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Holocaust Lecture Series

38th Annual Holocaust Lecture Series

Posted by on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 in 2015.

Now in its 38th year, Vanderbilt’s annual Holocaust lecture series is the longest-running program of its kind at any university in the U.S.

This year’s theme is gender and genocide. As one of our presenters this year, Elisa von Joeden-Forgey, has written:

“The gender question in genocide goes well beyond the experiences of women and girls, the perpetration of gender-based crimes (against both men and women), or even the comparative study of the experiences of men and women. Rather, it involves … considering the simultaneous operation of gender within several different layers that contribute to the perpetration of the crime. These layers include:

  • The gendered ways in which the perpetrators define both their own group and the group(s) they are targeting;
  • The gender dynamics that organize the economic, political, social, and familial spheres within perpetrator and victim societies;
  • The gendered strategies pursued in the course of group destruction; and
  • The influence of gender on conceptions of self and on experiences of conflict among perpetrators, victims, bystanders, and witnesses.”

Our series this year explores how the multifaceted entanglements of gender and genocide, as they manifested themselves during the Holocaust, provide insight into some of the most salient and challenging issues in contemporary society.