Conference focuses on controversial narratives of Holocaust, Third Reich

Attendees and speakers from around the world are traveling to attend an international conference on the Third Reich and the Holocaust at Cornell, April 12-14.

"Tales and Taboo: Controversial Narratives about the Third Reich and the Holocaust" is being hosted by Cornell's Department of Theatre, Film and Dance and by the Institute for German Cultural Studies. The conference is free and open to the public, and all events are being held at the A.D. White House on campus.

"The point of our conference is to focus on key issues of controversy which have emerged around this subject over the last 20 years," said Professor David Bathrick, conference co-host and chair of the Department of Theatre, Film and Dance. "Individual sessions will be devoted to substantive debate on such topics as the cinematic, literary, historical and cultural-political representations of the Third Reich as well as on more recent concerns about the Americanization, politicization and commercialization of Holocaust memory globally."

The conference kicks off at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 12, with words of welcome by Cornell Provost Biddy Martin and Bathrick. The evening's discussion on "National Narratives in Comparative Perspective" will include Gulie Neíeman Arad of Ben Gurion University of the Negev; Peter Novick of the University of Chicago; and Andreas Huyssen of Columbia University. Moderating the session will be Peter Hohendahl, the J.G. Schurman Professor of German and Comparative Literature at Cornell.

The conference continues on Friday, April 13, and features such controversial topics as "Holocaust as Civil Religion," "Trauma or Taboo?" and "Historical Narrative as Political Legitimation." Panelists include: Dan Diner of the University of Leipzig/Ben Gurion University; Lothar Probst of Bremen University; Helmut Dubiel of the University of Giessen/New York University; Gertrud Koch of Free University, Berlin; and Sigrid Weigel of the Technical University, Berlin, among others.

On Saturday, April 14, problems of representation take the forefront as individual panelists from Cornell, Harvard University, University of Rochester, SUNY Binghamton, Miami University, Princeton University and the University of Southern California bring to light research on such topics as "The Hitler Diaries," "The Reinvention of the Holocaust of West German Television" and "Reading Poetry from the Camps."

All of the conference sessions will be moderated by Cornell faculty members.

For more information on the conference, call the Department of Theatre, Film and Dance at 254-2700 or the Institute for German Cultural Studies at 255-8408. The complete conference schedule can be accessed online through the calendar section of the Department of Theatre, Film and Dance's home page at www.arts.cornell.edu/theatrearts.

The conference is co-sponsored at Cornell by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Provost's Office, the office of the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, the Society for the Humanities, the Institute for European Studies, the Jewish Studies program, the Department of German Studies, the University Lectures Committee and the New German Critique.