1st Edition

Advancing Holocaust Studies

Edited By Carol Rittner, John K. Roth Copyright 2021
    212 Pages 1 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    212 Pages 1 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    The growing field of Holocaust studies confronts a world wracked by antisemitism, immigration and refugee crises, human rights abuses, mass atrocity crimes, threats of nuclear war, the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic, and environmental degradation. What does it mean to advance Holocaust studies—what are learning and teaching about the Holocaust for—in such dire straits? Vast resources support study and memorialization of the Holocaust. What assumptions govern that investment? What are its major successes and failures, challenges and prospects? Across thirteen chapters, Advancing Holocaust Studies shows how leading scholars grapple with those tough questions.

    Prologue: What’s It For?

    Carol Rittner and John K. Roth

    Chronology: Events Advancing Holocaust Studies, 1945–2020

    Carol Rittner and John K. Roth

    Part One: Journeys

    1. Places I Have Been

    John K. Roth

    2. Peripheral Vision

    Sara R. Horowitz

    3. Living Alongside the Holocaust: A Personal and Professional Journey

    Edward T. Linenthal

    4. The Memorialist

    James E. Young

    Part Two: Challenges

    5. Holocaust Studies: A Compass

    Debórah Dwork

    6. Thinking Back and Looking Forward: Holocaust Education in a Troubled World

    Alex Alvarez

    7. Culture Matters: Warnings and Implications from the Holocaust

    Jonathan Petropoulos

    8. Catholics, the Holocaust, and the Burden of History

    Robert A. Ventresca

    9. Intersections: Holocaust Studies, Personal Lives

    Wendy Lower

    Part Three: Prospects

    10. Holocaust Studies: Why, How, and Wherefore

    Robert P. Ericksen

    11. My Unorthodox Path: Towards Integrative, Interdisciplinary, and Comparative Holocaust Studies

    Wolf Gruner

    12. A Stone under the Wheel of History

    Lisa Moses Leff

    13. Words Matter

    Carol Rittner

    Epilogue: Why?

    Carol Rittner and John K. Roth

    Biography

    Carol Rittner is Distinguished Professor Emerita of Holocaust and Genocide Studies and Dr. Marsha Raticoff Grossman Professor Emerita of Holocaust Studies, Stockton University. Her books include The Holocaust and the Christian World: Reflections on the Past, Challenges for the Future and Women, the Holocaust, and Genocide.

    John K. Roth is Edward J. Sexton Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Founding Director, Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights (now the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights), Claremont McKenna College. His books include The Failures of Ethics: Confronting the Holocaust, Genocide, and Other Mass Atrocities and Sources of Holocaust Insight: Learning and Teaching about the Genocide.

    "... an illuminating, probing, thrilling, sobering, questing, far-ranging, and ultimately reaffirming series of personal stories and surveys of the current and future state of Holocaust studies."

    Richard Middleton-Kaplan, Shalom, US

    "Advancing Holocaust Studies is a riveting collection of essays by world-re-nowned scholars in the field, reflecting on both their personal journeys and the professional lenses through which they see their research, teaching, and writing. Through these individual voices, the reader is presented not only with the complex-ity of the field as it has evolved but indications about its future directions."

    Joey G. Gratz, Gratz College, Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations