Chinese Scholar to give talk April 13: "Jews in Modern China"

Xu Xin (Nanjing University, China), "Jews in Modern China"
Monday, April 13, 5:00pm
3M Auditorium
Carlson School of Management
University of Minnesota
Register here



China's premier Judaic scholar, Xu Xin (徐新) is the Diane and Guilford Glazer Chair Professor of Jewish and Israel Studies and Dean of the Institute of Jewish/Israel Studies at Nanjing University, China. He is President of the China Judaic Studies Association and Editor-in-Chief and a major contributor of the Chinese edition of Encyclopedia Judaica. He is author of Anti-Semitism: How and Why, A History of Western Culture and The Jews of Kaifeng, China: History, Culture, and Religion. He has served as a fellow or visiting scholar at Hebrew Union College, Harvard University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Bar-Ilan University, and Tel Aviv University.
This lecture is part of the exhibit, Jewish Refugees in Shanghai (1933-1941), a collaborative community effort to share information about the unique experiences of Jewish refugees in Shanghai during World War II. The cornerstone of this project is a historical exhibit curated by the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum and on display at Sabes JCC and St. Paul JCC. The exhibit has been enhanced with additional stories from four "Shanghailanders" with deep Minnesota connections.

Yehudit Shendar: World-leading expert in Holocaust art and Nazi art plundering at the Weisman on April 14, 2015

Yehudit Shendar 
 Retired Deputy Director and Senior Art Curator, Yad Vashem
"The Insatiable Pursuit of Art: Nazi Art Looting - Perpetrators, Victims, Provenance Researchers"

April 14, 2015
7:00 pm
Weisman Art Museum

In describing the plunder of art by the Third Reich in his book Nazi Looting, Gerald Aalders writes: "Never in history has a collection so great been amassed with so little scruple."

The massive looting continues to resound in the frequent headlines of the world press, which report on the efforts of Jewish Holocaust victims' heirs to regain possession of the property stolen from their families. In November 2013 a cache of 1400 works of art was seized by the Bavarian internal revenue authorities from the apartment of Cornelius Gurlitt, the son of one of four art dealers allowed under the Nazis to trade modern art. Yehudit Shendar, a world leading expert in Holocaust Art and Nazi art plundering, was selected as an appointee to an international task force assigned to research the provenance of these recently-discovered works.

In her lecture at the Weisman Art Museum, attended by over 180 friends and scholars in the community, Yehudit Shendar shared perspectives, insights and personal accounts of her work in what was coined by Jonathan Petropoulos, a professor of history at Claremont McKenna College, as "The most important discovery of Nazi-looted art since the Allies discovered the hoards in the salt mines and the castles."

Organized by the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies with support from the Weisman Museum of Art and the Department of Art History. Cosponsored by the Center for Austrian Studies, the Center for German and European Studies, Center for Jewish Studies, and Hillel: The Jewish Student Center.

Call for Nominations: 2015 Human Rights Awards

Each spring, the Human Rights Program and the Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies celebrate the tremendous work of students in human rights with the Inna Meiman Award and the Sullivan Ballou Award. Faculty, staff and students are encouraged to nominate an undergraduate student who has truly been impressive in their human rights work. Self-nominations are also accepted. The awards will be given out at a luncheon ceremony on Friday, May 8th.

Applications and Nominations due April 15th at 5pm.

Letters of nomination (750 words or less) and résumé/CV should be submitted by email to the Human Rights Program hamm0229@umn.edu or delivered to the Human Rights Program office 214 Social Sciences. Self-nominations must include a letter of recommendation.

For more information please call 612.626.7947 or email hamm0229@umn.edu.

