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April is always an important month at the Center for Advanced Genocide Research: not only does it mark Genocide Awareness Month, but it was also our anniversary month. This year, as we celebrated our second anniversary, we hosted two thought-provoking lectures and continued our outreach efforts to the community of genocide scholars. As we strive to be a resource for scholars and to foster innovative research, our improved website was designed to be easier to navigate and more user-friendly and we hope you’ll find that our revamped newsletter offers more useful resources for scholars.
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Rethinking concentration camps in global history
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We started the month by welcoming Dan Stone, Professor of Modern History from Royal Holloway, University of London, who gave a lecture entitled "Concentration Camps: A Global History." His innovative research about concentration camps moves beyond specific national contexts in order to expand our understanding of concentration camps in global history and, in his talk, he explored how comparative and transnational approaches to concentration camps can help us better understand their emergence and spread around the world.
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Uncovering the experiences of displaced Jews in the Soviet Union, Iran and India during the Holocaust
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We also had the pleasure to host, in partnership with the USC Max Kade Institute, Cooper Union History Professor Atina Grossmann who presented her current research. Her talk entitled “Remapping Survival: Jewish Refugees and Lost Memories in the Soviet Union, Iran, and India” integrated largely unexamined experiences and lost memories of displacement, trauma, and rescue in the Soviet Union, Iran, and India into our understanding of the Shoah, thereby remapping the landscape of persecution, survival, relief and rescue of Jews during and after World War II.
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CAGR’s director presents his research in Texas In April, I also presented my own research on resistance during the Holocaust at Texas A&M University as well as at the University of Texas at Austin where my lecture was co-hosted by the Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies, Center for European Studies, Institute for Historical Studies and the History Department. Entitled "Defiance and Protest. Forgotten Individual Jewish Reactions to the Persecution in Nazi Germany,” my talk challenges the traditional notion of the passivity of German Jews. It also questions, using a micro-historical approach,the idea that resistance during the Holocaust was mostly an organized or armed group activity, a notion that gravely overlooks individual acts of opposition.
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Introduction to the Visual History Archive: Workshop at Texas A&M
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 | Rabbi Matt Rosenberg, left, Wolf Gruner, second from left, Adam Seipp, fourth from right, and Crispin Brooks, third from right, with students at Texas A&M University |
| Our outreach efforts to academic institutions continued this month as Crispin Brooks and I co-hosted a workshop organized by Texas A&M University’s Glasscock Center for Humanities Research and the History Department to engage faculty from various disciplines in how to use the Visual History Archive in their research and teaching. While we were at Texas A&M University, four undergraduate students discussed their experience using the Visual History Archive for their class research projects at an event entitled “Testimony, Memory, and the Holocaust.” (Read more about David Cook, one of the four Texas A&M students.) I will host another one of these workshops at our newest partner site - the American University of Paris – in early May, which I will report on next month.
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CAGR’s staff presents on the Indonesian genocide Martha Stroud, the Center’s Research Program Officer, presented on her anthropological research on the Indonesian genocide at the symposium "Narratives and Testimonies After Conflict: The Second Generation” held at Georgia State University. In her talk, entitled "The Widening Sphere of 'Victim' in Post-1965 Narratives in Indonesia," Stroud used examples from her research to explore the complicated and contested ways that Indonesians perceive and describe the category of "victim" following the mass killings in Indonesia in 1965-1966. Traditionally, in the scholarly literature surrounding post-conflict testimony, the term "second generation" has been used to describe the children and relatives of victims and survivors of violence. The Indonesia case is a powerful illustration of how even people born generations after the atrocities, as well as people with no personal connection to the violent history, are still deeply influenced by the events of 1965-1966 on a daily basis, 50 years after the killings began.
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Looking back and forward Last but not least, as we marked our second anniversary, April also offered an opportunity to reflect on what the Center has accomplished over the past two years and to think about our plans for the future. Among other things, we have been fortunate to offer 15 fellowships to innovative scholars and teachers and host 13 lectures by prominent international Holocaust and genocide scholars, thereby fulfilling our commitment to advancing new areas of interdisciplinary research on systematic mass violence and resistance.
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Wolf Gruner
Director, USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research
Professor of History and Shapell-Guerin Chair in Jewish Studies
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Two years of the CAGR in numbers
- 10 Fellowships including:
- 2 Center Research Fellows-in-residence
- 2 Greenberg Research Fellows-in-residence
- 2 Student Summer Grants-in-residence
- 4 Teaching Fellows
- 1 Yom Hashoah Scholar-in-residence
- 2 Interdisciplinary Research Group weeks
- 1 Graduate Student Workshop co-hosted with Yad Vashem Jerusalem and bringing together 12 students from the US, Canada and Israel
- Hosted 1 International Symposium “Singing in the Lion’s Mouth : Music as Resistance to Genocide,” bringing together 7 panelists
- Co-hosted 1 International Conference “Memory, Media, and Technology” bringing together 18 panelists
- 6 Film Screenings with filmmakers
- 13 Scholarly Lectures by scholars from Europe, Australia and the Americas
- 8 Researchers Affiliated to the Center
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Introducing a New Series:
Spotlight on USC Resources Over the next few months we will put the spotlight on various collections housed at USC that contain primary source material regarding the Holocaust and other genocides
Part One: The Holocaust and Genocide Studies Collection at USC Doheny Library The USC Library Holocaust Studies Collection started in 2009 when USC acquired an 11,000-item book collection which included a wide variety of materials, such as rare books and original Nazi pamphlets, monographs, document editions, diaries, and eyewitness testimonies. The diverse collection that has now grown to include over 20,000 items, is a tremendous and unique resource for USC researchers and visiting scholars studying the Holocaust and other genocides in fields ranging from history, political science, and sociology to philosophy, visual studies, literature, and the arts. Our upcoming newsletters will showcase some other holdings that make USC a unique place to study and research the Holocaust and other genocides for scholars and students. Stay tuned!
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April 25, 2014 October 7, 2014 November 16, 2014 October 11, 2015 December 22, 2015 January 15, 2016
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Call for Applications Teaching Fellowship Academic Year 2016-2017 Extended Deadline: June 15, 2016 The USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research invites proposals for its 2016-2017 Teaching Fellowship that will provide summer support for faculty at universities and colleges that are USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive (VHA) access sites in order to integrate VHA testimonies into new or existing courses.
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Donate to Special Collections
Please consider donating private papers, documents, photographs or films regarding the Holocaust and other genocides. The Center works with USC Libraries Special Collections to preserve private collections and make them accessible for academic research and student investigation. To find out more about donating materials, please visit our website at cagr.usc.edu or call 213-740-6001.
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For more information about the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research and its work, please visit our website at: cagr.usc.edu To subscribe to the Center's mailing list, click here.
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| ©2016 USC Shoah Foundation
University of Southern California
Leavey Library
650 West 35th Street, Suite 114
Los Angeles, CA 90089
213-740-6001
cagr@usc.edu
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