Prof. Waller to Lead Two Workshops in NYC

Cohen Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies James Waller will be the primary speaker and workshop leader at two programs presented by the Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation and the National Museum of the American Indian in New York City at the end of October.

Dr. Waller will lead a workshop for educators, “Memory, Remembrance, & Memorials,” on Thursday, Oct. 30, from 1–4:30 p.m. at the National Museum of the American Indian. Historical memory contributes to the formation of individual and group identities, so this workshop will invite participants to explore how traumatic historical events are remembered and memorialized. Participants will consider such essential questions as “What are the politics of memory?” and “Who gets to construct these memories and narratives?” Representatives from Lower Manhattan museums and cultural institutions will share resources for the classroom that address these issues.

The second workshop, “Representing and Interpreting Traumatic History,” will take place on Friday, Oct. 30, from 9:30 a.m.–noon, and is intended for Lower Manhattan museums and cultural organizations. It will also be held at at the National Museum of the American Indian and will address the vital role that museums and cultural organizations play in developing material that helps the public—and students in particular—understand how we locate traumatic events in our memory, especially when deciding how individual and collective trauma is interpreted and transmitted. Participants will be introduced to the work and mission of partner museums and cultural organizations in Lower Manhattan.

“I’m excited to be doing this with folks in attendance from the new National September 11 Memorial Museum,” Dr. Waller said, “and it will have great application for the new seminar I’m teaching here at KSC next fall titled ‘Indigenous Genocides’ that will cover extermination of native peoples in Australia, Canada, and the US. On a broader level, this is a great connection for us with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian and should open up yet another avenue for student internships in the future.”