"Intersectional Objects" that bind and divide communities: curating an exhibit of Polish-made figurines depicting Jews

Erica Lehrer, University of Concordia, Motreal
Curating Memories in Conflict: New Ethnography in an Old Museum

Monday, April 20, 2015
12:00 - 1:30pm
Weisman Art Museum
free and open to the public



Anthropologist Erica Lehrer will discuss a participatory exhibition of Polish-made figurines depicting Jews that she curated in Kraków's Seweryn Udziela Ethnographic Museum in summer 2013. The exhibit grew out of research for her recent book Jewish Poland Revisited: Heritage Tourism in Unquiet Places (Indiana, 2013). In the broadest terms, the exhibition took up the question of how to deal with painfully disputed subject matter: How can one productively exhibit objects whose existence or the meanings one community promotes are deeply objectionable to another community? Lehrer will discuss Poland's Jewish figurines as "intersectional objects" that both bind and divide communities, and suggest their potential as catalysts for critical memory work that transcends the terms of today's defensive public debate about Poland's Jewish past. She will also address Poland's changing museum landscape as a barometer of a disputed national imaginary.

Erica Lehrer is an Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in the departments of History and Sociology‑Anthropology at Concordia University, Montreal. She is the author of Jewish Poland Revisited: Heritage Tourism in Unquiet Places, and co‑editor of Jewish Space in Contemporary Poland, and Curating Difficult Knowledge: Violent Pasts in Public Places. As a curator, she produced the 2013 exhibit Souvenir, Talisman, Toy: Poland's Jewish Figurines in Kraków's Seweryn Udziela Ethnographic Museum, and published the accompanying catalog Lucky Jew.

Co-sponsored by the Institute for Advanced Study, the Department of Anthropology and the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

Talk on Jewish Heritage Revival in Poland, April 19

Erica Lehrer, Concordia University, Montreal
"(Polish) Gentiles Doing Jewish stuff"....and the Jews Who Love/Hate Them"

Sunday, April 19, 2015
7:30 - 9:00pm
Beth Jacob Congregation



Jewish heritage revival in Poland is a phenomenon that has attracted a great deal of attention and provoked many controversies. Described as the world's largest Jewish cemetery and the realm of "virtual Jewishness," Poland is a space where the non-Jewish interest in things Jewish has been looked upon with particular scepticism. American cultural anthropologist Erica Lehrer ventures into this territory, both fascinating and fraught with tension, giving a fresh glimpse into the backstage of the Jewish heritage industry.
Erica Lehrer is an Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in the departments of History and Sociology‑Anthropology at Concordia University, Montreal. She is the author of Jewish Poland Revisited: Heritage Tourism in Unquiet Places, and co‑editor of Jewish Space in Contemporary Poland, and Curating Difficult Knowledge: Violent Pasts in Public Places. As a curator, she produced the 2013 exhibit Souvenir, Talisman, Toy: Poland's Jewish Figurines in Kraków's Seweryn UdLehziela Ethnographic Museum, and published the accompanying catalog Lucky Jew.

This series is made possible by a generous gift in memory of Julia K. & Harold Segall. Co-sponsored by the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Institute for Advanced Study, the Department of Anthropology; Beth Jacob Congregation.

International Student Conference, "100 Years of Genocide: Remembrance, Education, Prevention"

100 Years of Genocide
International Student Conference
100 Years of Genocide: Remembrance, Education, Prevention

University of Minnesota
Humphrey School of Public Affairs, Room 25
April 24, 2015

As 2015 marks the 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, the Human Rights Program, the Institute for Global Studies, and the Ohanessian Chair hosted three days of events to commemorate this centennial. The objectives of these events are to promote public understanding of the genocide and the fates of those who lost their lives and those who escaped. The events also analyze responses by the international community, and discuss the long-term implications for international policy and actions to prevent and respond to genocide.

The student conference brought together young scholars, graduate and advanced undergraduate students from different disciplines that are working on the Armenian or other episodes of genocide and mass violence.

Program

8:45 - 9:15
Registration

9:15 - 9:30
Welcome
Evelyn Davidheiser, Director, Institute for Global Studies
Alejandro Baer, Associate Professor in Sociology, and Director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies

9:30 - 11:00
Sesssion 1

The Armenian Genocide: Survival, Trauma, Resilience

Professor Bedross Der Matossian, University of Nebraska - Lincoln
(Moderator)
Angel Amirjanyan, Yerevan State University (Armenia)
The Psychological Effects of Genocide
Peter Kranitz, Pazmany Peter Catholic University (Hungary)
Survivors, Asylum Seeking and Repatriation: The case of Armenian refugees in Constantinople
Varduhi Gumruyan, Anania Shirakatsy Lyceum Educational Complex (Armenia)
Armenian Genocide: Consequences as Posttraumatic Stress

