Two CJS faculty members, Rachel Brenner and Teryl Dobbs, are taking part in a panel that has been selected for live-streaming at the upcoming annual conference of the Association for Jewish Studies. See below for more information on the session.
The session can be streamed on Facebook Live for free, registration not required. Sessions will stream live and will not be recorded. Below is a link to the AJS Facebook page, where the sessions wills be streamed:
https://www.facebook.com/AssociationforJewishStudies
Uses and Abuses of Art in Representations of Holocaust Violence
Tuesday, December 15, 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM CST
Rachel Feldhay Brenner (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Batya Brutin (Beit Berl Academic College), and Teryl L. Dobbs (University of Wisconsin-Madison), with respondent Rosemary Horowitz (Appalachian State University), and chair Michlean Lowy Amir (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)
The adage “when the guns roar, the muses fall silent” does not reflect adequately the reality of the Holocaust violence which was not limited the physical annihilation of the Jewish victims. The scheme of the Final Solution aimed also at the dehumanization of the victims; it intended to destroy the victims’ dignity, beliefs, and identity. Distorted forms of art were called on to disfigure the victims, disparage their cultural heritage, and reaffirm their moral repulsiveness. Such use of art in the process of dehumanization violated not only the victims’ sense of humanity; it violated art itself, stripping it from its humanistic value. This panel shows the diverse role of visual arts, music, and literature in a) the documentation of the abuse, b) the contribution to the process of dehumanization, and c) the production of the story of continuing degradation.