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Special Screening "The Future's Past"

Documentary by Austrian filmmaker Susan Brandstätter
Wednesday, April 3
7:00 p.m.
Bell Museum of Natural History Auditorium
Director Susan Brandstätter will be present for a Q & A session after the film with Alejandro Baer, Director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.
Using the Khmer Rouge Tribunal as a starting point, Susanne Brandstätter takes a deeper look into the lives of young people on the brink of adulthood. As the trial accusing a perpetrator of the Pol Pot regime progresses, it becomes a catalyst for a new generation of Cambodians questioning their parents, families and neighbors about the inhumanities their nation has suffered.
Sponsored by Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and Center for Austrian Studies.
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P.h.D. Candidate in Spanish and Portuguese Erma Nezirevic to Present at CHGS Workshop

"Mobile Memories: Collective Memory of Mass Violence in Spain and the (ex) Yugoslavia"
Interdisciplinary Workshop for Graduate Students and Faculty Holocaust, Genocide and Mass Violence Studies
Friday, March 29, 12:00-1:30 p.m. Room 710 Social Sciences
Spain and (ex)Yugoslavia have followed a seemingly parallel historical path in the twentieth century, including similar experiences of rising nationalisms, civil wars, dictatorships, transitions to democracy, and subsequent struggles over collective memory. Erma examines the interrelations between the collective memories of civil war and mass violence in both places (including new ex-Yugoslav states). Her goal is to explore how collective memory works between them and show how cultural production in one influences the other and vice versa. This exchange, along with their global and multigenerational influences, represents "mobile memories," for which a study of interdisciplinary sources is crucial.
If you are interested in participating in the workshop please contact Shannon Golden at golde118@umn.edu.
Remaining Workshop Schedule:
April 11: Thursday, 3:30-5:00 p.m. (609 Social Sciences)
Matthias Falter, " 'Antifascist Consensus' & the 'Club of Political Correctness': Addressing National Socialism in Austrian Parliamentary Debates on Right-wing Extremism"
April 25: Thursday, 3:30-5:00 p.m. (710 Social Sciences)
Hiromi Mizuno, "When Crimes Cannot Be Punished: the Comfort Women Issue and International Human Rights Law"
May 3: Friday, 12:00-1:30 p.m. (710 Social Sciences)
Courtney Gildersleeve
May 9: Thursday, 3:30-5:00 p.m. (710 Social Sciences)
Eric Harkleroad
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Now Accepting Nominations for 3rd Annual Inna Meiman Human Rights Award

The Human Rights Program and the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies
are pleased to announce The 3rd Annual Inna Meiman Human Rights Award.
Recognizing undergraduate students at the University of Minnesota who have made significant personal contributions in the promotion and protection of human rights.
This award will be given in recognition of the friendship between Inna Meiman, a Soviet era Jewish refusnik who was repeatedly denied a visa to seek medical treatment, and Lisa Paul, a graduate of the University of Minnesota who fought tirelessly on her behalf, including a 25-day hunger strike that galvanized a movement for Inna's freedom. The friendship between Lisa Paul and Inna Meiman is memorialized in the book, Swimming in the Daylight: An American Student, a Soviet-Jewish Dissident, and the Gift of Hope.
The award is intended to recognize a University of Minnesota student who embodies a commitment to human rights. The Awardee will receive a $1,000 scholarship.
Nominations will be accepted through Friday, April 12, 2013 at 5:00 p.m.
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CHGS and Department of American Indian Studies Announce Panel Discussion on Dakota Exile
Nażicapi (Exile)
The Dakota Exile: Impact and Resistance
"The Sioux Indians of Minnesota must be exterminated or driven forever beyond the borders of the state."
Message of Governor Ramsey to the Legislature of Minnesota: September 9, 1862.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
7:00 p.m.
275 Nicholson Hall
Free and Open to the Public
A Panel Discussion Featuring:
Iyekiyapiwiƞ Darlene St. Clair: Moderator, introduction and context for the exile order.
C̣aƞte Máza Neil McKay: Terminology and impacts of "benevolent" language. How Euro-Minnesotans benefited from the Dakota Exile.
Ahdipiwiƞ Katherine Beane: Impacts of the Exile and the efforts to rescind the exile order.
Ṡiṡokaduta Joe Bendickson: Dakota language revitalization.
Introductions by:
Alejandro Baer, Director, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies
Jean O'Brien, Chair, Department of American Indian studies
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Human Rights Program assistant Whitney Taylor to present at CHGS workshop

Perceptions of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)
Interdisciplinary Workshop for Graduate Students and Faculty Holocaust, Genocide and Mass Violence Studies
Thursday, March 14
3:30-5:00 p.m.
Room 710 Social Sciences
International criminal tribunals are internally and externally contested spaces, and they necessarily operate in political environments. In the case of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), domestic groups have vocally challenged the legitimacy of the ICTY and its ability to do justice. Importantly, domestic public perception of the court appears to be divorced from the actual operations of the court.
In this presentation, Taylor seeks to better explain the apparent disconnect between the relative successes of ICTY in terms of its intended outputs and domestic public perception of the court in the Balkans. Her focus is the interaction of actors within the Balkans--how they propagate different narratives about the work of the ICTY and how these contestations affect domestic public perception of the court. In particular, she investigates the role of political elites, civil society organizations, and the media.
If you are interested in participating in the workshop please contact Shannon Golden at golde118@umn.edu.
Remaining Workshop Schedule:
March 29: Friday, 12:00-1:30 p.m. (710 Social Sciences)
Erma Nezirevic, "Mobile Memories: Collective Memory of Mass Violence in Spain and the (ex) Yugoslavia"
April 11: Thursday, 3:30-5:00 p.m. (609 Social Sciences)
Matthias Falter, " 'Antifascist Consensus' & the 'Club of Political Correctness': Addressing National Socialism in Austrian Parliamentary Debates on Right-wing Extremism"
April 26: Friday, 12:00-1:30 p.m. (710 Social Sciences)
May 9: Thursday, 3:30-5:00 p.m. (710 Social Sciences)
Eric Harkleroad

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Just Announced! Internationally Acclaimed Portrait Painter Felix de la Concha to speak on Campus

Thursday, February 28
11:30 a.m.
Room 155 Nicholson Hall

CHGS and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese are hosting the artist Felix de la Concha as he works on his recent project Portraits with Conversation. Felix paints a portrait while recording a session with the sitter; the process takes about 2 hours and has produced some very powerful portraits of various people throughout the world. Using this technique he has painted over 30 portraits of Holocaust Survivors.
Felix de la Concha is coming to the Twin Cities to work with Holocaust survivors in our community to paint their portrait and record the sessions. The completed works will be donated to the University of Minnesota. Felix will discuss this project and other works when he speaks on campus.
The lecture is free and open to the public.
To learn more about Felix de la Concha visit his web page in the CHGS Virtual Museum by clicking here.
Sponsored by: The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, European Studies Consortium and the Institute for Global Studies.
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PhD Candidate Department of French and Italian Corbin Treacy to Present at CHGS Workshop

Interdisciplinary Workshop for Graduate Students and Faculty Holocaust, Genocide and Mass Violence Studies
Friday, March 1
12:00-1:30 p.m.
Room 710 Social Sciences
Aesthetics and Aftermath: Algeria 1962-2012
Treacy's dissertation studies Algerian novels in French that respond to the political and social landscape of the post-independence period. Through their literary form, engagement with the political present, and utopian thinking, these works imagine counter-realities that interrupt the closed-circuit loop of violence and paralysis that have defined public life in Algeria in the aftermath of independence from France in 1962.
Building on the recent work of critics who combine materialist dialectics and post-colonial critique, He will show how these texts disrupt this permanence of aftermath through particular aesthetic moves, suggesting new ways of reading post-colonial literature beyond the polarities of politics and poetics.
If you are interested in participating in the workshop please contact Shannon Golden at golde118@umn.edu.
Updated schedule: CHGS 2013 HGMV Workshop 2-1-2013.pdf
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PhD Candidate in sociology Shannon Golden to present at next CHGS workshop

Interdisciplinary Workshop for Graduate Students and Faculty Holocaust, Genocide and Mass Violence Studies
Thursday, February 7
3:30-5:00 p.m.
Room 710 Social Sciences
Shannon Golden will present "International Law in Local Context: The ICC in Northern Uganda." as part of her dissertation research. Her dissertation explores the process of social reconstruction in post-war northern Uganda. On Thursday she will focus on the impact of the International Criminal Court in the lives of conflict survivors and their communities.
If you are interested in participating in the workshop please contact Shannon Golden at golde118@umn.edu.
Updated schedule: CHGS 2013 HGMV Workshop 2-1-2013.pdf
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January 27th: International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Memory Since Day One
by Alejandro Baer
On April 19th, 1945, only a few days after American troops had liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp, thousands of survivors gathered at its Appellplatz (the roll call square) and took the following oath: "We will not stop fighting until the last perpetrator is brought before the judges of the people! Our watchword is the destruction of Nazism from its roots. Building a new world of peace and freedom is our goal. This is our responsibility to our murdered comrades and their relatives."
After the Buchenwald Oath was read aloud, the survivors raised their hands and said: "We swear". This was probably the first act of Holocaust memory ever performed.
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Sociology Ph.D. Candidate Hollie Nyseth Brehm to Present at CHGS Workshop

