June 4–15
The deadline for applications has passed.
The Museum’s Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies announces the 2012 Curt C. and Else Silberman Seminar for college and university faculty from all relevant disciplines who are teaching or preparing to teach Holocaust or Holocaust-related courses.
Designed to equip faculty with the knowledge base and pedagogical techniques required to teach this complex topic and address the questions that arise most frequently in the classroom, the seminar models and encourages approaches that integrate a wide range of disciplines, sources, and perspectives. Daily sessions consist of a combination of presentations, discussions, and group activities.
This year’s seminar will deepen participants’ understanding of the Holocaust through the perspective of gender. The seminar will explore and compare the points of convergence and divergence between male and female experiences in a variety of circumstances, including early persecution, refugee life, concentration camp life, life in hiding, separation and reunion of families, and survival in the postwar era. Through an interdisciplinary lens that combines historical, literary, archival, and visual sources, participants will also analyze the experiences of gays and lesbians; how gendered perspective is reflected in Holocaust diaries, memoirs, and art; the gendered experiences of perpetrators and their postwar representation; and other topics.
The seminar will be co-led by Atina Grossmann, Professor of History, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York, New York, and Dorota Glowacka, Professor of Humanities and Director of the Contemporary Studies Programme, University of King’s College, Halifax, Canada.
Professor Atina Grossmann has written extensively on gender, survivors, and displaced persons before, during, and after the Holocaust. Her numerous publications include After the Racial State: Difference and Democracy in Germany and Europe (with Rita Chin, Heide Fehrenbach, and Geoff Eley, 2009); Jews, Germans, and Allies: Close Encounters in Occupied Germany (2007); and Reforming Sex: The German Movement for Birth Control and Abortion Reform 1920–1950 (1995). In 2012 she will serve as the Center’s Diane and Howard Wohl Fellow.
Professor Dorota Glowacka has published extensively on Holocaust literature and gender and received awards for excellence in teaching. Her publications include the forthcoming Disappearing Traces: Holocaust Testimonies, Ethics, and Aesthetics and “Philosophy in the feminine and the Holocaust witness: Sarah Kofman and Hannah Arendt” in Gender, Religion, and the Holocaust (2010). She also co-edited Imaginary Neighbors: Mediating Polish-Jewish Relations after the Holocaust (2007) and Between Ethics and Aesthetics: Crossing the Boundaries (2002).
The Center will introduce participants to resources that may be used in teaching and research about the Holocaust, including the Museum’s library, document archives, memoir collection, photo archives, oral testimony collection, film and video archive, and Holocaust survivor database, as well as the International Tracing Service (ITS) collection of more than 100 million Holocaust-era documents. The ITS records relate to the fates of more than 17 million people who were subject to incarceration, forced labor, and displacement during World War II.
Participants will also have the opportunity to consult and interact with Museum staff and visiting fellows. To learn more about the Museum’s collections, please visit http://www.ushmm.org/research/collections/.
Seminar applicants must be faculty members at accredited, baccalaureate-awarding institutions in North America. Applications must include: (1) a curriculum vitae; (2) a statement of the applicant’s specific interest and needs in strengthening his or her background in Holocaust history for the purpose of improving teaching; and (3) a supporting letter from a departmental chair or dean addressing the applicant’s qualifications and the institution’s commitment to Holocaust-related education. Applicants should also include the syllabi of any Holocaust-related courses they have taught. Syllabi will be distributed at the seminar to facilitate discussion of successful teaching strategies.
The Center will select a maximum of 20 participants, without regard to age, gender, race, creed, or national origin. For non-local participants, the Center will (1) cover the cost of direct travel to and from the participant’s home institution and Washington, DC, and (2) provide lodging for the duration of the seminar. Incidental, meal, and book expenses must be defrayed by the candidates or their respective institutions. All participants must commit to attend the entire seminar from June 4 to15.
Applications must be postmarked or submitted electronically no later than Monday, February 27, 2012. Send to:
University Programs
Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW
Washington, DC 20024-2126
Fax: 202.479.9726
E-mail: university_programs@ushmm.org
Please direct questions to Dr. Dieter Kuntz at dkuntz@ushmm.org or 202.314.1779. The Center will notify accepted applicants by Monday, March 19, 2012.
The Curt C. and Else Silberman Foundation endowed the Silberman Seminar for University Faculty in memory of Curt C. and Else Silberman. The Foundation supports programs in higher education that promote study of the Holocaust and protect and strengthen Jewish values in democracy, human rights, ethical leadership, and cultural pluralism.
