Nearly 250 teacher-scholars in Holocaust and genocide studies arrived at CMC from 25 different countries to take part in the 2024 Lessons and Legacies conference.
The biennial conference is the premier international scholarly gathering in Holocaust studies, and aims to bring together scholars working in different languages, disciplines, discourses, and methodologies for intellectual exchange. This year, the conference, held Nov. 14-17, focused on languages of the Holocaust and its history, representation, and memory. CMC previously hosted the conference in 2006 and 2016.
“We are proud to host this global research conference, especially as an undergraduate institution, as it places us on the map of genocide and Holocaust studies,” said Professor Wendy Lower, director of the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights, which co-hosted the conference with the University of Southern California, in partnership with the Holocaust Educational Foundation of Northwestern University.
“We reunite for a third time at CMC as a vibrant field of established and emerging scholars, determined to research and make sense of the history of mass atrocities, drawing from the most documented case on record: the Holocaust. There is much to be learned and still to be discovered as archives open. And it takes an interdisciplinary, international team to mine and interpret the multilingual sources,” said Lower.
Lower, along with History Professor Jonathan Petropoulos, and Professor Emeritus John K. Roth joined the conference panels, with Lower introducing the keynote speaker, Sara Horowitz, and chairing the panel, “Forensic Language: Evidence, Justice, Prosecution, and Reclamation.”
Students also took part in the event, helping to manage the conference logistics, while engaging with experts in the field.
For Ethan Hemby ’27, an Economics major, the conference provided “a new perspective on testimonies and diaries from the Holocaust, as well as helped me a lot with the research paper I am writing,” he said.
Leigh Hasuman ’27, an Environment, Economics, and Politics major, said this was her first academic conference experience. “So being able to attend Lessons and Legacies was a learning experience in and of itself, and led me to reflect on how we approach Holocaust studies, through both our approach to evidence, and in how we teach it.”