Interdisciplinary Workshop for Graduate Students and Faculty Holocaust, Genocide and Mass Violence Studies
Friday, January 25, 2013
12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Room 710 Social Sciences Building
Hollie Nyseth Brehm will focus on two concurrent projects that she is pursuing, including her dissertation and a collaborative effort with Dr. Chris Uggen (Sociology). Both projects seek to better understand aspects of genocide. On Friday she will focus on the case of Rwanda and explore why certain regions in Rwanda saw more killings as well as why violence started comparatively earlier in some regions.
Read Hollie Nyseth Brehm's article The Crime of Genocide as seen in the CHGS December newsletter, posted on the Society Pages by clicking here.
If you are interested in participating in the workshop please contact Shannon Golden .
Updated schedule: CHGS Workshop schedule 1-21-2013.pdf
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CHGS December Electronic Newlsetter Now Available On Line

The Center for Holocaust and Genocides Studies electronic newsletter is now available to read on our website.
We will post the newsletter after it has been sent to our subscribers. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter directly in your email box please subscribe by entering your name and email address in the box on the top right of our home page.
To view this month's newsletter click here.
For older newsletters click here.
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New Blog of Recent Library Acquisitions in Holocaust & Genocide Studies

University of Minnesota Holocaust and Genocide Studies Librarian Susan Gangl has put together a new blog listing recent library acquisitions in the field of Holocaust and Genocide Studies. This is a comprehensive list, including call numbers and location the title is available for check out. You may access the site by clicking here.
In addition to the blog, be sure to visit her Holocaust and Genocide library subject page by clicking here.
For titles available in the Center's library please visit our Book & Video Library page.
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Visiting Professor Jaime Ginzburg to Present at CHGS Workshop

Interdisciplinary Workshop for Graduate Students and Faculty Holocaust, Genocide and Mass Violence Studies
Friday, December 14
12:00-1:30 p.m.
Room 614 Social Sciences Building
"Authoritarianism, Violence and Melancholy"
Professor Ginsberg's presentation is about language and violence. The first part, will focus on torture, considering how different social groups talk about it (considering examples from Brazil and Uruguay). There is a variety of perspectives, including the ways physicians describe it, and the point of view of victims. The Second part will feature a comparison between Hegel and Adorno,dedicated to representation. Aesthetics, Cultural Studies and Literary Theory have important contributions to studies on violence. Consideration will be given to those theroies and more specifically ideas from the Frankfurt School. The last part will be about death, loss and melancholy. It`s necessary to discuss images of death, in a way we can define how cultural production, in authoritarian regimes along the XXth Century, can speak against repression and violence.
Professor Jaime Ginzburg is Associate Professor of Brazilian Literature at the University of São Paulo, in Brazil, and is currently a Visiting Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, where he is teaching a graduate seminar on Violence and Democracy. His latest books include, Crítica em tempos de violência. São Paulo: Edusp / Fapesp 2012; Escritas da violência, co-edited with Márcio Seligmann-Silva and Francisco Foot Hardman (Rio de Janeiro: Sette Letras, 2012), Vols. I and II; and Walter Benjamin: rastro, aura e história, co-edited with Sabrina Sedlmayer. Belo Horizonte: Editora UFMG, 2012.
If you are interested in participating in the workshop please contact Shannon Golden golde118@umn.edu.
Meeting Schedule 11-20-2012.pdf
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Alejandro Baer to Teach Mass Media & Society

SOC 4090/ GLOS 4910: Mass Media & Society
Mondays and Wednesdays
11:15-12:30
Spring 2013
This course provides a broad survey of sociological perspectives regarding the role of media (television, radio, printed press, film, and the Internet) in society. The course will examine historical media developments, theoretical frameworks used to analyze media audiences, producers, and effects, the impact of media in popular culture, their role in shaping social memories and the relation between media and violence, including terrorism and genocide.
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Rebuilding the Community: Jewish Life in Germany after the Shoah now available to view on YouTube

On Sunday, October 28, 2012 Professor Jay H. Geller spoke to the community about Jewish life in Germany after the Shoah. A video of that talk is available by visiting The Center for Jewish Studies, University of Minnesota YouTube channel.
Even after the Shoah, Jews chose to settle in Germany. Who were these Jews, and why did they decide to remain in a country that had been hostile to their very existence only a few years earlier? How did they deal with antagonism by German neighbors and isolation by Jewish groups abroad? This talk explores the circumstances that led to a renewed Jewish community in post-Holocaust Germany and the alliances that permitted it to flourish.
Jay Geller is the Samuel Rosenthal Professor of Judaic Studies and Associate Professor of History at Case Western Reserve University. He specializes in Jewish history and modern European history, with a focus on Germany. He is the author of Jews in Post-Holocaust Germany, and co-editor of Three-Way Street: Germans, Jews, and the Transnational with Leslie Morris. He is currently writing a biography of Gershom Scholem and his family.
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Visiting Professor Matti Jutila to Present at CHGS Workshop

Interdisciplinary Workshop for Graduate Students and Faculty Holocaust, Genocide and Mass Violence Studies
Thursday, November 29 from 3:30-5:00 p.m. Room 614 Social Sciences Building
Presentation by Professor Matti Jutila, "Ideology of Racial Extermination? Representations of Marxist Ethnopolitics in The Soviet Story"
Professor Jutila will be referring to the award-winning documentary, The Soviet Story by director Edvins Snore that tells the story of the Soviet regime and how the Soviet Union helped Nazi Germany instigate the Holocaust. Other subjects covered by the film include: - The Great Famine in Ukraine (1932/33) - The Katyn massacre (1940) - The SS-KGB partnership - French Communists and the Nazis - Soviet mass deportations - Medical experiments in the GULAG. The Soviet Story was filmed over 2 years in Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Germany, France, UK and Belgium. The film includes recently uncovered archive documents as well as interviews with former Soviet Military intelligence officials.
Dr. Jutila's main unifying theme of his research has been nationalism; how it affects contemporary world politics and the construction of political communities. His doctoral research investigated how transnational governance of the rights of national minorities has challenged nationalism externally by circumscribing the sovereignty of nation-states, and internally by challenging the idea of national homogeneity as the foundation of political communities.
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Remembering Kristallnacht: Combating Indifference

Article by: ALEJANDRO BAER November 9, 2012 - Mpls. Star Tribune
November 9 and 10, 2012 marks the 74th anniversary of Nazi Germany's state instigated pogroms known as Kristallnacht (also known as "Night of broken glass"), a turning point in the anti-Jewish policy in Hitler's Germany. For most scholars it marks the beginning of the period we now define as the Holocaust.

Read the entire article here.
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Alejandro Baer to speak about Kristallnacht in Civil War Spain

Kristallnacht in Civil War Spain
Tuesday, November 13
Room 1210 Heller Hall
4:00 p.m.
"Germany introduces forceful measures against the Hebrews.
A clear warning to international Jewry never again to make attempts on the lives of Germans." - Ideal, Granada, November 13, 1938.
Professor Baer will talk about the contrasting treatment given to the news of the German anti-Jewish pogroms on November 9 & 10, 1938 by the Francoist and Republican sides during the Spanish Civil War.
The Francoist press met the news with approval and glee, in contrast to the condemnations expressed in the Republican papers, which offered solidarity and support to the victims, even as the legitimate Spanish government approached it's own death agony.
The Spanish republicans soon recognized that their fate was intertwined with that of European Jews.
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Interdisciplinary Workshop for Graduate Students and Faculty Holocaust, Genocide and Mass Violence Studies

Meeting and presentation schedule is now available by clicking on the link below.
Workshop Schedule Updated 10262012.pdf
If you are interested in participating in the workshop please contact Shannon Golden golde118@umn.edu.
The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies (CHGS), the Human Rights Program and the Department of Sociology are organizing a Research Workshop for Graduate Students and Faculty Members of all departments in the Humanities and Social Sciences at University of Minnesota.
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Letter from the Director of CHGS

I am pleased to announce that, with the beginning of the fall semester, I took up my new position as the Stephen Feinstein chair and Director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and as a faculty member of the Department of Sociology at University of Minnesota.
I am thrilled and honored to direct a center forged by the extraordinary vision of Stephen Feinstein, its founding director. I am committed to the mission of CHGS, advancing scholarship and collaboration across units of the University, and linking scholarship with public service and outreach to all sectors of society.
Since I started my work here in Minnesota I have been meeting with colleagues across the University and partners in the community. My objective is to identify synergies in order to develop collaborative efforts that build on the rich heritage of successful events and initiatives over the past 15 years at CHGS.
It is my intention to further develop CHGS as a major center of academic research, distinguished both by its international scope and local sensitivity. We will establish partnerships with institutions in the US and abroad, initially focusing on Europe and Latin America, to enhance the Center's national and international visibility and to attract graduate students and scholars. We will promote and undertake research and publication projects, develop attractive programs for lectures, conferences and workshops as well as innovative teaching initiatives. All these activities will be focused on raising awareness of Holocaust memory and advancing our understanding of the conditions and prevention of genocide within and beyond campus.
This can be achieved with the help of the Center´s staff and advisory board, community-based partners and friends, and with the support and collaboration of colleagues throughout the College of Liberal Arts and the University. I very much look forward to working together with you to reach these goals.
Please feel free to stop by my office to share thoughts and ideas. I look forward to meeting you.
With best regards,
Alejandro Baer
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Trinity University Professor asks, "Did Elie Wiesel Christianize the Holocaust?"

