Days of Remembrance SUNY Plattsburgh's Commemoration of the Holocaust

[Christina LaMora]

The Jewish Studies Program invites all members of the SUNY Plattsburgh
community to join us for several upcoming events surrounding Holocaust
Remembrance Day in April.


On *Monday, April 13*, we welcome *Dr. Erica Lehrer*, Professor of History
and Director of the Curating and Public Scholarship Lab at Concordia
University in Montreal, to deliver a public lecture as part of the *Douglas
R. Skopp Speaker Series on the Theme of the Holocaust*. The title of her
talk will be “Terribly Close: Polish Vernacular Artists Face the
Holocaust.”

A distinguished cultural anthropologist and museologist, Dr. Lehrer is an
international leader in scholarly efforts to reimagine the role of the
museum in public life. She currently directs the the 7-year, $2.5 million
international team project *Thinking Through the Museum (TTTM): A
Partnership Approach to Curating Difficult Knowledge in Public (2021-2028)*,
funded by the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
(SSHRC). Her many publications include *Beyond Museum Walls: Museums and
the Academy in Tension and Dialogue* (2024), *Jewish Space in Contemporary
Poland* (2015), and *Jewish Poland Revisited: Heritage Tourism in Unquiet
Places *(2013).



Dr. Lehrer’s lecture will examine “folk art” made by non-professional
Polish artists – many of them village laborers – documenting the German
Nazi occupation of Poland and the Holocaust. Made largely in the 1960s and
70s, these objects are uncanny: at times deeply moving, at others
grotesque, they can also be disturbing for the ways they impose Catholic
idioms on Jewish suffering, or upend accepted roles of victim, perpetrator,
and bystander. These “awkward objects” provoke profound reactions in
viewers, and raise complex questions about the relationship between art and
traumatic memory.



The lecture will take place in the Douglas and Evelyne Skopp Memorial
Holocaust Gallery in Feinberg Library from 1:00 to 2:00 PM. It will be
followed by coffee and discussion with Dr. Lehrer in the Reading Room on
the third floor of Feinberg Library from 2:00 to 2:30.


On *Tuesday, April 14*, we will hold our annual *Days of Remembrance
ceremony* from 4:00 to 5:00 in the Skopp Gallery. Our featured speaker will
be *Dr. Christopher Kirkey*, Director of the Center for the Study of Canada
and the Institute on Quebec Studies at SUNY Plattsburgh. The title of Dr.
Kirkey’s talk will be “Intentionality and the Implementation of the Final
Solution.” Mr. Robert Harsh, Dr. Andrew Buckser, and Rabbi David Joslin
will also speak.


All events are free of charge and open to the public.

The work of the Jewish Studies Program is supported by generous gifts to
the Plattsburgh College Foundation. Additional assistance is provided by
the School of Arts and Sciences and Feinberg Library.

For more information about the Skopp Speaker Series, the Days of
Remembrance, and the Jewish Studies Program, please contact Dr. Andrew
Buckser, Director of Jewish Studies, at abuck005 at plattsburgh.edu.
CHRISTINA LAMORA
Administrative Assistant II
Office of the Dean, Arts & Sciences
101 Ward Hall
101 Broad Street
Plattsburgh, NY 12901
(o) 518-564-3150

[image: SUNY Plattsburgh Logo]
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ls.plattsburgh.edu/pipermail/employee-digest/attachments/20260409/6aac51a7/attachment.htm>