Étoilement: The Starring Effect

March 15, 2018 at 4:00 PM

A public lecture by Mélanie Péron (Senior Lecturer in French, University of Pennsylvania)
2016-2017 Rutman Fellow for Research and Teaching

Organized by the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research

University of Pennsylvania
Cohen Hall Terrace Room (COHNG 14)

The creation of a digital map of Paris during the Occupation aimed at patching the blanks left in the national memory. Through the use of a meticulous and unpredictable method of knotting and unfolding, the VHA testimonies of three older ladies were connected to the interrupted stories of three young girls who lived in occupied Paris – Hélène Berr, Dora Bruder and Louise Jacobson. The result was a star-spray effect “a sort of lifting, suspension, a prolongation of a time that is not supposed to last.” In this lecture, Péron will explore how testimony can fill in the gaps in national memory and speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.

Mélanie Péron is a Senior Lecturer in French at the University of Pennsylvania and the Center for Advanced Genocide Research’s 2016-2017 Rutman Fellow for Research and Teaching. She earned her B.A., M.A. and Ph.D at the Université de la Sorbonne. Her research interests include 19th century French literature, Holocaust studies and digital pedagogy. Péron’s current research project aims to create a digital multi-layered map of Paris locating the places mentioned in testimonies from witnesses of the Shoah and post-memory novels.

This program is supported by Lori Rutman Fife, in memory of her parents Sherry and Henry Rutman, and the Penn Libraries.