CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - A new initiative at the University of Illinois will bring together scholars from many disciplines to explore the Holocaust and other genocides as well as racism, memory and trauma. Shimon Attie, a Brooklyn artist famous for his work on Holocaust-related themes, and James E. Young, a leading scholar of Holocaust memorials, will stay at the U. of I. campus as the Krouse Family Visiting Scholars to help kick off the new Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide and Memory Studies.
The initiative, based in The Program in Jewish Culture and Society in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, opened with the start of the fall semester. The initiative's inception will be marked formally by a series of lectures and workshops in October and an inaugural conference in November. Besides Attie and Young, these events will feature renowned scholars on the genocide in Rwanda, American Indian history and related work.
The founder and inaugural director of the initiative is Michael Rothberg, a professor of English and Conrad Humanities Scholar. A scholar in the field of Holocaust, genocide and postcolonial studies, Rothberg is the author of "Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization" (Stanford University Press, 2009), as well as "Traumatic Realism: The Demands of Holocaust Representation" (University of Minnesota Press, 2000).
Rothberg said that the conference, like the initiative itself, will serve as a catalyst for rigorous, interdisciplinary scholarship and conversations "open to different kinds of thinking about the issues."
"We've got people from various departments - English, comparative literature, Slavic languages and literatures, history, and political science, for example - working together, so it's really a way of bringing people together to approach similar kinds of questions from different angles," Rothberg said.
Works-in-progress seminars will provide a forum for faculty members and graduate students to present their work. Rothberg also hopes to work collaboratively with the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Berlin that supports projects that combat racism, anti-Semitism and neo-Nazi violence.
Matti Bunzl, the director of the Program in Jewish Culture and Society and a professor of anthropology, said: "With the initiative, we are cementing our reputation as one of the most innovative programs in the country, noted for its interdisciplinary, comparative and theoretical approach to Jewish studies."
The initiative will start its activities with a series of lectures Oct. 19-23 featuring Attie, and Young, who is a professor of English, Judaic Studies and Near Eastern Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Attie is best known for his installations that fuse projected photography with architectural sites, including his celebrated exhibition, "Writing On the Wall (1992-1993)," in which photographs of pre-World War II Jewish life were projected on the walls of the old Jewish ghetto in Berlin. Young, an expert on Holocaust memorials, is the author of "The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning" (Yale University Press, 1994), among other works.
The theme for the conference, to be held Nov. 5-6 at Levis Faculty Center, is "Genocide, Memory, Justice: The Holocaust in Comparative Contexts." Dagmar Herzog, a professor of history at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and Carolyn Dean, the John Hay Professor of International Studies at Brown University, will be the keynote speakers.
Herzog's work focuses on gender and sexual politics. Dean's work focuses on the concept of victimization developed in various European cultures after World War II and the concept of "good" versus "bad" victims.
Rothberg is co-organizing the inaugural conference with faculty members Peter Fritzsche, history, and Harriet Murav, comparative literature and Slavic languages and literatures.
Details about the conference are available on the Holocaust, Genocide and Memory Studies Initiative's Web site.
Public events include:
5:30 p.m., Oct. 19, Attie, lecture. 62 Krannert Art Museum,
500 E. Peabody Drive, Champaign.
7:30 p.m., Oct. 20, Attie and Young, Krouse Family Visiting Scholars Lecture. Third Floor Levis Faculty Center, 919 W. Illinois St., Urbana.
4 p.m., Oct. 22, James Young, lecture: "The History of the Monument." Third Floor Levis Faculty Center.
Noon, Oct. 23, Young, seminar: "Memory and Memorialization From the Holocaust to 9/11." 109 English Building, 608 S. Wright St., Urbana.
Nov. 5-6, conference: "Genocide, Memory, Justice: The Holocaust in Comparative Contexts." Music Room, Levis Faculty Center.
7:30 p.m., Nov. 17, Irit Linur, author, lecture: "Making TV Drama in Israel." Music Room, Levis Faculty Center.
Details about events are available on the Web site of the Program in Jewish Culture and Society.