11:15 - 1:00
Session 2

Armenians and Turkey after the Genocide

Professor Joachim Savelsberg, University of Minnesota
(Moderator)
Vahram Ayvazyan (Armenia)
Turkish Denial and Public Opinion
Gevorg Petrosyan, National Academy of Sciences, Republic of Armenia
"Shared Pain": Turkish Government's current steps toward denial of Armenian Genocide
Torkom Movsesiyan, City College of New York (2009), TORKOMADA, Inc.
The Armenian Holocaust and International Law

1:00 - 2:00
Lunch Break

2:00 - 3:30
Session 3

Responses to Genocide: Justice, Media and Mediations

Professor Barbara Frey, University of Minnesota
(Moderator)
Lindsay Blahnik, University of Minnesota
Transitional Justice and Social Cohesion: effects of punitive and restorative justice on social cohesion following the Rwandan Genocide
Tom Dunn, Exeter University (U.K.)
Rethinking British Perceptions of Genocide and Mass Atrocities: The Sierra Leonean Civil War and Britain, 1997-2002
Rebecca Shnabel, University of Wisconsin - La Crosse
Traversing Translation: A Reader's Response and Marxist Critique of Elie Wiesel's Un di Velt Hot Geshvign, La Nuit, and Night

3:45 - 4:45
Session 4

The Causes of Genocide and its Prevention
Professor Alejandro Baer, University of Minnesota
(Moderator)
Kayla Nomina, Valparaiso University
Patterns of the Past: Determining common causal agents of genocide to predict and
prevent future mass atrocities
Joe Eggers, University of Minnesota
Native Americans and Armenians: Exploring nationalism in genocidal violence

4:45 - 5:00
Concluding Remarks

Events organized by the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Human Rights Program, Institute for Global Studies, and Ohanessian Chair. Made possible by the Ohanessian Endowment Fund for Justice and Peace Studies of the Minneapolis Foundation.

Author event with Peter Grose and his new book on Le Chambon - sur - Lignon in WW II, "A good place to Hide"

A Good Place to Hide
Author Event with Peter Grose

Monday, April 20, 7:00 - 9:00pm
Free at the St. Paul JCC
1375 St. Paul Ave.
St.Paul, MN 55116



In a year of increased terrorism and anti-Semitism in France, we invite you to share in the remarkable story of a French village and its neighbors that saved 3500 Jews during WWII. Meet journalist Peter Grose, whose newly published tale of Le Chambon in south-central France is an uplifting account of a community coming together to do what's right.

This event is free but registration is requested. For more information please contact Beth Friend, Adult Program Coordinator at 651-255-4735

This program is co-sponsored by Sabes JCC of Minneapolis. Community Partners: Beth Jacob Congregation, Mount Zion Temple, Temple of Aaron.

Professor of Middle East History to deliver Ohanessian Lecture on the Eve of the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide

As part of CHGS events in commemoration of the centennial of the Armenian Genocide.

Thursday, April 23, 7:00pm
Bedross Der Matossian, University of Nebraska, Lincoln
The Armenian Genocide Historiography on the Eve of the Centennial: From Continuity to Contingency
Humphrey Forum, Humphrey School of Public Affairs
open to the public

One of the outstanding issues in Armenian Genocide historiography has been the inability of historians to come to a consensus regarding the causes, the aim of the perpetrators, and the process of the genocide. This is due to the fact that the field of genocide studies by its nature is contentious. While most Western and some Turkish scholars agree to the fact that the events that happened to the Armenians during World War I constitute genocide, they tend to disagree on critical issues such as the causes, motives, premeditation, and the actual process itself. Over the course of the past two decades, the historiography of the Armenian Genocide has evolved through the introduction of new methodologies, approaches, and more complex analyses of the Genocide that venture beyond rudimentary and essentialist arguments and representations. These approaches range from arguing that religion and/or nationalism were the main factors that led to the Armenian Genocide, to the argument that the genocide was a contingent event that took place during World War I, represented by a rapid radicalization of the government's policy towards the Armenians. This talk will discuss the development of the historiography of the Armenian Genocide by concentrating on some of the major trends in the historiography and assess their contribution to the understanding of the different dimensions of the genocide. Furthermore, it will provide suggestions about strengthening certain areas in the historiography that still remain in their infancy.