Did Elie Wiesel Christianize the Holocaust?
Wiesel's Night in Yiddish and French: Critical Appraisals and a New Approach
A lecture by Professor Alan Astro, Trinity University, San Antonio, TX
Friday, October 26
Room 609 Social Sciences Building
12:00p.m.
Elie Wiesel's Night, which first appeared in French as La nuit in 1958, may well loom as the archetypal Holocaust survivor account. But it was only in 1994, in his memoirs, that the author addressed the fact that Night is part adaptation, part translation of a Yiddish work he originally published in Buenos Aires in 1956, entitled ...Un di velt hot geshvign (...And the World Was Silent).
Critics have read discrepancies between the two versions in various ways: favorably, as resulting from appreciation for the distinct literary idiom of each language; provocatively, as the consequence of Wiesel's desire to cast the Holocaust in Christian, rather than Jewish, terms; and disparagingly, as part of a strategy to hide ideologically unpalatable, ethnocentric attitudes from a wider audience.
This presentation will review merits and flaws of these differing interpretations of Wiesel's work, and sketch a possible new approach.
Alan Astro (Ph.D., Yale University, 1985) is professor of Modern Languages and Literatures at Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas. He has published on Beckett, Borges and Sholem Aleichem as well as other modern authors in French, Spanish and Yiddish. Astro's latest work is Yiddish South of the Border: An Anthology of Latin American Yiddish Writing (2003).
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Scholar to speak on Jewish life in Germany after the Shoah

Rebuilding the Community: Jewish Life in Germany after the Shoah
Jay H. Geller, Professor of Judaic Studies, Case Western Reserve University
Sunday, October 28, 2012
7:30 p.m.
Beth El Synagogue
26th St., St. Louis Park, MN 55416
Even after the Shoah, Jews chose to settle in Germany. Who were these Jews, and why did they decide to remain in a country that had been hostile to their very existence only a few years earlier? How did they deal with antagonism by German neighbors and isolation by Jewish groups abroad? This talk explores the circumstances that led to a renewed Jewish community in post-Holocaust Germany and the alliances that permitted it to flourish.
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CHGS to offer Interdisciplinary Workshop for Graduate Students and Faculty

Holocaust, Genocide and Mass Violence Studies
Interdisciplinary Workshop for Graduate Students and Faculty
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Room 710, Social Sciences Building
12:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.
The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies (CHGS), the Human Rights Program and the Department of Sociology are organizing a Research Workshop for Graduate Students and Faculty Members of all departments in the Humanities and Social Sciences at University of Minnesota.
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CLA Names Alejandro Baer as New Feinstein Chair and Director of CHGS

The College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota is pleased to announce that Professor Alejandro Baer has been named the Stephen Feinstein Chair and new director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.
Professor Baer is a distinguished scholar of Holocaust memory and testimony, and comes to Minnesota after serving on the sociology faculty of the Ludwig Maximilians-Universität-München in Germany. His books include Holocausto. Recuerdo y representación (Holocaust: Remembrance and Representation) and El testimonio audiovisual. Imagen y memoria del Holocausto (Audiovisual Testimony. Image and Memory of the Holocaust). In addition he has authored numerous articles addressing issues of genocide, memory, and Anti-Semitism. He is currently engaged in research focusing on the uses and abuses of Holocaust history and memory in the Spanish-speaking world as well as the trans-nationalization of memory.
Professor Baer has actively engaged the broader community in the issues addressed by his scholarship. He has directed the Spanish section of the Shoah Visual Archives project and has served as a member of the Spanish delegation to the International Task Force for Holocaust Education Remembrance and Research. With the support of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Spain, Professor Baer co-founded Radio Sefarad, designed to spread the ethical values, culture and science of Judaism through its history and current development to Spanish-speaking audiences. More recently he has curated a traveling exhibition, Visas for Freedom: Spanish Diplomats and the Holocaust, which he plans to bring to the Twin Cities.
In addition to serving as Director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Alejandro Baer will join the Department of Sociology as an associate professor.
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Evil Conspiracies and Common Enemies: Mussolini, the Vatican, and the Origins of the Italian Racial Laws

Berdahl Memorial Lecture
Dr. David Kertzer, Professor of Anthropology at Brown University
September 24, 2012
4:00 p.m.
Cowles Auditorium, Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs
Dr. David Kertzer is Professor of Anthropology at Brown University, where he formerly served as Provost. Professor Kertzer's research ranges widely, including: Italian politics and history, anthropological demography, social organization, politics and symbols, political economy and family systems, age structuring, European historical demography and the history of Catholic Church-Jewish relations.
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Judaken lecture now available on YouTube

On April 25, 2012, Jonathan Judaken gave a lecture entitled, "The Conceptual Jew: Reflections on Arendt and Adorno's Post-Holocaust Theories of Anti-Semitism." The talk is now available to watch on CHGS' YouTube channel. Click here to view the video, as well as other CHGS-sponsored lectures, including Deborah Lipstadt and Alvin Rosenfeld.
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Rosenfeld lecture now available on CHGS YouTube channel

In his public address on Sunday evening April 15, "Is There an Anti-Jewish Bias in Today's University?" Professor Alvin Rosenfeld discussed how many campuses have become hospitable to certain political and ideological currents of thought that issue in actions and statements that can be seen as hostile to many Jewish students and professors.
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Workshop: Trauma and Text: Approaches to Teaching the Literature of Atrocity

July 23-July 27, 2012
9:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m.
Room 614 Social Sciences
University of Minnesota
30 CEUs
2 graduate credits available for additional fee (contact outreach@umn.edu if interested)
Registration deadline: July 9, 2012
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New translation of the testimony of Georges Wellers

From Drancy to Auschwitz by the French Biologist and historian Georges Wellers was first published in France in 1946.
Wellers worked for many years at the Sorbonne, where he held the position of Director of Research Laboratory of Medical Department. In 1941 he was arrested by the Nazis and spent more than three years in concentration camps-first in Drancy near Paris, then in Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Despite all the deprivations during his captivity, Georges lived a long and productive life. He excelled in a prominent scientific career, was awarded the Legion of Honor Rosette as its Officer, was Vice-President of the Association of Nazi-camp survivors of France, and was the only French witness at the Eichmann war crime trial in Israel.
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U.S. Court of Appeals rules in favor of the University of Minnesota in case involving the Turkish Coalition of America

The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled in favor of the University today in a closely watched case involving First Amendment and academic freedom claims. A Plaintiff in the case, Turkish Coalition of America, claimed that statements on a University department website that suggested that the Turkish Coalition's information about the Armenian genocide was "unreliable" violated its free speech rights and were defamatory. A University student also allegedly feared he would be subjected to academic reprisals if he used information from the organization's website in his own work.
The federal district court had previously granted the University's motion to dismiss the claims, based principally upon its finding that the University's website contained statements of faculty scholarly opinion and critique that were protected by the doctrine of academic freedom.
The Court of Appeals today affirmed the District Court's dismissal of the plaintiff's claims. It found the Turkish Coalition free speech claim failed because it could not show it had suffered any restrictions on its speech activities. The Court of Appeals also found that the Turkish Coalition's defamation claims failed because the University faculty's statements were either true or were statements of opinion, which cannot support a defamation claim. The Court of Appeals also found the student had no standing to bring any claims because he could not show he suffered any injury.
The case has been watched closely by scholars around the United States and the world because of its implications for principles of academic freedom. GC Mark Rotenberg stated, "Today's federal court decision confirms the right of universities and their faculty to offer scholarly criticism and critique on websites without fear of legal exposure. This protection is especially important when the scholarly opinions expressed by the faculty are controversial. We are very pleased to have successfully defended this important academic interest."
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The Conceptual Jew: Reflections on Arendt and Adorno's Post-Holocaust Theories of Anti-Semitism

A Lecture by: Jonathan Judaken, Rhodes College
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Room 710 Social Sciences Building
4:00 p.m.
Professor Judaken will reconstruct the very different theoretical paradigms of the interactionist and the socio-psychoanalytic that Hannah Arendt and Theodor Adorno developed to understand anti-Semitism.
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The 2nd Annual Inna Meiman Human Rights Award Winners Announced

Congratulations to Anna Kaminski recipient of the Inna Meiman Human Rights Award and Tenzin Pelkyi, who was awarded the Sullivan Ballou Award in a ceremony among family, friends and University faculty on Friday, April 20, 2012.
Each award, carrying a $1,000 scholarship, recognizes a University of Minnesota undergraduate student who embodies a commitment to human rights and has worked tirelessly to address human rights abuses.
Read article in Minnesota Daily by clicking here.
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"How Did You Get Here? Jewish Self Invention and the Culture of Exile"

Alicia Borinsky
April 19, 2012 12:00-1:30
325 Nicholson Hall
Alicia Borinsky will focus on the Diaspora and its tales of displacement and integration.
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This Sunday, April 15-"Is There an Anti-Jewish Bias in Today's University?"

