Representing Jewish History...
International Conference
REPRESENTING
JEWISH HISTORY
IN european and american popular culture, Museums and Public SPaces
The event is organized by the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in co-operation with the German Historical Institute in Warsaw.
conference
May16-18 2015
Warsaw
About the Conference
The framework of the conference is the role of history in the public space and in popular culture, with emphasis on the use of recent Jewish history in a broad context. In this era of technological innovations that bring an abundance of new information to a wide audience, historical knowledge has not become obsolete. It may have changed its functions, but it has claimed a role in public attention. Historical novels have achieved bestseller status, such as Olga Tokarczuk's 900 page historical novel Jacob's Books. TV and cinema are flooded with historical productions that are often box-office hits and artistic successes, such as the NBC miniseries Holocaust, Lanzmann's Shoah, Benigni's Life is Beautiful, Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards or Pawlikowski's Ida. Each of these productions drew large audiences as well as extensive critical commentary.
There has been a proliferation of websites devoted to Jewish family genealogy, demonstrating the importance of historical roots for constructing personal identity. There are ample opportunities for tourists to design an itinerary through the sites of their family and community's past. Personal memoirs that include the sagas of previous generations within pre-Holocaust Europe, such as Edmund de Waal's The Hare with Amber Eyes, are part of the phenomenon. Museums offering an attractive package of historical content enjoy school visits as well as numerous individual visitors. At the same time university lecturers discover that their students confuse World War Two with World War One or assume that an event of 1863 took place in the 18th century, demonstrating total ineffectiveness of school learning. Is the incorporation of history into popular culture a remedy against historical illiteracy, or does it increase the confusion of who, when and why?
De Waal's The Hare with Amber Eyes, Tokarczuk's Jacob's Books or the newly opened Warsaw Museum of the History of Polish Jews POLIN all illustrate interest in the history of European Jews going generations or centuries into the past. Yet at the same time it is the Holocaust that continues to be the key historical event drawing attention of scholars, artists and politicians. It seems necessary to clearly distinguish between a critical-analytical Holocaust research which is still trying to tackle the why-question, and the problem of how to adequately represent the events as well as the use of the Holocaust commemoration for identity politics in the public sphere, which often hijacks the obligation of remembrance. Phenomena such as trivialization, mythologization, reconciliation kitsch obfuscate the fact that the mental structures which made the Holocaust possible have not disappeared. It seems that some initiatives and actions use Holocaust commemoration for identity politics, thereby avoiding a conscious engagement with the reality of the events and their legacy. In relation to the Holocaust history enters the present in the ways that call for particularly sensitive critical reflection.
The conference programme will begin with a visit to the POLIN Museum of the History of the Polish Jews in Warsaw.
Our focus of interest for this meeting is how past and present interact: specifically how recent Jewish history makes itself visible in modern art forms, fiction and poetry, comic strips, films and TV productions, as well as in museums and public spaces.
Prof. Lucyna Aleksandrowicz-Pędich
Call for papers
In the context of the above framework we are looking for papers addressing the following issues:
- popular culture as a space for visions and revisions of history, the Holocaust in particular, but other aspects of Jewish history and traditions as well;
- infiltration of history into cinema and TV productions;
- popular culture vis-à-vis traditional narratives;
- functionality of history;
- museology: presenting and representing Jewish history and traditions in non-Jewish environments and in Israel;
- uses of history in various spheres of public life and culture;
- de-professionalization/de-academization of historical knowledge;
- Jews and popular culture: Jews as artists/creators as well as representations of Jewishness in popular culture.
Paper proposals should include a summary of up to 500 words and should be sent by February 28, 2016 to the address [email protected].
All other queries should be sent to the same address.
