Thursday, August 26, 2021
7:30 - 9 p.m. EST
Registration is required to participate
A virtual event, free and open to the public.
Appalachian State University’s Center for Judaic, Holocaust and Peace Studies invites the public to a Zoom-based event featuring Dr. Noah Shenker from Monash University, who will join us live from Melbourne, Australia. The event will focus on Shenker’s much-noticed work on Holocaust survivor testimony. It is also the first of many programs that the Center will organize to remember and honor the legacy of its recently-deceased former director Professor Rosemary Horowitz z’’l, who coordinated the invitation for this guest last year.
Dr. Noah Shenker is the N. Milgrom and 6a Foundation Senior Lecturer in Holocaust and Genocide studies at Monash University’s Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation in Melbourne. He holds a Ph.D. in Critical Studies from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. Shenker’s research and teaching traverse Jewish studies, Holocaust and Genocide studies, cultural studies, and cinema and media studies.
That interdisciplinary approach was at the center of his first book, "Reframing Holocaust Testimony," published in 2015 by Indiana University Press as part of its Modern Jewish Experience series. Organized within a comparative framework, his book looks at three of the most extensive and distinctive archives of Holocaust testimony in the world: the USC Shoah Foundation Institute, the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Shenker investigates how the cultural and institutional histories and practices of those sites mediate the encounters between interviewers and interviewees and consider the extent to which testimonies are driven by the agency of witnesses and the itineraries of a given archive. In addition, he has written and published extensively on the representation of the Holocaust and genocide in testimony, film and new media. His contributions include “‘I have never begun by asking the big questions’: Raul Hilberg as Historical Revenant in Shoah,” in the edited volume, "The Invention of Testimony: Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah in the Twenty-First Century "(Wayne State University Press, 2020) and “Through the Lens of the Shoah: The Holocaust as a Paradigm for Documenting Genocide Testimonies,” in "History & Memory "(2016).
His current project (with co-author Associate Professor Dan Leopard) on which the talk is based -- and which is a parallel project to a joint research endeavor of the Holocaust program at Western Galilee College, the Center for Advanced Genocide Research at the University of Southern California Shoah Foundation and Appalachian's Center for Judaic, Holocaust and Peace Studies -- explores Holocaust testimony beyond the "Era of the Witness" (A. Wieviorka).
Like all of the Center’s Research Colloquia, this program is based on
- pre-circulated texts that we ask everyone to read prior to the meeting. The featured scholars will then,
- give a (quite short) introduction to their work, also situating it in the broader literature and highlighting some of the key insights. Afterwards, the main segment of the event is taken up by
- lively discussions that address all of the questions that participants may have. Towards the end of the colloquium, participants will
- have an opportunity to benefit from our guests’ expertise by asking them for feedback and help with their own research projects.
Please note that this event was originally scheduled for April and was postponed.
This event is organized by the Center for Judaic, Holocaust and Peace Studies and co-sponsored by Appalachian's Department of History, Appalachian's Chapter of Hillel and AEPi, and the Temple of the High Country.
For more information, please contact the Center at 828.262.2311 or holocaust@appstate.edu.
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About the Center for Judaic, Holocaust and Peace Studies
Appalachian State University’s Center for Judaic, Holocaust, and Peace Studies was founded in 2002 to develop new educational opportunities for students, teachers and the community. Located administratively within the College of Arts and Sciences, the center seeks to strengthen tolerance, understanding and remembrance by increasing the knowledge of Jewish culture and history, teaching the history and meaning of the Holocaust, and utilizing these experiences to explore peaceful avenues for human improvement and the prevention of further genocides. The Center for Judaic, Holocaust, and Peace Studies is an associate institutional member of the Association of Jewish Studies, a member of the Association of Holocaust Organizations and a member of the North Carolina Consortium of Jewish Studies.
About the Department of History
The Department of History offers a broad curriculum in local, national, regional and world history at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, which encourages history majors to develop a comprehensive approach to human problems. The study of history is an essential part of a liberal arts education and offers valuable preparation for many careers, such as law, journalism, public history, public service and business, as well as in teaching and the advanced discipline of history. Learn more at https://history.appstate.edu.
Promotional poster for Center for Judaic, Holocaust and Peace Studies Fall 2021 Research Colloquium on Holocaust Testimony
Dr. Noah Shenker to speak on Analysis, Debates and Challenges for Center for Judaic, Holocaust and Peace Studies Fall Colloquium event. Poster graphic submitted.