Bedross Der Matossian is an Assistant Professor of Modern Middle East History in the Department of History at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Born and raised in Jerusalem, he is a graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he began his graduate studies in the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies. He completed his Ph.D. in Middle East History in the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia University in 2008. From 2008 to 2010, he was a Lecturer of Middle East History in the Faculty of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For the Spring quarter 2014 he was appointed as the Dumanian Visiting Professor in the University of Chicago. His areas of interest include ethnic politics in the Middle East, inter-ethnic violence in the Ottoman Empire, the history of the Armenian Genocide and modern Armenian history. In addition to contributing to numerous edited volumes, his articles have also appeared in the Journal of Palestinian Studies, Jerusalem Quarterly, Armenian Review, Majallat al-Dirasat Al-Filastiniyya, European Journal of Turkish Studies, Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal, Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies, Turcica, and Ararat Quarterly. He is the author of Shattered Dreams of Revolution: From Liberty to Violence in the Late Ottoman Empire (Stanford University Press, 2014).

Organized by the Arsham and Charlotte Ohanessian Chair, Professor Joachim J. Savelsberg.

HGMV workshop on Latin American Media as a Transitional Justice Memory Merchandiser

FRIDAY, April 3, 12:00 NOON
Social Sciences 710
Amy Cosimini
"Truths Produced and Sold: Latin American Media as a Transitional Justice Memory Merchandiser"

This project explores the potential of cultural productions to act as supplementary transitional justice mechanism, which (re-) frame how nations remember past human rights abuses. Through a comparative analysis of 21st century cultural production in Argentina and Brazil, it is argued that representative films and television programs are uniquely placed to complement and question institutional memory policies that tend to monumentalize one truth and one past in an attempt to construct a coherent collective memory narrative. Drawing from human rights, media studies and transitional justice scholarship, this project promises to open up a space for a discussion on the constructed nature of memories and the media's intentions as a new structural memory frame.

Amy Cosimini is a PhD candidate in the department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies at the University of Minnesota where she researches the relationship between human rights and memory production discourses in Southern Cone literature and popular culture. She previously earned her B.A in Political Science and Latin American Studies at Macalester College and her M.A. in Hispanic Literature and Culture at the University of Minnesota.

WWI and the Armenian Genocide Teacher Workshop, April 25

As part of CHGS events in commemoration of the centennial of the Armenian Genocide, this day workshop will start with an historical overview of the beginning of World War 1 and be followed by break out sessions on the War in Africa, Asia, and the Armenian Genocide. Participants will be able to choose sessions of interest. Participants will receive lunch, parking, resource lists and a book. Faculty members from the Center of Austrian Studies, the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, and the Department of History from the University of Minnesota will be leading the sessions.
Registration is full.

Saturday, April 25, 8:45am - 3:00pm
"World War I and the Armenian Genocide" Teacher Workshop
1210 Heller Hall

Schedule

8:45-9:00
Registration

9:00-9:15
Welcome
Deborah Jane, Outreach Coordinator, Institute for Global Studies
Gary Cohen, Director of the Center for Austrian Studies
Alejandro Baer, Director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies

9:15-10:45
Introductory Session
The Coming of the War: Lives on the Home Front
Gary Cohen

10:45-11:00
Coffee break

11:00-12:15
Concurrent sessions
The War in the Colonies: Africa (Room 1210)
Adam Blackler and Patricia Lorcin
The Armenian Genocide (Room 1219)
Bedross Der Matossian

12:15-1:00
Lunch

1:00 -2:15
Concurrent sessions
The War in the Colonies: India and Southeast Asia (Room 1210)
Ajay Skaria and Patricia Lorcin
Minnesotans and the Armenian Genocide: History and Memory (Room 1219)
Lou Ann Matossian

2:15-2:30
Coffee break

2:30-3:00
Concluding remarks and resources

Events organized by the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Center for Austrian Studies, and Institute for Global Studies. Made possible by the Ohanessian Endowment Fund for Justice and Peace Studies of the Minneapolis Foundation.

