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

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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Job Market Tips and Suggestions

by Ethan MadarietaMay 12, 2020 11:45 am

Comparative Literature and Holocaust, Genocide, Memory Studies graduate student Ethan Madarieta defended and deposited his dissertation, “The Practice Of Memory: Decolonial Resistance In Indigenous Chile And The Chilean Diaspora” in April, 2020. He has accepted a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor of English at SUNY New Paltz to begin in August 2020. Because I (Brett) taught the Comparative Literature Professionalization seminar in Spring 2020, Ethan joined the class (via zoom) to discuss his experiences with the students. Here are his tips for the job market.
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What Mnemonics Has Meant to Me on My Path to Finding My Intellectual Home in Academia

by Helen MakhdoumianFeb 10, 2020 4:00 pm

In September 2019, I had the good fortune to present for the second time at Mnemonics: Network for Memory Studies, a collaborative initiative for graduate education in memory studies. Each year, a partner institution hosts this three-day summer school around a pressing theme in cultural memory studies. Utrecht University hosted the 2019 summer school. This year’s program generated lively discussions pertaining to the theme of “Memory and Activism.” Previously, I participated in the Mnemonics summer school held on our Urbana-Champaign campus. The theme for that 2016 session was “The Other Side of Memory: Forgetting, Denial, Repression.”
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Melissa Bilal Presents Research on Armenian Lullabies, Print Culture, and Remembrance Practices to the UIUC Campus Community

by Helen MakhdoumianJul 19, 2019 4:45 pm

As part of its commitment to hosting an annual Armenian Studies event, the Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies (HGMS) welcomed Melissa Bilal this April. Professor Bilal received her PhD in Ethnomusicology from the University of Chicago and is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at the American University of Armenia.
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Reflections on HGMS Grad Student Symposium 2019 by Juan Andres Suárez Ontaneda

by Juan Andres Suárez OntanedaJul 19, 2019 4:45 pm

Going to the archive is not always a conscious choice. As I write about the 2019 Graduate Symposium in Memory Studies (Friday 03/01/2019), I feel like a mediator between the notes in my notebook and my personal memory of the event. At times both forms of inscription work in tandem, but at other times they seem to be at odds with each other. Much beyond my own mediation, this year’s Symposium illustrated the potent research being conducted by Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies (HGMS) members and scholars who are dealing with memory studies from a plurality of angles.
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From Events in 2017-18 to Setting up the April 24th Fund: A Reflection on Continuing to Create Space for Armenian Studies through HGMS

by Helen MakhdoumianOct 17, 2018 4:45 pm

A few years ago, as a McNair Scholar at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah, I listened to a panel of graduate students discuss their experiences in academia. Opportunities like these gave me hope for the possibility of being fortunate enough to continue to receive a higher education and invaluable insights that would help me further think through the questions I was asking about the Armenian diaspora and its memory work, the travels of Western Armenian and its potential vibrancy between two mountain ranges locally and across borders globally, and our ever-changing transnational community’s beautiful artistic and literary production.
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