Alvin Rosenfeld, Irving M. Glazer Chair in Jewish Studies; Director, Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism (Indiana University)
Sunday, April 15, 2012
7:30p.m.
Cowles Auditorium
The Humphrey School of Public Affairs
In his public address, "Is There an Anti-Jewish Bias in Today's University?" Professor Alvin Rosenfeld will discuss how many of our campuses have become hospitable to certain political and ideological currents of thought that issue in actions and statements hostile to many Jewish students and professors. A review of contemporary debates about two issues of particular concern to Jews--the Holocaust and the State of Israel--suggests that we may be witnessing the emergence of some new versions of the "Jewish Question."
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CHGS to Host Symposium on the University During the Third Reich

Betrayal of the Humanities: The University During the Third Reich
Symposium
Sunday April 15 & Monday April 16
Mondale Hall, Law School
Public Program: "Is There an Anti-Jewish Bias in Today's University?"
Alvin Rosenfeld,Irving M. Glazer Chair in Jewish Studies; Director, Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism (Indiana University)
Sunday, April 15, 2012
7:30 p.m.
Cowles Auditorium
Humphrey School of Public Affairs
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The Young Turks' Crime Against Humanity
Taner Akçam
The Tenth Annual Arsham and Charlotte Ohanessian Lecture
Monday, April 16, 2012, 7:00p.m.
Maroon & Gold Room, McNamara Alumni Center
200 Oak Street SE, Minneapolis MN 55455
This event is free and open to the public. A reception will follow the lecture.
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The 2nd Annual Inna Meiman Human Rights Award-Nominations Due Friday, April 6

The Human Rights Program and the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies
are pleased to announce The 2nd Annual Inna Meiman Human Rights Award.
Recognizing undergraduate students at the University of Minnesota who have made significant personal contributions in the promotion and protection of human rights.
This award will be given in recognition of the friendship between Inna Meiman, a Soviet era Jewish refusnik who was repeatedly denied a visa to seek medical treatment, and Lisa Paul, a graduate of the University of Minnesota who fought tirelessly on her behalf, including a 25-day hunger strike that galvanized a movement for Inna's freedom. The friendship between Lisa Paul and Inna Meiman is memorialized in the book, Swimming in the Daylight: An American Student, a Soviet-Jewish Dissident, and the Gift of Hope.
The award is intended to recognize a University of Minnesota student who embodies a commitment to human rights. The Awardee will receive a $1,000 scholarship.
Nominations will be accepted through Friday, April 6, 2012 at 5:00 p.m.
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"Law and Democracy: The Paradoxes of Transitional Justice in Germany, 1945-1950."

Devin Pendas, Associate Professor and director of graduate studies, Boston College
Wednesday, April 4
4:30p.m.
Room 1210
Heller Hall
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¡Si Hubo Genocidio!: Exhumations, Truth and Justice after the Guatemalan Genocide

Victoria Sanford, Professor of Anthropology at Lehman College, City College of New York
Monday, April 2
4:00p.m.
Room 250
Blegen Hall
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Preventing Mass Violence: The Expansion of R2P and the Challenge of Statebuilding

Jon Western, Associate Professor of International Relations at Mount Holyoke College
Thursday, March 29
3:30 p.m.
1314 Social Sciences
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Global Memory of the Holocaust and the Politics of Never Again

Alejandro Baer, Visiting Chair of Qualitative Methods of Social Research, Ludwig Maximilians-Universität-München
Tuesday, March 27
4:00 p.m.
1114 Social Sciences
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No Generation of Silence: American Jews and the Holocaust in the Post-War Era

Hasia Diner, New York University
Jewish Studies Community Lecture Series
March 21, 2012 7:30 p.m.
Temple Israel
2324 Emerson Ave S, Minneapolis
American Jews in the two decades after the end of World War II found many ways to make the tragedy that had engulfed their people in Europe at the hands of the German Nazis a part of their communal culture. The Holocaust loomed large for them. How did postwar American Jews experiment with language and ideas to keep alive the memories of those who had perished in Europe-- and use their memories to effect changes in the world of the late 1940s through the early 1960s?
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The International Human Rights Movement: A History

Aryeh Neier
February 28, 2012, 7:00 PM
McNamara Alumni Center
Maroon & Gold Room
200 Oak Street SE, Minneapolis (East Bank)
Aryeh Neier has spent more than a half-century promoting and protecting the human rights of others. Born in Nazi Germany and a refugee at the age of two, Neier knew about violence from his earliest days. A tireless advocate for improvements in human rights globally, Neier has conducted investigations of human rights abuses in more than forty countries. He has played a leading role in the establishment of the international criminal courts that have heralded a new era of international justice.
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The Post Holocaust Golem: A Jewish Legend Returns Now on CHGS YouTube Channel

On Wednesday, November 9, 2011, Dr. Elizabeth Baer, Professor of English and Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Gustavus Adolphus College, spoke about how contemporary Jewish-American writers have created golem stories as a re-imagining of text-centered Jewish traditions by appropriating, adapting, revising and riffing on older golem legends. Such appropriation, deploying the imagination to seek a better understanding of human nature, is crucial in light of the Holocaust experience under the Nazis. The presentation included golems from novels, comic books, graphic narratives, and "The X-Files."
Dr. Baer's new book, The Golem Redux: From Prague to Post-Holocaust Fiction from Wayne State University Press, will appear in Spring 2012.

The lecture can be viewed on the Center's YouTube channel, CHGSumn.

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All the Missing Souls: A Personal History of the War Crimes Tribunals

David Scheffer
February 8, 2012, 7 PM presentation, followed by a small reception
McNamara Alumni Center, Maroon & Gold Room
200 Oak Street SE, Minneapolis (East Bank)
David Scheffer had an insider's seat at the creation of the most important human rights institution of our era, the International Criminal Court. Representing President Clinton as head of the U.S. delegation to negotiations establishing the Court, Scheffer drew on his previous experience spearheading efforts to create war crimes tribunals for the former Yugoslavia, the Balkans, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Cambodia.
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Bruno Chaouat to participate in Talmud Torah of St. Paul's evening of Jewish Learning

Engage: An evening of Jewish Learning
Is Holocaust Awareness Bad for the Jews?
January 28, 2012
8:35 p.m. - 9:35 p.m.
Talmud Torah of St. Paul
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CLA Announces Search for New CHGS Director

Dear Friends and Supporters-
I will be stepping down as director of CHGS at the end of this academic year, as planned when I accepted the two-year position in June 2010. I am delighted to announce that the College of Liberal Arts has decided to convene a search for a new permanent director.

Being the director of CHGS has been a very rewarding experience for me. I would like to thank the staff of CHGS for all of their hard work in helping me further the mission of the Center. To our campus and community partners, thank you for all your warm support during my tenure.
I am convinced that CHGS will benefit immensely from having a permanent director who can carry forth the vision of founding director Stephen Feinstein. In the meantime, CHGS will continue its work in educating all sectors of society about the Holocaust and other genocides; it is my hope that you will continue to support us and the work we do. Please consult our website for upcoming programming and the latest resources and news.
I look forward to seeing you throughout the rest of the academic school year.
Bruno Chaouat
Posting: Director Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies
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Deborah Lipstadt Lecture now available on CHGS Youtube Channel

Deborah Lipstadt, Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University and author of internationally acclaimed books related to the Holocaust spoke on campus on Wednesday night, October 26 about Holocaust Denial: A New Form of Anti-Semitism and her recent critically acclaimed book The Eichmann Trial.
You can view the lecture by clicking here.
An audio interview with Dr. Lipstadt about Holocaust Denial and the 50th anniversary of the Eichmann Trial on Access Minnesota.
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Dispute between Watenpaugh and Turkish-American group

As reported by Inside Higher Ed, Dr. Keith Watenpaugh, associate professor of religious studies at the University of California at Davis, has angered a Turkish-American group who reacted to an article about the historian's research that was published in the Davis alumni magazine by writing letters to university officials.
Dr. Watenpaugh gave a lecture sponsored by CHGS in April 2011. To watch a video of his talk, click here.
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Special Film Screening- "As Seen Through These Eyes"

