College of Charleston Mosse Lecture
Surreal Geographies: A New History of Holocaust Consciousness
Kathryn Brackney (Universiteit Leiden)
Comment by Sheer Ganor
Chaired by Chad S.A. Gibbs
Surreal Geographies recovers a forgotten archive of Holocaust representation. Examining art, literature, and film produced from the immediate postwar period up to the present moment, Kathryn L. Brackney investigates changing portrayals of Jewish victims and survivors. In so doing, she demonstrates that the Holocaust has been understood not only through the documentary realism and postmodern fragmentation familiar to scholars but also through a surreal mode of meaning making. From an otherworldly “Planet Auschwitz” to the spare, intimate spaces of documentary interviews, Brackney shows that the humanity of victims has been produced, undermined, and guaranteed through evolving scripts for acknowledging and mourning mass violence.
Kate Brackney is Assistant Professor of History at Leiden University. Her current research explores how aesthetic norms have developed for remembering the Holocaust and other crimes against humanity. She teaches courses in modern European intellectual and cultural history. Before coming to Leiden, she taught at the Pozen Center for Human Rights at the University of Chicago and Harvard College’s History & Literature Program. She holds a Ph.D. from Yale University.
Sheer Ganor is a historian of German-speaking Jewry and modern Germany. Her work focuses on the nexus of forced migration, memory and cultural identities. She is currently working on a book manuscript titled “In Scattered Formation: Displacement, Alignment and the German-Jewish Diaspora.” This study traces the emergence of a transnational diasporic network of Jewish refugees who escaped Nazi Germany and its annexed territories. Prior to joining the University of Minnesota, Sheer held a postdoctoral research fellowship at the German Historical Institute. She has published in the Journal of Contemporary History, the German Historical Institute Bulletin Supplement and others. Her research has been supported by a variety of institutions, including the Central European History Society and the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes.
Chad S.A. Gibbs is a historian of the Holocaust, antisemitism, and war and society. His work is devoted to understanding the timing, choices, and tactics of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust. Chad makes extensive use of oral history sources and practices both inside and outside the classroom. In that area, he holds ongoing positions as an Affiliated Researcher at the USC-Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research and a Scholar Interviewer with the USC Shoah Foundation.
