Alexander Colloquium

Jeffrey Shandler (Professor of Jewish Studies at Rutgers University) Thursday, November 8, 2012 Before Anne Frank’s diary became one of the world’s most widely read books, it was a private manuscript. The book that millions of readers know as The Diary of a Young Girl has a complicated history of writing, rewriting, and editing by several hands. Since its first publication in the original Dutch in 1947, it has appeared in dozens of translations and hundreds of editions. Each edition presents the diary anew, with different introductions, explanatory material, and cover art. At the same time, Anne Frank’s original diary notebook, in its plaid notebook, has become a treasured icon, commemorated in museum exhibitions, films, even architecture. Exploring these many transformations of the diary shed light on how Anne Frank’s life and work have become fixtures of public culture throughout the world.

In a recent book, Professor David Engel has argued that Jewish historians have erected a "wall separating study of the Holocaust from study of all other aspects of the Jewish past," and have left detailed exploration of the Holocaust to scholars of Europe, Germany, or the Third Reich. Samuel Kassow and David Engel, both distinguished scholars of Jewish History and the Holocaust, will discuss how the Holocaust has (or has not) been incorporated into the writing and teaching of Jewish history. Professor Thomas Childers, a leading historian of modern Germany, will offer a response to their dialogue. David Engel is Maurice R. and Corinne P. Greenberg Professor of Holocaust Studies and Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, and History at the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University. He is author of Historians of the Jews and the Holocaust. Samuel D. Kassow is Charles H. Northam Professor of History at Trinity College. He is author of Who Will Write Our History?: Rediscovering a Hidden Archive from the Warsaw Ghetto. Respondent: Thomas Childers is Sheldon and Lucy Hackney Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. The 25th Annual Joseph Alexander Colloquium is sponsored by the Joseph Alexander Foundation and the Mackler Family, and co-sponsored by Penn's Jewish Studies Program, the Department of History, and the Department of Germanic Languages & Literatures.

Professor Yigal Schwartz, Ben-Gurion University, delivered the Jewish Studies Program's Annual Joseph Alexander Colloquium entitled "Zionist Dilemmas: Internal Conflicts in Israeli Literature and Culture, 1948-2000," on Tuesday, October 13, 2009, on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania.