Since January 2012, the Holocaust and Genocide Studies Project at Portland State has been actively engaging the university and the public in an important area of study. The HGSP, housed under the Portland Center for Public Humanities, has organized a series of events in an effort to educate students, faculty and the larger community about the Holocaust and the global implications of genocide and, in turn, help create opportunities for change.
A look into the Holocaust and Genocide Studies Project
Since January 2012, the Holocaust and Genocide Studies Project at Portland State has been actively engaging the university and the public in an important area of study.
The HGSP, housed under the Portland Center for Public Humanities, has organized a series of events in an effort to educate students, faculty and the larger community about the Holocaust and the global implications of genocide and, in turn, help create opportunities for change.
The project has an interdisciplinary scope, involving faculty from several disciplines: history, English, Judaic studies and world languages and literature.
“As a collective, we think about programming that will focus on a comparative study of genocide,” said Marie Lo, director of the PCPH.
Nathan Cogan, a retired professor emeritus at PSU and an advisory board member for the HGSP, made a significant donation to the PCPH to help get the program off the ground.
“My motivation for this program comes from the fact that we keep avoiding the larger issues of genocide,”
Cogan said.
A watermark event that inspired Cogan to bring this issue to PSU was an anti-genocide conference put on by the American Jewish World Service in Washington D.C. in 2006. About 80,000 people showed up to end the genocide in Darfur, and Cogan was a Portland delegate.
“People were angry about the failure of various nations to get more involved,” he said. “If you start tracing Holocaust and genocide programs in the United States, they have doubled in the last five or six years, with more B.A. degrees and minor certificates, ever since Darfur.”
A film series currently hosted by the HGSP reflects this interdisciplinary perspective. The three films, which began on March 6 with a screening of The Secret Life of Words, were chosen by three advisory board members from different departments. Each film is followed by a discussion with a professor who teaches in relevant areas of study.
A Film Unfinished, which will screen on March 13, was the choice of Judaic studies professor Natan Meir.
“I think this is one of the best documentaries about the Holocaust to come out in the last few years, because it shows a different a side of the picture. It challenges the viewer about what we can actually know,” Meir said.
As a young project, started only last year, there is much on the horizon for the HGSP.
“Perhaps what may eventually evolve is some sort of certificate program,” Meir said.
