Spring 2022 Event Programming
The IHGMS presents it's Spring 2022 Event Programming:
January 27, 2022, 5:00PM (EST)
International Holocaust Remembrance Day event:
A conversation with Avinoam Patt and Anna Shternshis on Laughter After: Humor and the Holocaust, edited by David Slucki, Gabriel Finder, and Avinoam Patt
What is at stake in deploying humor in representing the Holocaust? Laughter After brilliantly explores this fundamental topic by asking: what are the boundaries between humor and the Holocaust, if any? What are the ethical limits of deploying humor about the Holocaust, if any? What was the purpose of using humor to give meaning to the tragedy? How did Jews utilize humor as a coping mechanism both during and after the Holocaust? The book analyzes a wide-breadth of Holocaust related humor—in literature, television, film, Yiddish and Jewish jokes, and other representations. Without survivors to tell their stories, how will future generations understand, relate to, and even find humor in the Holocaust? Conversing with Patt and Shternshis will be Alon Confino.
Anna Shternshis is the Al and Malka Green Professor of Yiddish studies and Director of the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto.
Avinoam J. Patt is the Doris and Simon Konover Chair of Judaic Studies and Director of the Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life at the University of Connecticut.
View the full recording of this event here:
https://youtu.be/sIp26jicit4
March 8, 2022, 1:00PM (EST) / 20:00 (Israel time)
“Encounters”
The IHGMS and the Avraham Harman Research Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem present their annual series:
Conversations on Racism, Antisemitism, and Islamophobia
A Conversation with Raef Zreik on the Arab intellectuals’ letter condemning antisemitism and rejecting the IHRA working definition of antisemitism
In November 2020, a group of 122 Arab scholars, journalists, and intellectuals published an unprecedented open letter – in English, German, Hebrew, Arabic, and French – unconditionally condemning antisemitism, while at the same time vehemently rejecting the IHRA working definition of antisemitism. The letter states:
“In recent years, the fight against antisemitism has been increasingly instrumentalized by the Israeli government and its supporters in an effort to delegitimize the Palestinian cause and silence defenders of Palestinian rights. Diverting the necessary struggle against antisemitism to serve such an agenda threatens to debase this struggle and hence to discredit and weaken it.”
Dr. Raef Zreik was among the initiators and drafters of this letter. In this encounter he will elaborate on his views about antisemitism, the fight against it, and it’s political instrumentalization within the context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Dr. Raef Zreik is co-director of the Minerva Center for the Humanities at Tel Aviv University, an Associate Professor at Ono Academic College, and a senior researcher at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem. His fields of interest include legal and political theory, citizenship and identity, and legal interpretation.
View the full recording of this event here:
https://youtu.be/cBX9XblaFHo
April 5, 2022, 1:00PM (EDT) / 20:00 (Israel time)
“Encounters”
The IHGMS and the Avraham Harman Research Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem present their annual series:
Conversations on Racism, Antisemitism, and Islamophobia
A conversation with Claudrena Harold on When Sunday Comes: Gospel Music in the Soul and Hip-Hop Eras
Gospel music evolved in often surprising directions during the post-Civil Rights era. Claudrena Harold's fascinating book When Sunday Comes: Gospel Music the Soul and Hip-Hop Eras (University of Illinois, 2020) illustrates the music's essential place as an outlet for African Americans to express their spiritual and cultural selves. Our conversation focuses on African-American identity and empowerment, and on anti-Black racism and bigotry by talking about and listening to the creative shifts, sonic innovations, theological tensions, and political assertions that transformed the music. Some of the key questions we shall discuss are: What were the major political transformations in gospel music between 1968 and 1994? In what ways were gospel artists shaped by larger political developments in the United States? And how did the end of de jure segregation alter the relationship between African American gospel artists and the predominantly white Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) industry?
Claudrena Harold is Professor of History at the University of Virginia.
View the full recording of this event here:
https://youtu.be/9AfdVQiJWWY
April 29-30, 2022
International Workshop | Genealogies of Self-Reflection
This workshop focuses on the participants’ various forms of memoir writing. The intention is to create a space to experiment with writing outside of the box, particularly related to family genealogies in which, at times, collective and subjective forms of trauma intermingle.
May 10, 2022, 1:00PM (EDT) / 20:00 (Israel time)
“Encounters”
The IHGMS and the Avraham Harman Research Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem present their annual series:
Conversations on Racism, Antisemitism, and Islamophobia
A conversation with Magda Teter on Blood Libel: On the Trail of an Antisemitic Myth
Accusations that Jews ritually killed Christian children emerged for the first time in 1144 and has continued since. In 2014 the Anti-Defamation League appealed to Facebook to take down a page titled “Jewish Ritual Murder.” Magda Teter’s new book Blood Libel: On the Trail of an Antisemitic Myth explored the history of this myth. Our conversation will focus on how the blood libel was internalized throughout the centuries, and why, how it affected Jews and Christians, and what are the meanings of it. Of special importance is the topic of antisemitism as it emerges from the book: what it was and is, and how to understand it today? What are the relations between antisemitsm and racism, which is Teter’s new book project?
Magda Teter is Professor of History and Shvidler Chair in Judaic Studies at Fordham University.
Registration is required to attend this Webinar. Register in advance here:
https://umass-amherst.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_jdp8ZbnSQ6y9xlY6bAx8Ig
May 30, 2022 – June 1, 2022
International Workshop | Defining Antisemitism between History and Politics
Defining antisemitism has become a battleground. Advocates and opponents of contending definitions confront one another in the printed press, online, and in social media. This workshop aims to provide a space for scholars from different disciplines to examine the current debate over definitions of antisemitism and to explore what is at stake in this debate. The workshop will take place at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and is supported by seven institutions from Israel, the UK, and the USA.
Academic Committee: Prof. Alon Confino, Prof. Manuela Consonni, Prof. David Feldman, Prof. Amos Goldberg, Prof. Shai Lavi, Prof Amos Morris-Reich, Dr. Dafna Schreiber
For more information about this International Workshop on Defining Antisemitism between History and Politics, visit here.
For more information about the Institute for Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies (IHGMS) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, visit our website, follow us on Facebook, or email us at ihgms@umass.edu . All Webinar events hosted by the IHGMS are recorded and made available to the public via our YouTube channel.