András Riedlmayer from the Fine Arts Library at Harvard University will be speaking at the University of Delaware on November 14 and 15 at two events sponsored by the Center for Global and Area Studies' Jewish Studies Program.
On Thursday, November 14, at 7pm in 103 Gore Hall, Mr. Riedlmayer will be presenting "A European Islam in the Balkans: History, 'Ethnic Cleansing' and the Search for Justice."
Based on Mr. Riedlmayer's fieldwork for the UN war crimes tribunal, his presentation outlines the history of this region's diverse cultural heritage, as well as his findings concerning its fate in the 1990s wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, and efforts to bring to justice those criminally responsible for this destruction.
This event is co-sponsored by the Jewish Studies Program, Department of History, Islamic Studies Program, European Studies Program, Preservation Studies Program, and the Institute for Global Studies. Additional information regarding this event can be found here.
On Friday, November 15, at 12:30pm in 203 Munroe Hall, Mr. Riedlmayer will deliver the Chaiken Endowment Colloquium, entitled "Memory after Genocide: From Armenian Memorial Books to Yizkor Books to Facebook."
The 'ethnic cleansings' and genocides of the 20th and 21st centuries have resulted in the destruction of people and of entire communities and of their history and culture. In this presentation, we will briefly explore attempts by exiled survivors to recover and preserve the memory of their loved ones and of the landmarks and histories of their lost home towns and villages. We will look at a number of examples of such efforts, ranging from communal memorial books (houshamadyan) produced by survivors of the 1915-1918 Armenian genocide, to the memorial books (yizker-bikher) published by hometown associations of Jewish Holocaust survivors, to the memorial blogs and websites created by refugees from the Bosnian genocide in the early days of the Internet, to the Facebook pages that seek to preserve the personal and communal memories of people fleeing the current carnage in Syria. All of these raise questions about the nature of history and memory and of the permanence of the historical record. Lunch will follow the colloquium.
This event is co-sponsored by the Jewish Studies Program and the Department of History. Additional information regarding this event can be found here.
Please contact Katie Capallo for additional information.