Conference Programme
Day 1 Visit to POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews 14.30 – 18.00
Day 2 SWPS University, ul. Chodakowska 19/31
8.45 - 9.15 Registration
9.15 – 10.30 Room N 121A Opening. Chair Annette Aronowicz
- Na’ama Sheffi “Mephisto in Israel: Art, Politics and Universal Morals”
- Jody Myers “The Use of Nazi Decrees in Orthodox Jewish Apologetics”
10.30 – 11.00 Coffee break
11.00 – 12.30 Room N 121A Session „Jewish History in Museums” Chair Hannah Maischein
- Karolina Krasuska “Equality or Difference? Gendering the Holocaust Gallery in POLIN”
- Adam Morgenstern “Public History of the Holocaust in Two Los Angeles Museums”
- Richard Menkis “Rogues Need not Apply”: Representations of Canadian Jewish History in Two Museum Exhibitions”
12.30 – 13.30 Lunch break
13.30 – 15.00 Room N 121A Session „In the Public Space of Warsaw” Chair Olga Kaczmarek
- Sabine Stach “Tracing Korczak and Karski... Narrating Jewish History in Commercial Guided Tours - Warsaw as a Case Study”
- Ewa Chomicka and Agnieszka Pindera “Artistic residencies at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews - a case study for a historical museum becoming a centre for creative work”
- Tanja Schult „Establishing Polish Responsibility for Holocaust Memory”
15.00-15.30 Coffee break
15.30 – 17.00 Two parallel sessions
1/ Room N 121 A Session „Playwriting and Filmmaking” Chair Samantha Baskind
- Barry Keane “Leon Kruczkowski’s Julius and Ethel – staging and reception”
- Marta Dudzik-Rudkowska „New Immigrants, Pioneers, Oriental Jews. Images of Early Israelis in Early Israeli Comedy – Case Study: Ephraim Kishon’s Sallach Shabati and Uri Zohar’s Hole in the Moon”
- Alicja Piechucka „Conspicuous By Their Absence: Jewishness and Jewish Heritage in Glenio Bonder’s Adaptation of Albert Cohen’s Belle du Seigneur”
2/ Room N 218 Session „Ways of Representing Jewish History and Culture” Chair Jody Myers
- Perla Sneh “Among Letters and “Pilotes” – Jewish Presence in Argentinian Popular Culture and Public Space”
- Natalie Wynn “Popular Representations of Irish Jews”
- Eva Pfanzelter “Selfies, Likes & Co: Performances of the Holocaust in German and English Social Media Sites”
17.00 - 17.15 short break
17.15 – 18.45 Two parallel sessions
1/ Room N 121A „Holocaust and Jewish Culture Education” Chair Brygida Gasztold
- Jacek Konik “Jewish history and culture: programme for in-service teacher training in Poland”
- Katarzyna Łaziuk „Preserving the Memory of Polish Jews – Practical Ideas”
- Rachel Brenner „Survivors’ Testimonies in Holocaust Education – Some Methodological Reflections”
2/ Room N 218 „Holocaust Memory in Israel” Chair Na’ama Sheffi
- Danielle Eliyahu “Commemorating Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day: The Significance of National Ceremonies, the Education System and Media”
- Eyal Zandberg “Holocaust memory and humoristic sketches in Israeli television”
- Liat Steir Livny “Humoristic Representations of the Holocaust on Israeli Social Media”
19.00 – Dinner at Szklarnia Restaurant near SWPS University
(from 13.45 -15.15 – an additional event for students: „Documenting Experiences of Grandparents’ Generation”)
Day 3 DHI (German Historical Institute / Niemiecki Instytut Historyczny) Aleje Ujazdowskie 39
9.00 – 9.40 Opening. Chair Katrin Stoll
- Sara Bender “Jews through Polish eyes – The Image of Jews as reflected in the Diaries written in Hiding by Leib Rochman and Haim Einhorn, 1942-1944”
9.45 – 11.15 „Between Shtetl-World and American Culture” Chair Lucyna Aleksandrowicz-Pędich
- Jacek Partyka “The Sublimated Holocaust: The Historical Novels of Charles Reznikoff, Isaac Bashevis Singer and Bernard Malamud”
- Marianne Windsperger “In Search of a Lost Shtetl-World? The Role of the Yiddish Intertext in American Popular Culture”
