Abstract
From the vision of the President’s Commission on the Holocaust in 1978 to the celebrated opening of the USHMM in 1993, immense challenges confronted those tasked with the creation of this influential institution. How should Holocaust memory be situated in the United States? Can a “hybrid” institution—a memorial and a museum—honor both the commemorative and historical voice? Where should such an institution be located? Should the architecture be neutral or expressive of the event? How can a museum exhibition—through text, artifact, visual evidence, oral history—convey the reality of the Holocaust? This presentation will offer a biography of the making of this significant institution.
Edward T. Linenthal is Professor of History at Indiana University, Bloomington, and served as editor of the Journal of American History from 2005-2016. He has been a Sloan Research Fellow in the Arms Control and Defense Policy Program at MIT, where he did the research for his first book, Symbolic Defense: The Cultural Significance of the Stratigic Defense Initiative. He is also the author of: Sacred Ground: Americans and Their Battlefields; Preserving Memory: The Struggle to Create America's Holocaust Museum; and The Unfinished Bombing: Oklahoma City in American Memory. He has co-edited several books, including History Wars:The Enola Gay and Other Battles for the American Past, with Tom Engelhardt; American Sacred Space, with David Chidester; and most recently The Landscapes of 9/11: A Photographer's Journey, with art historian Christiane Gruber and photographer Jonathan Hyman.
Linenthal has served as a Visiting Scholar for the National Park Service and for almost a decade was a member of the Flight 93 Memorial Commission. He co-directs a Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History summer Teacher Seminar, “9/11 and American Memory,” at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York. He also served on an advisory committee for memorialization of the July 22, 2011 terrorist attacks in Norway.
Sponsored by the Department of Art History and co-sponsored by the Jay Phillips Center and the Department of Theology. To make an accessibility request, call Disability Resources at (651) 962-6315.