2005-2006 Strassler Family Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies The people, programs, and events advancing scholarship in the field of Holocaust and genocide studies YEAR END ACTIVITIES AND 2005 GIFT REPORT June 2005 through May 2006 Whoever fails to increase knowledge, decreases knowledge —The Ethics of the Fathers “Gratitude is born in hearts that take time to count up past mercies.” It is my privilege to be grateful to a near-by and far-flung community that has grown—and continues to build—the Strassler Family Center. Each person brings gifts, skills, and strengths to shape our endeavor. Thanks to administrative assistant Margaret Hillard for her attentive supervision of infra- structure systems through the Center’s exponential expansion and for the superior standard of efficiency she has set; to program manager Dr. Tatyana Macaulay for her commitment and passion which produce bold, exciting, and perfectly organized events as well as fruitful collaborations with other educational organizations; and to bookkeeper Ghi Vaughn who has wrapped her arms around a complex financial system and keeps us in the clear. A special welcome to Dr. Mary Jane Rein, who has joined the Center as executive director, and brings new energy and ideas to this engaged and active community. I thank, too, my colleagues in other departments who generously mentor our doctoral stu- dents. This past year, Clark professors Eric Gordy, Beverly Grier, Walter Schatzberg, and Jaan Valsiner served as key advisors to Center graduate students. They were joined by colleagues at other universities: Evan Bukey; Barbara Harff; Cynthia Hooper; Sam Kassow; Ellen Kellman; Eric Markusen; Robert Melson; Milton Shain; Robert Jan van Pelt; Eric Weitz; and Piotr Wrobel. Giving the gift of time and expertise, each enriched the intellectual universe of the student, and thus enriched the entire community. AUTHORS Stefanie Fischer, Professor Shelly Tenenbaum, director of the Undergraduate Concentration in Holocaust and Tiberiu Galis, Naama Haviv, Genocide Studies, serves our entire undergraduate body, and I am deeply appreciative of the Rachel Iskov, Judith Jaeger, work she continues to undertake, reshaping the concentration as the Center has grown. I am Jeffrey Koerber, grateful, too, to Associate Provost Nancy Budwig who, with her time and effort, manifests the JulieAnne Mercier-Foint, engagement and support of the University administration. Mary Jane Rein To all I say with Shakespeare: I thank you for your voices: Thank you. EDITOR Judith Jaeger Judith Jaeger, interim director of University Communications, is the editor-in-chief of this Report, and she deserves all the credit for a document that, despite the fact that it grows each CREATIVE SERVICES year, becomes a smoother enterprise to produce. Finally: please note the new design, which MANAGER allows us to report our always increasing volume of activities in a reader-friendly format. Kay Hartnett It is—as is the design throughout—the genius of Sandy Giannantonio. PHOTOGRAPHY Rob Carlin, Jeffrey Koerber, Tammy Woodard DESIGN Giannantonio Design PRINTER XXXXX 40 SAVE THESE DATES SAVE THESE DATES Please join us for the exciting array of upcoming public programs! Call 508-793-8897 for further information, or visit the Center’s Web site, www.clarku.edu/departments/holocaust, for a complete listing of events. FALL 2006 NOVEMBER 8, 2006 • 4 P.M., ROSE LIBRARY “Revolution and Genocide in Ethiopia and Date, time and location to be announced Cambodia: Some Lessons for the Compara- “Stop the Darfur Genocide!” tive Theoretical Study of Genocide” U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern (D-MA) • A NEW BOOK! Edward Kissi, Assistant Professor of Africana SEPTEMBER 12, 14, 16 AND 17 • ROOM 320, Studies, University of South Florida JEFFERSON ACADEMIC CENTER “Our Destiny is FATELESS” NOVEMBER 30, 2006 • 4 P.M., The Center is co-sponsoring a screening of ROSE LIBRARY this film with the Worcester-based Cinema “The Holocaust, Communism, and the 320 film series. The film will be shown at Jews of Warsaw” 7:30 p.m. on September 12, 14 and 16, and Piotr Wrobel, Associate Professor of History, at 1 and 3:40 p.m. on September 17. Tickets Konstanty Reynert Chair of Polish Studies, are sold at the door: $5.50 for the general University of Toronto public, $3.50 with a current Clark ID or for those age 60 and older. SPRING 2007 SEPTEMBER 20, 2006 • 4 P.M., ROSE LIBRARY MARCH 15-MAY 31 • COHEN-LASRY HOUSE “The Past and the Future of the Memory “Neighbors who Disappeared” of the Holocaust in Poland” Exhibition of photographs from the Jewish • A NEW BOOK! Museum in Prague Joanna Michlic, Assistant Professor of MARCH 15 • 7:30 P.M., ROOM 320, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Richard JEFFERSON ACADEMIC CENTER Stockton College of New Jersey “Between Civilization and Statecraft: OCTOBER 5, 2006 • 7:30 P.M., TILTON HALL Armenia at the Crossroads” “Hurricane Katrina and the Destruction Raffi Hovannisian, Founding Director, of a Culture” Armenian Center for National and Interna- tional Studies Elizabeth English, Associate Professor, Louisiana State University Hurricane Center APRIL 18 • 7:30 P.M., TILTON HALL OCTOBER 