This course is designed to provide students with basic curatorial skills for working in both Holocaust Museums and Heritage Sites. Comprised of 2 modules -theoretical and practical- students will be given the opportunity to study the academic components of Museum Studies, and subsequently, translating their historical knowledge into useful skills within Museum spaces and Heritage Sites. The course will place a strong emphasis on Holocaust Museums in particular. We will explore the birth of Holocaust museums in the 20th Century and how they have evolved; didactically, architecturally, and advancements in educational directives through museum spaces. Furthermore, students will assess how audiences in future generations will engage with Holocaust Sites and museums. Academic components of the course explore a variety of subjects including; Heritage Interpretation, Understanding Significance, Collections Management & Object Care, Building Memorials, Intangible Heritage, and Shared Heritage. Practical components of the course will include an in-depth assessment of curatorial styles used in Holocaust museums and memorials in Israel and abroad.

2024-2025 Course Syllabus

This course surveys art produced in extremis during the Holocaust, by individuals in hiding, or in the camps and ghettos. Together, we will explore how victims used artistic expression as both a means of documentation and as a form of “creative resistance” to communicate their protest, despair, or hope. Course readings couple secondary literature with primary sources and ego documents of the period, such as the artists’ own writings and diaries. Particular attention will be given to the social, political and cultural contexts of art production and reception.

Course Syllabus

The Shoah is a historical event which continues to baffle, appall, and chide humanity. In this course, we will read authors whose work grapple with the multi-faceted implications of this war and its myriad of experiences. Some of the authors we read are people who lived through the worst of Europe between1933-1947. Other authors are second-generation survivors. Moreover, other literature we read has been written by Jews and non-Jews who struggle to fathom the unfathomable, and who are not only keen on ‘never forgetting,’ but are as frequently intent on trying to identify themselves and their generation as in relation to this tragedy. Some of the ‘classics’ of Shoah literature will be on the syllabus. Additionally, lesser-known works by young European, American, and Israeli authors will also appear. Most of what we read will be prose, but we will also look at poetry, non-fiction, plays, and films.

2024-2025 Course Syllabus