A Review of "Contested Past, Contested Present: Social Memories and Human Rights in Post-Communist Europe"

An international symposium on "Contested Past, Contested Present: Social Memories and Human Rights in Post-Communist Europe" took place at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities on March 4-6. It was organized by the IAS Collaborative "Reframing Mass Violence", and sponsored by the Human Rights Program and the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, among other supporters.

The symposium opened with a keynote lecture by Prof. John-Paul Himka, who spoke about the reception of the Holocaust in post-Communist Europe, especially its legacies in Poland and Ukraine. On Thursday and Friday, sessions covered different aspects of contested memories in post-Communist European countries, from depictions in theater, museums, and film, to transitional justice policies, and the current conflict in Ukraine. The symposium also held a session on the Ukraine conflict, where professors John-Paul Himka, George O. Liber and J. Brian Atwood addressed the different aspects of the current events.

Himka spoke about the role of the regional specifics of Ukraine, and historical differences between them, while Liber addressed Vladimir Putin's response to the Ukrainian Revolution of 2013-2015 and Russia's current aggressive foreign policy in the region. Atwood provided an informative view on the current crisis from a U.S. perspective, based on many years of experience in various state institutions, including USAID. The presentations and ensuing discussions illustrated that the past of post-Communist states remains, indeed, a contested space, negotiating narratives of rising nationalism, victimhood, responsibility, retribution and rehabilitation.
Overall, the event foregrounded issues of how long a transition lasts, what are ways contested pasts are conceptualized and dealt with, legally, commemoratively, and artistically, and how memories can be and are at times used for political purposes. The symposium also highlighted a need to balance contested memories, interpretations of the past with long-term policies that are not merely cosmetic and mechanistic, but often demand a true reevaluation of a country's history. However, this demands interest and a willingness to do so by the communities in the states themselves. Arguably, the race for EU accession and externally shaped Transitional Justice policies may have resulted in speedy formal establishment of institutions to this effect, but equally seems to have in some instances created a space for hegemonic and reductionist narratives to take hold.

"Shanghailanders" Jewish Refugees in China Exhibit at the Sabes: A Journey of Hope for more than 18,000 Jews

Through May 7
Sabes JCC
4330 S. Cedar Lake Road, Minneapolis
Exhibit open Mon-Thu, 7:30am-9:30pm; Fri, 7:30am-6:00pm; and Sun, 8:00am-3:00pm (closed Saturdays).


Jewish Refugees in Shanghai (1933-1941) is a collaborative community effort to share information about the unique experiences of Jewish refugees in Shanghai during World War II. The cornerstone of this project is a historical exhibit curated by the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum. The exhibit has been enhanced with additional stories from four "Shanghailanders" with deep Minnesota connections.
See the CHGS website for a narrative of Jewish refugee Susan Muller, who journeyed from Vienna to Shanghai to Toronto.
Sponsored by: Confucius Institute at the University of Minnesota, Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, and Sabes JCC.
Additional support from the Jewish Community Center of the Greater St. Paul Area, and University of Minnesota partners the Center for Jewish Studies, and the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

HGMV Workshop: "An Upheaval of Memory: The Collision of Dutch Resistance Literature and National History"

Thursday, March 26, 3:00pm
Social Sciences 710
Jazmine Contreras
"An Upheaval of Memory: The Collision of Dutch Resistance Literature and National History"




This paper examines the Dutch experience of German occupation during World War II through the use of memoirs. These memoirs, written by individuals with firsthand experiences of the occupation, shed light upon the categories of victim, bystander, and collaborator, which tend to be overemphasized when discussing wartime activity. Part of the paper is dedicated to problematizing these categories, especially when they obfuscate wartime experiences that do not fit neatly within the narratives created by the Dutch government. The second half of the paper, examines the memoirs in the context of government narratives which state that the Dutch were simultaneously heroes and victims during the occupation. Despite the explicit overgeneralization of this narrative, its power over Dutch memory of WWII has not diminished. Within academic circles, historians and social scientists alike have debated how to characterize the efforts of the Dutch population in light of the deportation of a majority of the Jewish population. The government has also shied away from engaging with this reality and the rampant anti-Semitism that took place after liberation.

