DAYS AND MEMORY

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DAYS AND MEMORY

A blog of the Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies

Days and Memory is a public forum created by The Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies (HGMS), an interdisciplinary program based at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Founded in 2009 and located within the Program in Jewish Culture and Society, HGMS provides a platform for cutting-edge, comparative research, teaching, and public engagement related to genocide, trauma, and collective memory. HGMS offers a graduate certificate in Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies to students registered in a degree-granting program at the University of Illinois, and it organizes conferences, workshops, and lectures that are open to the University of Illinois community and the broader public. You can also join our HGMS Facebook group page to stay informed about our upcoming events.

This blog is named in homage to Charlotte Delbo, the writer, resistance fighter, and Auschwitz survivor whose last book La mémoire et les jours was published in English as Days and Memory in Rosette Lamont’s translation. Delbo’s work combines powerful testimony, reflection on the nature of memory and trauma, and a transnational vision of solidarity. Our understanding of trauma, memory, and genocide studies is inspired by her example.

Days and Memory will serve as an opportunity to publicize and report on our local activities and to provide space for wide-ranging, open discussion of issues pertinent to trauma and memory studies. We envision the blog as a site for book reviews, conference reports, manifestos, and provocations as well as reflections on urgent political matters and untimely theoretical problems. We welcome the submission of short blog posts on relevant matters from any interested parties.

From 2013-2016, the blog was edited by Michael Rothberg and Jessica Young. We are excited to announce that starting in Winter 2016 the editor of Days and Memory will be Brett Kaplan, the new director of the Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies.

For more information, or to submit a blog post, contact the editor.

Editor
Brett Kaplan, University of Illinois (bakaplan[at]illinois.edu)

blog posts

Living Memory with Corinna

by Azlan SmithOct 29, 2022 9:45 pm

There are some thirty of us in Levis Faculty Center, sitting with Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim and with memories and pictures of her grandparents. Hermann da Fonseca-Wollheim was a German doctor drafted into World War I, four years on the Western Front, and then he left Europe as a ship’s doctor and a three-year resident of Sultanabad, what is now Arak, Iran. In October 1930 Hermann returned to Germany, unsure if there was a place for him there. He quickly fell in love with Käthe Stöver. Käthe had studied expressionist dance with the luminary Mary Wigman. Pictures show Käthe exuberant and joyous and sexy, playing with the camera’s eye; poised, kinetic, vivacious.
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Reflections on the Fourth Annual Graduate Student Symposium in Memory Studies

by Claire BaytaşMay 3, 2022 9:30 pm

On March 25, 2022, the Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies (HGMS) hosted the fourth annual Graduate Student Symposium in Memory Studies. Following the success of the first symposium in 2018, this symposium has been held roughly once per year to showcase the wide array of UIUC graduate student research on topics related to memory. The symposium organizing committee is spearheaded by Brett Kaplan, Professor of Comparative Literature and Director of HGMS. She worked alongside a team of graduate students—Claire Branigan, Dilara Çalışkan, Ragini Chakraborty, Naomi Taub, and myself—to put together this year’s event.
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4th annual HGMS Graduate Student Conference

by jewishculture@illinois.eduMar 9, 2022 9:15 pm
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Vulnerable Memory, Rebecka Katz Thor, October 26, 2021

by Helaine SilvermanNov 2, 2021 9:15 pm

On October 26, 2021 Swedish scholar Rebecka Katz Thor zoomed in for an Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide, Memory Studies (HGMS) faculty seminar to present a fascinating talk entitled “Remember to Life: Vulnerable Memory in a Prospective Monument, Memorial, and Museum.” Her talk considered Sweden’s official plans for a Holocaust Museum as well as an art association’s push to remember Swedish colonialism in the Caribbean, and a grassroots movement to memorialize victims of a racist serial killer. This three-year post-doctoral project builds on her earlier doctoral research.
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The Future of Trauma and Memory Studies Reading Group Discusses The Implicated Subject with Michael Rothberg

by Claire Baytaş and Dilara ÇalışkanMar 19, 2021 5:15 pm

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Future of Trauma and Memory Studies Reading Group switched from in-person to online meetings. While we greatly look forward to meeting in person again in the future, the Zoom meeting format has given us special opportunities to invite scholars from different institutions, countries, and continents to join in our reading group sessions. Recently, we were honored to host Professor Michael Rothberg from UCLA to discuss his most recent book, The Implicated Subject: Beyond Victims and Perpetrators (Stanford UP, 2019) in a special session held February 12, 2021.
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HGMS Screens Ver Vet Blaybn? (Who Will Remain?)

by Lizy MostowskiFeb 24, 2021 5:00 pm

In honour of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Wednesday, January 27th, the Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies had the great privilege of hosting a special preview educational screening of Ver Vet Blaybn? (Who Will Remain?), a documentary film about the renowned and distinguished Yiddish poet Avrom Sutzkever which follows his granddaughter, Israeli actress Hadas Kalderon, as she explores Vilna through her grandfather’s diary. The event was held just a week after the eleventh anniversary of his death and was certainly also held in Sutzkever’s memory.
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Third Annual Graduate Student Conference in Holocaust, Genocide, Memory Studies

by Claire BraniganNov 9, 2020 12:00 pm

On September 3, 2020, members of The Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies (HGMS) community gathered on Zoom for the third annual Graduate Student Symposium. Initially scheduled for March of 2020, this year’s digital symposium was nonetheless an opportunity for engaging presentations and discussion across a wide variety of academic disciplines and topics.
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Unorthodox: Virtual Panel Discussion

by Alyssa BralowerJun 4, 2020 9:15 pm

On May 7, 2020 the Program in Jewish Culture & Society held a virtual panel discussion of the Netflix mini-series Unorthodox, a fictionalized adaptation of Deborah Feldman’s eponymous 2012 memoir, Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of my Hasidic Roots. The conversation that unfolded during the virtual panel offered insights regarding mainstream society’s curiosity toward Haredi Jewish communities and analyzed the way that the aesthetics and narrative of Unorthodox play into our own expectations and anxieties that surround such groups. The event had over 175 attendees and was moderated by Dara E. Goldman (Director, Program in Jewish Culture & Society) and featured brief presentations by David Myers (UCLA), Nomi Stolzenberg (USC), and Rachel S. Harris (U of I) before opening for a discussion moderated by Liat Maggid Alon (Israel Institute Visiting Scholar, U of I).
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An online interview between Professor Brett Ashley Kaplan (HGMS) and Kevork Mourad

by Brett Ashley Kaplan and Kevork MouradMay 20, 2020 11:45 am

The Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide, Memory Studies invited Kevork Mourad to visit campus in April 2020, but regrettably, we had to postpone when all campus events were cancelled due to the outbreak of Covid-19. Kevork is a Syrian-born, New York-based Armenian artist who works both in 2D and 3D. He produces large-scale installations, ink drawings, illustrations for animated films, live-action sketches to music, and mixed media pieces for visual performances. An overview of images from Mourad’s diverse portfolio can be found on his website: https://www.kevorkmourad.com/
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Iraganeko Zuloa | Grandma's Medicine

by Ethan Madarieta and Brett Ashley KaplanMay 13, 2020 11:00 am

Ethan Madarieta, newly minted Ph.D. in HGMS and Comparative and World Literature, performed his second memory performance piece at the Levis Center on 23 September, 2019. The multimedia performance contained video, music, spoken word, and cooking and evoked memories of “grandma’s medicine,” a mysterious but alimentary substance which we audience members were offered as gifts at the close of the remarkable evening. ~ Brett Ashley Kaplan
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