Sunday, December 4, 2:00 pm
Sabes Jewish Community Center

Directed by Hilary Helstein and narrated by Maya Angelou, As Seen Through These Eyes is a window into the surviving art and artists of the Holocaust. The film offers an incredible look at humanity's survival mechanism, regardless of race or religion. The eyes of the witnesses reveal the profound need to communicate at any cost
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"The Responsibility to Protect" The Hon. Lloyd Axworthy President of the University of Winnipeg

Tuesday, November 22, 3:30 - 5:00 p.m.
Room 25, Law School, Mondale Hall, West Bank, University of Minnesota
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The Post Holocaust Golem: A Jewish Legend Returns

Dr. Elizabeth Baer
Wednesday, November 9
4:00p.m.
Room 710
Social Sciences Building
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Workshop Explores Childhood Memory as part of the Art Survives: Expressions from the Holocaust Exhibition

Seeing The World Through Art: Creating a Symbol from Your Childhood Memory
Workshop with David Feinberg
Sunday, October 30, 1-4:00 p.m.
Tychman Shapiro Gallery
Sabes JCC
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Deborah Lipstadt Lecture Tonight at 7:00p.m. Coffman Theater

The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies (CHGS) proudly presents the Bernard and Fern Badzin Lecture featuring Deborah Lipstadt, Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University and author of internationally acclaimed books related to the Holocaust.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 7:00 p.m. at the Coffman Theater, Coffman Memorial Union, on the East Bank of the University of Minnesota.
Dr. Lipstadt will speak on Holocaust Denial: A New Form of Anti-Semitism and her recent critically acclaimed book The Eichmann Trial.
The event is free and open to the public; however, reservations are required. To reserve your tickets please click here or call the reservation line at 612-626-2587.
For parking and travel info please click here.
The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Education at St. Cloud State University is the initiating sponsor of Deborah Lipstadt's visit to Minnesota.
University of Minnesota Sponsors: Institute for Global Studies, Center for the Study of Political Psychology, Program in Health and Human rights, Center for Jewish Studies, Human Rights Program, Department of German, Scandinavian & Dutch, and the Institute for Advanced Study
Community Sponsors: Jewish Community Relations Council, CHAIM Children of Holocaust Survivors Association in Minnesota, St. Paul JCC, and the Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest
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Art Survives: Expressions from the Holocaust

October 10-December 22, 2011
Reception: Sunday, October 16, 7:00 p.m.
Tychman Shapiro Gallery
Sabes JCC
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Conference My Letter to the World: Narrating Human Rights Featuring a Lecture by Philip Gourevitch

Monday, October 10, 2011
Coffman Theater, Coffman Memorial Union
Conference 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Esther Freier Lecture by Philip Gourevitch 7:30 p.m.
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Help CHGS Rebuild Our Website

The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies is in the process of rebuilding our website. Please take a few minutes to complete this short survey. We value your input, and appreciate your support.
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Presidential Study Directive on Mass Atrocities

On August 4, President Obama announced two important steps to prevent mass atrocities: the creation of a standing inter-agency Atrocities Prevention Board and a proclamation barring serious human rights violators from entering the United States.
PRESIDENTIAL STUDY DIRECTIVE/PSD-10
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Voices From Congo: The Road Ahead

Live webcast on Tuesday, July 26 starting at 9:30 a.m. EST on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website.
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Enemies of the People Available for Download on iTunes

The award-winning documentary about the brutalities of the Khmer Rouge Killing Fields is now available for download on iTunes.
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Summer Institute on Human Rights

Institute on Human Rights Education and Advocacy
July 18 - July 22, 2011
9:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Twin Cities,West Bank
Cost: $75
The Human Rights Program of the University of Minnesota is holding the institute to introduce participants to the theory and practice of international human rights in the world today.
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"Thoughts on Agamben's Remnants of Auschwitz: A Talk at the University of Minnesota." Now available
"Thoughts on Agamben's Remnants of Auschwitz: A Talk at the University of Minnesota." by Jeffrey Mehlman
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Régine Waintrater's "Testimony: Genocide and Transmission" available to view online
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Video of Professor Keith David Watenpaugh's lecture Hate in the Past Tense available online
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The transcript of Meïr Waintrater's lecture "You, Zionist!" Uses and Misuses of the Z-Word in Current Political Discourse is now available.
On March 29, 2011 Meïr Waintrater, editor-in-chief, L'Arche spoke at the St. Paul JCC about the systematic use of the words "Zionism" and "Zionist" where the words "Israel" and "Israelis" would be expected by various individuals who are hostile to Israel. Waintrater contrasted the use of the word "Zionist" in France, Great Britain and the United States, suggesting that while criticism of Israel should not be reduced to Jew-hatred, the "anti-Zionist" argument is often used to legitimize genuine anti-Semitism.
To read the transcript of that lecture please click on the PDF file below.
Uses and Misuses of the ZWord in Current Political Discourse.pdf
Meïr Waintrater was born in 1947 in Paris, and lived and worked as an economist and journalist at various institutions in Israel between 1973 and 1988. As editor-in-chief of L'Arche, he is a major commentator on questions of Jewish importance in Europe and France.
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Alternative Narratives or Denial?

Godard's Wars
Philip Watts, Associate Professor of French, Department Chair, Columbia University
Thoughts on Giorgio Agamben's Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive
Jeffrey Mehlman, Professor of French, Department of Romance Studies, College of Arts and Sciences, Boston University
Wednesday, April 13
4:00 p.m.
Humphrey Forum, Humphrey Center
Godard's Wars
There has been much controversy about French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard's relation to the Jews and the Holocaust. Godard was recently accused of anti-Semitism. Philip Watts will return to this recent affair by focusing on Godard's filmic representation of WWII, the Middle East conflict and the Holocaust.
How has the Holocaust figured in Godard's films since his earliest days as a filmmaker of the New Wave? What role has the memory of the Holocaust played in Godard's radical politics? What is the relation between the representation of the Holocaust in his films and his anti-Zionism? Do Godard's films somehow distort the memory of the Holocaust? Watts will tackle these questions by revisiting three Godard's films: "A Married Woman" (1964), "Ici et ailleurs" (1975) and "In Praise of Love "(2001) to examine Godard's problematic construction of the memory of the Second World War and of the Holocaust in particular.
Philip Watts, Associate Professor of French, Department Chair, Columbia University, received his BA at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1982 and his PhD from Columbia University in 1991. His research and teaching focuses on 20th-century French literature and film and the relation between politics and aesthetics.
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"Hate in the Past Tense: Understanding the Origins of Armenian Genocide Denial as a Problem of Contemporary Reconciliation"

Keith David Watenpaugh
Thursday, April 14
4:00 p.m.
Room 710 Social Science Building
Dr. Watenpaugh will explore how aspects of Armenian Genocide denial first emerged around a discrete historical moment, in particular international humanitarian relief efforts on behalf of Armenian Genocide survivors in the early interwar period. Thinking about denial in this fashion creates a space in which to reflect critically about how history as both a discipline and practice operates in the spheres of power and public opinion, especially across political and cultural divides.
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"You, Zionist!" Uses and Misuses of the Z-Word in Current Political Discourse

Meïr Waintrater, Editor-in-Chief, L'Arche
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
7:00 p.m.
St. Paul JCC
1375 St. Paul Avenue
Saint Paul, MN 55116
For several years, within circles hostile to Israel, there has been a systematic use of the words "Zionism" and "Zionist" where the words "Israel" and "Israelis" would be expected. Meïr Waintrater, French journalist and editor-in-chief of the Jewish magazine L'Arche, will contrast the use of the word "Zionist" in France, Great Britain and the United States. Waintrater will suggest that while criticism of Israel should not be reduced to Jew-hatred, the "anti-Zionist" argument is often used to legitimize genuine anti-Semitism.
Meïr Waintrater was born in 1947 in Paris, and lived and worked as an economist and journalist at various institutions in Israel between 1973 and 1988. As editor-in-chief of L'Arche, he is a major commentator on questions of Jewish importance in Europe and France. France is home to one of the largest Jewish communities, while at the same time being home to one of the largest Muslim populations in Western Europe. Waintrater's perspective is crucial to understanding the tensions between the two communities, as well as the recent increase in French Jewish immigration to Israel which can be seen as a consequence of a new trend in anti-Semitism.
Co-sponsors: Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC), St. Paul JCC,
University of Minnesota: Center for Jewish Studies, School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
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Testimony: Genocide and Transmission

Régine Waintrater
Psychoanalyst, Family Therapist, Associate Professor at Université Paris 7-Diderot
Monday, March 28, 2010
5:00p.m.
Humphrey Forum, Humphrey Center
301 19th Ave. S.
The human catastrophes that marked the 20th century have made survivor testimony an unprecedented issue. For genocide survivors and their descendants, testimony is a means to inscribe a history within a genealogy that has been broken by the violent acts of genocide. As an oral or written account, testimony engages, provokes and challenges disciplines in the humanities and the social sciences. How does the process of witnessing develop? What are the expectations that it provokes--and what are its risks? How can bearing witness restore the victims' identity, rather than re-traumatizing them?
Régine Waintrater's practice as a therapist is critical of the ideology of testimony as catharsis. Waintrater has been involved in the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies at Yale University Library, and in the USC Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, two important projects of testimony collection. Her experience with these projects will be the point of departure for addressing issues surrounding testimony.
Régine Waintrater is the author of Sortir du genocide (Out of Genocide: Testifying to Learn to Live Again).
Co-sponsors: The Human Rights Center at the University of Minnesota Law School, History Department, Human Rights Program, CHAIM (Children of Holocaust Survivors Association in Minnesota)
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Calling for Nominations for Inna Meiman Human Rights Award!

