Award-Winning Author Dara Horn Headlines 2023 Holocaust Memorial Lecture On October 3

Award-winning Author Dara Horn’s latest book, her first work of nonfiction, examines a troubling reality of our times. In question form, it is this: How is that, in the 21st century, ignorance and indifference has given rise to hatred toward Jewish citizens?

People Love Dead Jews, a collection of 12 essays, was published in 2021 and will be at the center of a presentation by the author at the 2023 Holocaust Memorial Lecture at Keene State College on Tuesday, October 3, at 5:30 p.m.

Titled “In the Haunted Present: Jews in a Non-Jewish World,” the lecture will be held in the Mabel Brown Room, Lloyd P. Young Student Center. It will also be livestreamed.

Sponsored by the Cohen Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies, the event is free and open to the public but advanced registration is required. Doors open at 4:30 p.m. Online registration opens September 5 and closes September 26, earlier if tickets sell out.

Click here for more information.

Each year, the Cohen Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies has hosted the Holocaust Memorial Lecture, which invites scholars, writers, and activists to help listeners remember and think in new ways about the Holocaust and its relevance in our world today.

As a speaker and writer, Dara raises thought-provoking questions about how both the Holocaust and Jewish communities are framed in today’s world.” – Kate DeConinck, Director, Cohen Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies

Now the author of six books, and a three-time recipient of a National Jewish Book Award, Horn received her doctorate in comparative literature from Harvard, where she studied Yiddish and Hebrew. Host of a popular podcast and occasional contributor to the New York Times also dot her resume.

“Dara Horn’s lecture is a powerful way for the Cohen Center to kick off our 40th anniversary event series,” says Kate DeConinck, Director, Cohen Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. “As a speaker and writer, she raises thought-provoking questions about how both the Holocaust and Jewish communities are framed in today’s world.”

The title of Horn’s recent book is based on a 2018 article that she wrote for Smithsonian Magazine. That article began “People love dead Jews. Living Jews, not so much.” The book was a finalist for a prestigious Kirkus Prize in nonfiction.

In 2007, Granta magazine recognized Horn as one of America’s “Best Young American Novelists.” Horn was just 25 years old when she wrote her first novel, In the Image, which earned a National Jewish Book Award, the 2002 Edward Lewis Wallant Award.