- Victoria Khiterer “We are from Jazz: Leonid Utesov, Isaac Dunaevsky, Alexander Tsfasman and Eddie Rosner”
11.15 – 11.45 Coffee break
11.45 – 13.15 „From Polish National and Local Discourse” Chair Annette Aronowicz
- Hannah Maischein “Eye-witnessing: Constructing Jews as Alterity in Polish Holocaust Memory”
- Olga Kaczmarek “Popular – Mainstream – Vernacular: Modes of representing the current discussions on wartime Polish/Jewish relations in contemporary Polish culture”
- Vasco Kretschmann “Local Jewish History in the Museums of Wrocław between 1945 and 2010”
13.15 – 14.15 – Lunch break
14.15 – 15.45 Session „Film and TV” Chair Liat Steir-Livny
- Eyal Boers “Black Book: Dutch Prototype or Jewish Outsider”
- Samantha Baskind “Rod Serling’s In the Presence of Mine Enemies (1960), the Warsaw Ghetto, and the Horizon of Expectations”
- Roi Izhak, Avigal Rivkin, Yarden Kaplan “Highlighting the Selectiveness of Israel’s Collective Memory towards the Holocaust”
15.45 – 16.15 – a short walk in the neighbourhood
16.15 – 16.45 – coffee break
16.45 – 17.45 – „The Holocaust and Its Legacy in Popular Culture” Chair Karolina Krasuska
- Rachel Brenner “Retelling the Holocaust: Popular Culture and the Evasion of the Message in the Story”
- Brygida Gasztold “Of Love and War: Poles and Jews in Rutu Modan’s The Property”
17.45 - 18.15 Closing Session Chair Na’ama Sheffi
- Sharon Rubinstein, Inbar Shiran, Meitar Tubal „Safeguarding of Private Memories”
Conference Fees
The conference fee is 450 PLN (US $ 150, Euro 130)
Please send the payment to the bank account given below by April 15th 2016.
In order to identify your payment, please add: name + „Jewish History”
Bank account
- for payments in PLN:
Raiffeisen Bank Polska S.A.
17 1750 0009 0000 0000 1095 1089
- for payments in euro:
Raiffeisen Bank Polska S.A.
ul. Piekna 20, 00-549 Warszawa
PL20 1750 1019 0000 0000 2125 4223
IBAN: PL20 1750 1019 0000 0000 2125 4223
SWIFT: BIC: RCBWPLPW
- for payments in USD
Raiffeisen Bank Polska S.A.
ul. Piekna 20, 00-549 Warszawa
PL86 1750 0009 0000 0000 1095 1108
BIC: RCBWPLPW
IBAN: PL86 1750 0009 0000 0000 1095 1108
The fee will cover conference materials, coffee breaks, two lunches, dinner on the first day and tickets to the POLIN Museum of the History of the Polish Jews.
Travel grants
The German Historical Institute (GHI) Warsaw awards travel grants to academics who wish to take part in the conference. For this purpose the GHI will reimburse the travel costs for the journey to and from Warsaw and cover the costs for accommodation for three nights (15 to 18 May) in a Warsaw hotel (Mercure).
The grant is directed to students, graduate students, doctoral candidates, and post-doctoral students working on a subject related to the conference. Please send your application to: [email protected]
It is to include a covering letter and a short description of your research project/research interests.
Deadline for application of travel grants: 15 March 2016
Conference Organizers:
- Prof. Lucyna Aleksandrowicz-Pędich, Institute of English, SWPS University
- Ms. Emma Oki, MA, Institute of English, SWPS University
Scientific Committee:
- Prof. Annette Aronowicz, Franklin & Marshall College, Lancaster, USA
- Prof. Jody Myers, California State University Northridge, USA
- Prof. Na'ama Sheffi, Sapir College, Israel
- Prof. Piotr Skurowski, SWPS University, Warsaw, Poland
- Dr Katrin Stoll, German Historical Institute, Warsaw, Poland
Venue:
Day 1 (May 16th): Visit to the Museum of the History of Polish Jews POLIN
(Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich, ul. Mordechaja Anielewicza 6, 00-157 Warszawa)
Day 2 (May 17th): SWPS/University of Social Sciences and Humanities
ul. Chodakowska 39, Warszawa (Praga)
Day 3 (May 18th): Niemiecki Instytut Historyczny w Warszawie
Pałac Karnickich, Aleje Ujazdowskie 39, Warszawa