The Human Rights Program and the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies
are pleased to announce

The Inna Meiman Human Rights Award
Recognizing students at the University of Minnesota who have made significant personal contributions in the promotion and protection of human rights

This award will be given in recognition of the friendship between Inna Meiman, a Soviet era Jewish refusnik who was repeatedly denied a visa to seek medical treatment, and Lisa Paul, a graduate of the University of Minnesota who fought tirelessly on her behalf, including a 25-day hunger strike that galvanized a movement for Inna's freedom. The friendship between Lisa Paul and Inna Meiman is memorialized in the book, Swimming in the Daylight: An American Student, a Soviet-Jewish Dissident, and the Gift of Hope.The award is intended to recognize a University of Minnesota student who embodies a commitment to human rights. The Awardee will receive a $1000 scholarship.

Nominations will be accepted through Friday, March 4, 2011 at 5:00 p.m.
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A Film Unfinished

Thursday, March 3, 2011
7:00pm
St. Anthony Main Theater 115 Main St SE
Minneapolis
Tickets:
$6.00 student/senior
$8.50 general admission
Post-show discussion moderated by Bruno Chaouat, Director CHGS
In 1942, the Nazi propaganda machine was hard at work. 70 years later, the deceit is finally unmasked.
At the end of WWII, 60 minutes of raw film, having sat undisturbed in an East German archive, was discovered. Shot by the Nazis in Warsaw in May 1942, and labeled simply "Ghetto," this footage quickly became a resource for historians seeking an authentic record of the Warsaw Ghetto. However, the later discovery of a long-missing reel, inclusive of multiple takes and cameraman staging scenes, complicated earlier readings of the footage.
"A Fim Unfinished" is one of the most uncanny documentary movies about Nazi nihilism, said Bruno Chaouat, director for the center. "It confronts the viewer with the abyss of cynicism into which totalitarianism had immersed Europe. One of the most critical reflection on the visual archive, "A Film Unfinished" is as close as it gets to visual thought."
A Film Unfinished, presents the raw footage in its entirety, carefully noting fictionalized sequences (including a staged dinner party) falsely showing "the good life" enjoyed by Jewish urbanites, and probes deep into the making of a now-infamous Nazi propaganda film.
Sponsored by: The Film Society of Minneapolis/St. Paul and the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies
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CHGS "Alternative Narratives or Denial?" Reading Discussion Group

In conjunction with the spring lecture "Alternative Narratives or Denial," taking place on campus April 13 and 14, CHGS will facilitate a reading discussion group focusing on seminal works on the topic of Holocaust and genocide denial.
On February 15th, 2011, we will discuss Empathy to Denial: Arab Responses to the Holocaust by Esther Webman and Meir Litvak.
Feel free to join us even if you were unable to attend the first meeting of the group.
Reservations required: Please email chgs@umn.edu or phone 612-624-0256.
For more on the discussion visit the CHGS Reading Discussion Group blog.
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NUREMBERG: Its Lesson for Today

Saturday, February 5
7:00 p.m. at the Lagoon Cinema
1320 Lagoon Avenue, Minneapolis, MN 55408
NUREMBERG: Its Lesson for Today (The Schulberg/Waletzky Restoration) features one of the greatest courtroom dramas in history. NUREMBERG shows how the international prosecutors built their case against the top Nazi war criminals using the Nazis' own films and records.
Following the documentary screening, a panel discussion will take place featuring Sandra Schulberg, Restoration Producer of the Documentary; Steve Hunegs, JCRC Executive Director; and Bruno Chaouat, Director of the Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies, University of Minnesota.
The Nuremberg trial established the "Nuremberg principles" -- the foundation for all subsequent trials for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Though shown in Germany as part of the Allies' de-Nazification campaign, U.S. officials decided not to release NUREMBERG in America for political reasons, nor was it shown in any other country.
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Letter of Support in Response to "Unreliable Websites" from the Middle East Studies Association (MESA)

On November 30, 2010 The Turkish Coalition of America filed a lawsuit against the U of M, its President, and the director of CHGS Bruno Chaouat. The University of Minnesota filed a dismissal of the suit on December 17, 2010 and a hearing is scheduled for February 4, 2011. Below is a letter of support received from the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) in support of CHGS and the University.
The Middle East Studies Association (MESA) is a private, non-profit, non-political learned society that brings together scholars, educators and those interested in the study of the region from all over the world. From its inception in 1966 with 50 founding members, MESA has increased its membership to more than 3,000 and now serves as an umbrella organization for more than sixty institutional members and thirty-nine affiliated organizations.
The Middle East Studies Association (MESA) fosters the study of the Middle East, promotes high standards of scholarship and teaching, and encourages public understanding of the region and its peoples through programs, publications and services that enhance education, further intellectual exchange, recognize professional distinction, and defend academic freedom.
January 18, 2011
G. Lincoln McCurdy
President, Turkish Coalition of America
1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW Suite 1000
Washington, DC 20036
Dear Mr. McCurdy:
I write to you on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom to express our grave concern about your decision to file a lawsuit in November 2010 against the University of Minnesota and its Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. According to press reports, your lawsuit was prompted by the Center's listing of your organization's website as an "unreliable" source with respect to the history of Armenians in the final years of the Ottoman Empire.
MESA was founded in 1966 to promote scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in the field, the Association publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has nearly 3000 members worldwide. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of expression, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and elsewhere.
Until recently, as part of its educational mission, the website of the University of Minnesota's Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies apparently included a section listing websites and web-based resources that scholars associated with the Center deemed to be "unreliable." Presumably, those scholars felt that assertions made on these websites and in these resources were not in keeping with accepted scholarly standards or the consensus among scholars and should therefore be treated with skepticism.
We believe that the principles of academic freedom protect the right of the Center, and of scholars associated with it, to share their assessment of various perspectives with the public in this way. In any event, that section of the website was removed several days before your organization filed suit.
Your organization, and those who hold perspectives different from those expressed by scholars associated with the Center, certainly have the right to participate in open scholarly exchange on the history of the Armenians in the late Ottoman Empire or any other issue, by presenting their views at academic conferences, in the pages of peer-reviewed scholarly journals or by other means, thereby opening them up to debate and challenge. We are distressed that you instead chose to take legal action against the University of Minnesota and its Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, apparently for having at one point characterized views expressed on your website in a certain way.
We fear that legal action of this kind may have a chilling effect on the ability of scholars and academic institutions to carry out their work freely and to have their work assessed on its merits, in conformity with standards and procedures long established in the world of scholarship. Your lawsuit may thus serve to stifle the free expression of ideas among scholars and academic institutions regarding the history of Armenians in the later Ottoman Empire, and thereby undermine the principles of academic freedom.
We do not believe that disagreements about historical issues should be addressed by lawsuits. We therefore call on you to reconsider and withdraw the legal action you have initiated against the University of Minnesota and its Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, and we urge you to instead devote your organization's energies to fostering scholarly debate and exchange on this as on all other issues, in a manner that conforms to the standards and procedures adhered to by scholars and academic institutions and that respects their academic freedom.
Sincerely,
Suad Joseph
MESA President
Professor of Anthropology & Women's Studies, University of California, Davis
cc: Bruno Chaouat, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, University of Minnesota
Original letter in (PDF)
Bruno Chaouat Response to "Unreliable Websites" November 30, 2010
For news and links about the lawsuit
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Palin's 'Blood Libel' Video Fans Flames

CHGS director Bruno Chaouat interviewed on Palin's use of the term "blood libel" on
Fox 9 News.
Updated: Wednesday, 12 Jan 2011, 9:46 PM CST
Published : Wednesday, 12 Jan 2011, 9:45 PM CST
by Maury Glover / FOX 9 News
MINNEAPOLIS - Since the Tucson shooting, pundits and politicians have been pointing fingers at everything from lax guns laws to political rhetoric . But the national war of words escalated Wednesday when Sarah Palin entered the fray with the term "blood libel."
The term blood libel isn't common in the United States - it was used mostly in Eastern Europe as a way of blaming Jews for the death of Jesus Christ. And Sarah Palin calling herself the victim of blood libel has upset some Jewish leaders.
In a nearly 8-minute video on her Facebook page, Palin said she is being persecuted by political commentators and the media in the wake of the Tucson shooting .
"Journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that severs only to incite the very violence it claims to condemn," Palin said.
Bruno Chouat, director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota, says the term blood libel refers to the false belief that Jews use the blood of Christian children for religious rituals, and has been used as an excuse for anti-Semitism since the Middle Ages.
Watch video and read the full article
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"Alternative Narratives or Denial?"

