Holocaust Testimonies and Their Afterlives

About

This nine-day, intensive summer course will investigate the genealogy of the era of the witness, focusing on the emergence of Holocaust testimony as the model for eyewitness documentation of 20th and 21st-century atrocities, and its impact on efforts to record and represent subsequent human rights abuses and acts of mass violence.

The course will feature a series of workshops, seminars, public lectures, film screenings, and even a concert. The goal of the course is to bring together leading scholars of testimony and oral history, who engage in highly interdisciplinary approaches to documenting, studying, and interpreting the Holocaust and other genocides and mass atrocities through the lens of first-person accounts.

Course leader

Éva Kovács, Vienna Wiesenthal Institute of Holocaust Studies Michael Miller, Central European University Stephen Naron, Yale University Avinoam Patt, University of Connecticut Noah Shenker, Colgate University

Target group

The program encourages applications from students in multiple disciplines at the doctoral and postdoctoral levels, as well as early career oral history and digital humanities scholars and practitioners interested in learning more about the genealogy and impact of Holocaust testimony as a genre. We also invite applications from advanced undergraduate students who have adequate prior study or engagement experience on the subject and make a compelling case in their application/statement of interest.
There are no prerequisites, but the participants should be doing research on a topic related to the themes of the course.

Course aim

The course will provide historical and epistemological contexts, introduce new methodological approaches of studying testimonies in the digital age, and more importantly, offer participants an opportunity to explore the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies and other discrete collections of testimony in consultation with the leading experts in the field.

Fee info