Jazmine is a second year PhD student in the History Department at the University of Minnesota. Her work focuses on gender and sexuality in the German-occupied Netherlands during World War II, specifically fraternization between German soldiers and Dutch women.

"Despite The Holocaust: Rebuilding Jewish Life In Germany After 1945"

Please join us for Andrea Sinn's talk "Despite The Holocaust: Rebuilding Jewish Life In Germany After 1945."

She will discuss the experiences of Jewish communities in postwar Germany and the process of redefining Jewish existence in "the land of the perpetrators." The competing and conflicting German, Jewish, and international conceptions of Jewish life in Germany that were voiced during the early postwar years play an important role in understanding the development of individual Jewish communities in the Federal Republic and the position that German-Jewish organizations occupy within Germany and the Jewish community in Europe today.

Despite The Holocaust: Rebuilding Jewish Life In Germany After 1945
Wednesday, March 25 at 5:00 pm
135 Nicholson Hall



Andrea Sinn is the DAAD Professor of German & History at the University of California at Berkeley. Her research and teaching focus on modern European history especially German, Jewish, and migration history. She has published widely on German-Jewish experiences during the Nazi-Dictatorship, personal and collective challenges of exile and return, as well as the rebuilding of Jewish life in the Federal Republic of Germany.

Sponsors:
Department of German, Scandinavian & Dutch
Center for Jewish Studies
Center for German & European Studies

April 10, "A Usable Body: Coaxing the Body Into and Out of Captivity at Black History Museums"

Friday, April 10
12:15 PM - 1:30 PM
1114 Social Sciences
*Free*
RSVP REQUIRED to marydrew@umn.edu

Sociology Workshop Series Presents:

Robyn Autry, Wesleyan University
"A Usable Body: Coaxing the Body Into and Out of Captivity at Black History Museums"





The visual logic of 'black' identity as a social and historical fact is visible at museum exhibitions depicting the transformation of enslaved Africans to racial citizens. In particular, Professor Autry will focus on the work of the body in narrating this transition at the first black history museum: the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit, Michigan. She identifies two types of body work: that of the historical object on display - the captive African and the US citizen - along with that of the visitor moving through the physical space of the museum. In the first instance, she considers the visual treatment of the enslaved body in captivity as broken, bowed, beaten and often nude in contrast to the post-abolition period when the body is positioned as erect, individuated, self-possessed and always clothed (even as its body ironically disappears in the process of becoming a subject). During both periods, normative presentations of the body mimic the moral underpinnings of black history as a site of knowledge production and identity.
Building on this, Professor Autry considers how the visitor's body is oriented both to the narratives on display and to the built environment of the museum itself. Just as the transition from slavery to citizenship is materialized through images of poised, able bodies, she argues that the museum works to construct visitors as similarly poised and able-bodied subjects. These problematic around subject-object relations illustrate that spectatorship cannot be divorced from the racialized imagination that produces and then privileges certain forms of embodied subjecthood over others.

On view at the WAM: Selections from the Struggle series by artist raised in Hungary in WWII

Selections from the Struggle series
SATURDAY, FEB 14 2015 - SUNDAY, MAR 22 2015
Weisman Art Museum

Peter Dallos: Selections from The Struggle series is concerned with two elemental conflicts that affect humankind: one struggle is the tension between Western civilization and the forces of nihilism and anarchy, the other is environmental destruction versus the reaction of the wounded earth.

Peter Dallos's early work (the War series) was autobiographical, mostly concerning his World War II experiences as a child during the German occupation, the bombardment and siege of Budapest, and the Holocaust. The entire War series is in the permanent collection of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.



Dallos is a self-taught artist and John Evans Professor Emeritus of Neuroscience at Northwestern University. As a young teenager, he studied painting in Budapest with György Kádár, one of Hungary's foremost artists. He also learned there the machining and tool and die-making skills that form the mechanical foundation of these works.
Dallos's adolescence was spent under the Hungarian fascist regime and later under the Soviet occupation. He escaped and immigrated to the United States after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.