The 'Jew' of cinema
Haaretz
December 17, 2010
By Ariel Schweitzer
The recent announcement that filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard's is to receive an honorary Oscar has ignited the controversy over his allegedly anti-Semitic and anti-American views, and his unwillingness to see the Jews in any position but that of the victim.
Professor Philip Watts from Columbia University will speak in April about Godard, WWII, the Jews and the Holocaust at CHGS's lecture series, "Alternative Narratives or Denial?" Professor Watts will examine portions of Godard's work and discuss how his history may have shaped and informed his cinematographic choices which have led to the anti-Semitic charges. More information about the lecture series coming in January.
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Response to "Unreliable Websites"

This statement is in response to articles published in the Pioneer Press on 11-19-2010 and in the Minnesota Daily on 11-23-10 regarding the removal of "unreliable websites" from the website of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies (CHGS) at the University of Minnesota.

I assumed directorship of CHGS in July 2010. Since then, I have focused on promoting the Center's mission of research, education and outreach. I have been speaking with the community and with colleagues on campus to communicate the new initiatives and intellectual orientation of the Center.

My staff and I have invested much effort in trying to update the Center's website. Part of this updating process bears on the educational section, and its listing of websites that CHGS perceives as unreliable sources of information for students and researchers. I decided to remove the section providing links to "unreliable websites." My rationale was quite simple: never promote, even negatively, sources of illegitimate information.
During almost twenty years working in higher education, I have never put a dubious source on a syllabus for my students, not even for the purpose of delegitimizing the source. The decision to remove the links to "unreliable websites" was made before the Turkish Coalition of America began its efforts to intimidate CHGS into removing the links. The links were replaced with legitimate information devoted to the history, ideology and psychology of Holocaust and genocide denial.

On behalf of the CHGS, I want to reiterate that in accordance with the vast majority of serious and rigorous historians, the CHGS considers the massacre of the Armenians during World War I as a case of genocide. To insinuate, as the articles published in the newspapers mentioned above, that the mission of CHGS is somehow influenced and biased by donors' money is incorrect.

Genocide and Holocaust denial is an important issue for CHGS. When I took over the direction of the Center, I put together a lecture series on this very question. This series will begin in 2011 and will continue in the academic year of 2011-12. I invite all persons interested in the issue of genocide and Holocaust denial to attend the lectures and participate in our discussions.

Bruno Chaouat
Director
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Following the Story

Does Academic Freedom Protect Holocaust Deniers?
Replies from Cary Nelson and Naomi Schaefer Riley
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Please see the full article at The Chronicle for Higher Education for the complete article and other comments.
Cary Nelson Replies
It is not actually tenure that may shield Kaukab Siddique from sanctions for his public statements about the Holocaust; it is academic freedom, a value that survives only if it protects remarks we despise as well as those we endorse. If Siddique were to be punished, he would no doubt immediately claim that his academic freedom had been violated. That would trigger due process and a hearing before a committee of his peers, whether he was a tenured faculty member, a first-year assistant professor, or an adjunct faculty member teaching a single course.
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Does Academic Freedom Protect Holocaust Deniers?

This continues the coverage over the debate of Holocaust Denial in an academic setting in the case of Kaukab Siddique, who teaches literature and mass communications at Lincoln University, in Pennsylvania.
Reprinted from the The Chronicle of Higher Education
November 7, 2010
Does Academic Freedom Protect Holocaust Deniers?
Two views on the question
Michael Morgenstern for The Chronicle
Response by Cary Nelson
Response by Naomi Schaefer Riley
It Depends on the Context
By Cary Nelson
Imagine the following classroom conversations:
Student in a world-literature class: "I'd like to write my final paper on Holocaust poetry. I'm trying to decide whether Yevgeny Yevtushenko's 'Babi Yar,' Paul Celan's 'Todesfuge,' or Jorie Graham's 'Annunciation With a Bullet in It' is the best poem."
Faculty member's answer: "You cannot take up that question unless you recognize that the poems are all flawed fantasies. None are based on fact. The Holocaust never happened."
Student in a political-science or philosophy class: "Which man-made disaster is worse: Bhopal or the Holocaust?"
Faculty member's answer: "There's no excuse for Bhopal. It didn't have to happen. But the Holocaust didn't actually happen at all. Give me a better comparison."
I could generate numerous similar scenarios. A student in a medieval-history course, for example, might contrast a natural catastrophe, the Black Death, with the Holocaust. A student in an art-history class might write about Holocaust painting or sculpture; a student in a music-history course study the role of music in the concentration camps; a student in an ethics class consider the burden the Holocaust has placed on future generations. Nothing in those syllabi might suggest beforehand that the Holocaust will arise, but it can--and does.
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Holocaust-era mass grave discovered

Find out how this is possible- Come to the final screening of Einsatzgruppen: The Death Brigades. Sunday, November 7, 6:30 p.m. St. Anthony Main Theater. For ticket info Minnesota Film Arts.
(UKPA) - 6 hours ago
A Holocaust-era mass grave containing the bodies of an estimated 100 Jews killed by Romanian troops has been discovered in a forest, researchers have said, offering further evidence of the country's involvement in wartime crimes.
The discovery, in a forest near the Romanian town of Popricani, contained the bodies of men, women and children who were shot dead in 1941, the Elie Wiesel National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania said in a statement on Friday.
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Einsatzgruppen: The Death Brigades to be shown in its Entirety
Sunday, November 7- Michael Prazan's documentary, Einsatzgruppen: The Death Brigades will be shown in its entirety with a brief intermission. After the screening please join us for a question and answer session with the filmmaker and gain further insights into the making of this important film.
St. Anthony Main Theater
115 Main St SE
Minneapolis
Tickets: $6.00 students /senior $8.50 general admission
To purchase advanced tickets please visit the Minnesota Film Arts site.
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What Turns "Ordinary" Citizens into Mass Murderers?

This question is often asked when studying the Holocaust and other genocides. This week French filmmaker Michael Prazan will touch on this question with his groundbreaking documentary Einsatzgruppen: The Death Brigades, being shown exclusively in the Twin Cities on Thursday, November 4 and Sunday November 7 at the St. Anthony Main Theater. Prazan and the film are being sponsored by the University of Minnesota's Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies (CHGS) with Minnesota Film Arts.
"Einsatzgruppen: The Death Brigades is an essential film for those eager to understand the mechanics of evil and prevent its recurrence," said, Bruno Chaouat, director for CHGS.
"I think we all have a concept of what we individually believe evil to look like, but as we have found it isn't quite as clear cut as it would seem. Hannah Arendt in her controversial report Eichmann in Jerusalem identified the men who perpetrated the crimes representing what she called the banality of evil. Christopher Browning, in his landmark work Ordinary Men took Arendt's argument one step further focusing on the many so called "normal" Germans who turned into mass murders. Prazan's film, blending Claude Lanzmann's (the director of the acclaimed Holocaust documentary Shoah) method of interviewing witnesses, survivors and perpetrators with archive footage, adds his own, original voice to this descent into the night of human soul."
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Jean-Luc Godard, anti-Semite?

Bruno Chaouat, director
It was recently announced by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that Jean-Luc Godard, the Swiss-French filmmaker, will receive an honorary Oscar at this year's ceremony (see article from Jewish Journal posted by CHGS on October 16th, 2010). With this announcement came articles, blog posts and op-eds referring to the filmmaker's real or alleged anti-Semitism.
It is important for the world of scholarship to connect with current events, and we post these articles in order to examine these events with a sense of nuance and depth that the complexity of culture and history requires. While journalism often makes the complexity of the world accessible at the cost of simplifying it, the mission of an academic center such as ours is to approach this complexity with rigor, scientific and intellectual integrity and without sensationalizing.
It is particularly timely that Professor Philip Watts from Columbia University will speak in April about Godard, WWII, the Jews and the Holocaust at CHGS's lecture series, "Alternative Narratives or Denial?" Professor Watts will examine portions of Godard's work and discuss how his history may have shaped and informed his cinematographic choices which have led to the anti-Semitic charges.
We look forward to this exchange, and will continue to look at current events and provide a platform to lead us into deeper inquiry beyond the headlines.
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The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota presents the groundbreaking documentary Einsatzgruppen: The Death Brigades

Thursday, November 4 at 7:00p.m.
Sunday, November 7 at 6:30p.m.
Followed by a question and answer session with filmmaker Michael Prazan
Moderated by Rembert Hueser
Department of German, Scandinavian & Dutch Studies
and Moving Image Studies
St. Anthony Main Theater
115 Main St SE
Minneapolis
Tickets: $6.00 students /senior $8.50 general admission
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CHGS to hold Open House October 26

The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies invites you to an Open House
Tuesday, October 26, 2010 4:00pm-7:00pm Room 760 Social Science Building, 267 19th Ave. S. University of Minnesota.
Join us for a tour of our new offices and resource library, learn about upcoming programs, and meet new director Bruno Chaouat and the CHGS staff.