19, 2006 • 7:30 P.M., “Case Closed: Holocaust Survivors TILTON HALL in Postwar America” “Search for Mengele” • A NEW BOOK! David Marwell, Director, Museum of Jewish Beth Cohen, 2003 doctoral graduate of the Heritage—A Living Memorial to the Strassler Center and lecturer, University of Holocaust California, Northridge A lecture in memory of Simon Wiesenthal. This lecture is supported by the Asher Family Fund. OCTOBER 26, 2006 • 4 P.M., COHEN-LASRY HOUSE “The Anti-Jewish Policy of the Fascist Regime” Lilliana Picciotto, Historian, Center for Con- temporary Jewish Documentation, Milan, Italy STRASSLER FAMILY CENTER FOR HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE STUDIES LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR 1 Letter from the Director August 2006 Dear Friends, “Education is not the filling of a pail, but decade. Once lit, the fire of this emerging the lighting of a fire,” the poet William field glows incandescent. Butler Yeats observed. This certainly has proved true in the case of the Strassler The education we provide comes at an Center for Holocaust and Genocide opportune moment. Evaluating the state Studies. I came to Clark 10 years ago, in of American intelligence work, many September 1996, cradling a vision of a analysts have noted an inability to ask degree-granting research center actively the right questions. “I can’t believe that involved in the public realm. With the as a nation we are incapable of getting support of imaginative and generous this right,” the New York Times quoted donors, the energy of fellow faculty, and Henry Rowen, former senior official at the the commitment of the administration, Pentagon and at C.I.A. headquarters. His we initiated a rich undergraduate program solution: “You better have some people in Holocaust and Genocide Studies that who understand history. Instead they’ve now offers some 26 courses taught by 15 gotten sucked into the current-intelligence professors in six departments; mounted a business, which is death to knowing cutting-edge doctoral program specifically what’s going on.” We agree. Focusing on Debórah Dwork in Holocaust History, followed by a doctor- Holocaust history and genocide studies, Rose Professor of Holocaust al stream in Genocide Studies; developed we study the past in order to analyze the History meaningful partnerships with academic present and give shape to the future. Director, Strassler Center institutions and public organizations in We aim to recognize genocidal ideologies for Holocaust and Genocide Studies Europe and America; renovated a building before they take control, and to develop to house the Center and won six architec- strategies for deterrence. tural awards for it; purchased a core research library that has grown by five The need is great, and the timing urgent. hundred books each year; run an outreach The number of people murdered in Darfur lecture series free and open to the public; continues to climb, sectarian violence and participated in significant public serv- rages in East Timor and Iraq, and Iranian ice projects and debates. Our first doctoral officials have unleashed a program to class has earned their degrees, and our identify and monitor all persons of the second will be graduated this year. And Bahai faith. As we here at the Center we continue to grow, welcoming Professor grow and shape the field of Holocaust Robert Melson, past president of the Inter- history and genocide studies, we hold national Association of Genocide Scholars, fast to the wisdom of Abraham Joshua whose expertise expands our teaching and Heschel: To be is to stand for. research agenda in comparative genocide studies. All this, in the span of a single We look to you for support, as we move forward together. STRASSLER FAMILY CENTER FOR HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE STUDIES 2 VISITING PROFESSOR PROFILE Dr. Barbara Harff: Proventus Distinguished Visiting Professor The Center community has long admired full-steam ahead in her work, shifting Barbara Harff for her brilliant research focus from prediction to prevention. into the causes of genocide and her work to identify where genocidal activity is likely “People talk about prevention, but nobody to emerge in order to allow for political knows what works,” Harff noted. She aims prevention and humanitarian intervention. to identify just that, undertaking a histori- Faculty, graduate students, and undergrad- cal survey of potential genocides that were uates welcomed Harff’s return to the Center prevented or averted, who was involved, as the Proventus Distinguished Visiting what they did to stop the mass murder, and Professor for the fall 2005 semester. how it worked. She set her students at Clark to this task as well. Undergraduates Proventus Distinguished Visiting Professor A pioneer in the field of genocide studies, studied a specific case, developed a hypo- Barbara Harff Harff serves as senior consultant to the thesis about how the genocide was stopped White House-initiated State Failure Task and then analyzed what happened nine Force (now called the Political Instability months prior to the genocide to see if their Task Force) and is internationally known hypothesis was correct.