International Symposium: Social Memories and Human Rights in Post-Communist Europe (March 4-6)

The international symposium coordinated by the IAS collaborative, Reframing Mass Violence, examined the dynamics of public remembrance in post-communist Europe. The keynote address was by John-Paul Himka, Professor of History and Classics, University of Alberta. In case you missed it, or would like to review, links to videos below.

March 4, Wednesday
Keynote Address: "Bringing the Dark Past to Light:
The Reception of the Holocaust in Post-Communist Europe"
John-Paul Himka
7:30 p.m.
Best Buy Theater, Northrop
Welcome: Barbara Frey (Co-Chair of IAS Collaborative)
Introduction: Evelyn Davidheiser (University of Minnesota)

Despite the Holocaust's profound impact on the history of Eastern Europe, the communist regimes successfully repressed public discourse about and memory of this tragedy. Since the collapse of communism in 1989, however, this has changed. Professor Himka discusses recent political, social, and cultural developments that have facilitated a more nuanced and complex understanding of the continuities and discontinuities in representations of the Holocaust and the role that memory plays in contemporary discussions of national identity in Eastern Europe.

March 5, Thursday
Location: 1210 Heller Hall, 271 19th Avenue S, Minneapolis

9:00 - 9:30 AM
Welcome and Introductory Remarks
CLA Dean John Coleman
Alejandro Baer (Co-Chair of IAS Collaborative)

9:30 - 11:30 AM
Session 1: Competing Images of the Past: Stalinism vs. Nazism
Lars Breuer (Free University of Berlin): "Victimhood in Vernacular Memory in Germany and Poland"
Matti Jutila (University of Minnesota): "Constructing Genocidal Marxism in Post-Communist Europe"
Respondent: Alejandro Baer (University of Minnesota)

1:30 - 3:30 PM
Session 2: Accounting for the Past: Truth and Justice in the former Yugoslavia
Sarah Wagner (George Washington University): "Recognizing Srebrenica's Missing: The Sociopolitics of Forensic Intervention"
Jelena Subotic (Georgia State University): "The Mythologizing of Communist Violence"
Thomas C. Wolfe (University of Minnesota): "History, Truth, and Method: Comments on Forensics and Justice"
Respondent: Barbara Frey (University of Minnesota)
4:00 - 5:45 PM
Session 3: The Ukraine Conflict: Contested Past, Contested Present
An IAS "Thursdays at Four" event
John-Paul Himka (University of Alberta): "The History behind the Regional Conflict in Ukraine"
George O. Liber (University of Alabama - Birmingham): "The Ukrainian Revolution of 2013-2015 and the Russian Response."
J. Brian Atwood (University of Minnesota): "The US perspective on the Regional Conflict."
Respondent: Mary Curtin (University of Minnesota)

March 6, Friday
Location: 1210 Heller Hall, 271 19th Avenue S, Minneapolis

9:00 - 11:00 AM
Session 4: Law and Memory in Transition
Ryan Moltz (University of Minnesota): "Lustration in the Former Yugoslavia"
Adam Czarnota (IISL, Spain): "Law as Mnemosyne Married with Lethe: Quasi-judicial institutions and collective memories"
Nadya Nedelsky (Macalester College): "The Struggle for the Memory of the Nation: Slovakia's Confrontation with its Competing Pasts"
Respondent: Joachim Savelsberg (Co-Chair of IAS Collaborative)
11:30 AM - 1:00 PM
Session 5: The Arts and the Politics of Representation
Michal Kobialka (University of Minnesota): "Of Contested Pasts and Contested Presents: Tadeusz Kantor's Theatre and the Politics of Representation"
Margarita Kompelmakher (University of Minnesota): "Universality from the Margin? Performing the Explicit Body in the Belarus Free Theater's Trash Cuisine"
Respondent: James Dawes (Macalester College)
Sponsored by the Human Rights Program and the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Cosponsored by the Institute for Advanced Study, the Institute for Global Studies, Center for Austrian Studies, Department of Political Science, Department of History, Center for Jewish Studies, European Studies Consortium and the Ohanessian Endowment Fund for Justice and Peace Studies of the Minneapolis Foundation.