Wine and light refreshments will be served. We look forward to meeting you.

To RSVP or for more information please contact us at 612-624-0256 or e-mail chgs@umn.edu

Parking is available in the 19th Ave. Ramp (300 19th Ave. S.) and the 21st Ave. Ramp (400 21st Ave. S.)

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U of M's College of Liberal Arts Names Bruno Chaouat Director of Holocaust and Genocide Center

French professor envisions increased programming around cultural, historical and philosophical issues regarding the Holocaust and genocide
The University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts has named Bruno Chaouat as the new director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Chaouat (ôshow-AHTö), an associate professor in French, has been at the University of Minnesota since 2002. His academic research addresses, among other topics, post-Holocaust art and literature. He has written essays in French and in English on the current debates about the representation of the Holocaust in visual arts. His work also examines the ideological, political and philosophical challenges faced by Jews in France. He focuses on the polemics of the new anti-Semitism in relation to the current Middle East conflict.
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Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies Names Jodi Elowitz as Outreach Coordinator

Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies has named Jodi Elowitz as their new outreach coordinator. Ms. Elowitz has more than 10 years of experience in the field of Holocaust and diversity education in Minnesota and Tennessee. Elowitz began her career at the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies in 1997 as an intern and graduate student under the tutelage of former director Dr. Stephen Feinstein.
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"It's a Woman's World" airs

Dr. Ellen Kennedy and Sabina Zimering, Holocaust survivor, appear in the episode "It's a Woman's World". The episode is scheduled to air on February 8th at 9:30 am and 4:30 pm on Metro Cable Network, Channel 6. It will also air on SPNN Channel 15 on February 5th and 12th at 6:30 pm.
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The Ritchie Boys

Thank you for all that attended our Ritchie Boys event on November 12th at the MN History Center.
To listen to the MPR interview with Dr. Guy Stern and Walter Schwarz click here.
The Film "The Ritchie Boys" can be purchased here from Amazon.com or here from Barnes and Noble.
Dr. Guy Stern referenced additional information that we would be posting to our website. This information can be found here.
You can see photos from the Nov. 12th event and Dr. Stern's visit here.
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Dr. Ellen Kennedy received the "Outstanding Citizen" award from the Anne Frank foundation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbCuDvDYoqo
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CHGS in the News
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Visual History Archive Subscription

The University of Minnesota Libraries have become subscribers to the Visual History Archive developed by the USC Shoah Foundation institute for Visual History and Education.
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Address: 214 Social Sciences, 267 19th Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55455
Phone: 612-624-9007
Fax: 612-626-2242
Email: chgs@umn.edu

The University of Minnesota is an equal opportunity educator and employer
Last modified on August 21, 2012

Center News

Scripting the Shoah presented by Aomar Boum now Available to View on line

Eric Harkleroad PhD Candidate in Anthropology to Present at CHGS Workshop

Holocaust and Genocide Courses Being Offered for Summer and Fall

Wahutu Siguru awarded Badzin Fellowship

Alejandro Baer to Present at USHMM Symposium

Hiromi Mizuno professor in the Department of History to present at next CHGS workshop

Doctoral Research Fellow at the Center for Austrian Studies, Matthias Falter to present at next CHGS workshop

Scripting the Shoah: The Holocaust in Moroccan Official and Public Discourses

Illumintated Memory

CHGS Announces Symposium on Representation of Genocide

Special Screening "The Future's Past"

P.h.D. Candidate in Spanish and Portuguese Erma Nezirevic to Present at CHGS Workshop

Now Accepting Nominations for 3rd Annual Inna Meiman Human Rights Award

CHGS and Department of American Indian Studies Announce Panel Discussion on Dakota Exile

Human Rights Program assistant Whitney Taylor to present at CHGS workshop

Just Announced! Internationally Acclaimed Portrait Painter Felix de la Concha to speak on Campus

PhD Candidate Department of French and Italian Corbin Treacy to Present at CHGS Workshop

PhD Candidate in sociology Shannon Golden to present at next CHGS workshop

January 27th: International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Sociology Ph.D. Candidate Hollie Nyseth Brehm to Present at CHGS Workshop

CHGS December Electronic Newlsetter Now Available On Line

New Blog of Recent Library Acquisitions in Holocaust & Genocide Studies

Visiting Professor Jaime Ginzburg to Present at CHGS Workshop

Alejandro Baer to Teach Mass Media & Society

Rebuilding the Community: Jewish Life in Germany after the Shoah now available to view on YouTube

Visiting Professor Matti Jutila to Present at CHGS Workshop

Remembering Kristallnacht: Combating Indifference

Alejandro Baer to speak about Kristallnacht in Civil War Spain

Interdisciplinary Workshop for Graduate Students and Faculty Holocaust, Genocide and Mass Violence Studies

Letter from the Director of CHGS

Trinity University Professor asks, "Did Elie Wiesel Christianize the Holocaust?"

Scholar to speak on Jewish life in Germany after the Shoah

CHGS to offer Interdisciplinary Workshop for Graduate Students and Faculty

CLA Names Alejandro Baer as New Feinstein Chair and Director of CHGS

Evil Conspiracies and Common Enemies: Mussolini, the Vatican, and the Origins of the Italian Racial Laws

Judaken lecture now available on YouTube

Rosenfeld lecture now available on CHGS YouTube channel

Workshop: Trauma and Text: Approaches to Teaching the Literature of Atrocity

New translation of the testimony of Georges Wellers

U.S. Court of Appeals rules in favor of the University of Minnesota in case involving the Turkish Coalition of America

The Conceptual Jew: Reflections on Arendt and Adorno's Post-Holocaust Theories of Anti-Semitism

The 2nd Annual Inna Meiman Human Rights Award Winners Announced

"How Did You Get Here? Jewish Self Invention and the Culture of Exile"

This Sunday, April 15-"Is There an Anti-Jewish Bias in Today's University?"

CHGS to Host Symposium on the University During the Third Reich

The Young Turks' Crime Against Humanity

The 2nd Annual Inna Meiman Human Rights Award-Nominations Due Friday, April 6

"Law and Democracy: The Paradoxes of Transitional Justice in Germany, 1945-1950."

¡Si Hubo Genocidio!: Exhumations, Truth and Justice after the Guatemalan Genocide

Preventing Mass Violence: The Expansion of R2P and the Challenge of Statebuilding

Global Memory of the Holocaust and the Politics of Never Again

No Generation of Silence: American Jews and the Holocaust in the Post-War Era

The International Human Rights Movement: A History

The Post Holocaust Golem: A Jewish Legend Returns Now on CHGS YouTube Channel

All the Missing Souls: A Personal History of the War Crimes Tribunals

Bruno Chaouat to participate in Talmud Torah of St. Paul's evening of Jewish Learning

CLA Announces Search for New CHGS Director

Deborah Lipstadt Lecture now available on CHGS Youtube Channel

Dispute between Watenpaugh and Turkish-American group

Special Film Screening- "As Seen Through These Eyes"

"The Responsibility to Protect" The Hon. Lloyd Axworthy President of the University of Winnipeg

The Post Holocaust Golem: A Jewish Legend Returns

Workshop Explores Childhood Memory as part of the Art Survives: Expressions from the Holocaust Exhibition

Deborah Lipstadt Lecture Tonight at 7:00p.m. Coffman Theater

Art Survives: Expressions from the Holocaust

Conference My Letter to the World: Narrating Human Rights Featuring a Lecture by Philip Gourevitch

Help CHGS Rebuild Our Website

Presidential Study Directive on Mass Atrocities

Voices From Congo: The Road Ahead

Enemies of the People Available for Download on iTunes

Summer Institute on Human Rights

"Thoughts on Agamben's Remnants of Auschwitz: A Talk at the University of Minnesota." Now available

The transcript of Meïr Waintrater's lecture "You, Zionist!" Uses and Misuses of the Z-Word in Current Political Discourse is now available.

Alternative Narratives or Denial?

"Hate in the Past Tense: Understanding the Origins of Armenian Genocide Denial as a Problem of Contemporary Reconciliation"

"You, Zionist!" Uses and Misuses of the Z-Word in Current Political Discourse

Testimony: Genocide and Transmission

Calling for Nominations for Inna Meiman Human Rights Award!

A Film Unfinished