Lessons and Legacies XVII: Languages of the Holocaust

Lessons & Legacies is the largest international conference in Holocaust Studies. Sponsored by the Holocaust Educational Foundation at Northwestern University, the conference is held biennially in the United States. One day of the three-day conference was held at USC.

The conference brought together over 220 senior and junior scholars to discuss groundbreaking research on the Holocaust. The special focus of this conference was on languages of the Holocaust and its history, representation, and memory. This included not only presentations about the specific languages in which people have spoken and written – during and about – the Holocaust, or the theme of translation (both literal and figurative) in the field of Holocaust Studies, but also the ways in which the Holocaust has been represented in a wide range of discourses (documentary, archival, testimonial, judicial, academic, artistic, non-verbal, photographic), including after the war by survivors and their descendants, scholars, artists, filmmakers, and journalists.

Organized by:
Sarah Cushman (Director, Holocaust Educational Foundation at Northwestern University)
Conference co-chairs Jennifer Geddes (University of Virginia) and Sven-Erik Rose (University of California, Davis)
Conference seminar and workshop coordinator Anna Veprinska (University of Calgary)
Conference cohosts Wendy Lower (Claremont McKenna College), Jonathan Petropoulos (Claremont McKenna College), and Wolf Gruner (USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research)

Conference organizing team:
Eva Seligman (Holocaust Educational Foundation at Northwestern University)
Tiarra Maznick (Holocaust Educational Foundation at Northwestern University)
Kirsti Zitar (Claremont McKenna College)
Martha Stroud (USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research)

Supporters:

The conference was supported in part by funding from:

USC Shoah Foundation
Gould Center for Humanistic Studies at Claremont McKenna College
Crown Family Center for Jewish and Israel Studies at Northwestern University
German Federal Agency for Civic Education
Claremont McKenna College
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum