2005 JACK AND ANITA HESS FACULTY SEMINAR
The Holocaust and Antisemitism in France

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies announces the 2005 Jack and Anita Hess Faculty Seminar on the Holocaust in France for professors who are now teaching or preparing to teach a course on 20th-century France. The 2005 Hess Faculty Seminar will be the sixth in a series of CAHS programs aimed at strengthening Holocaust teaching at the university level. The seminar will comprise daily lectures and discussions on such topics as the prewar background of antisemitism in France, the Jewish refugee crisis of the 1930s, the antisemitic policies of the Vichy government, the role of public opinion in the Holocaust in France, Jewish responses to the Holocaust, and Holocaust memory and Holocaust denial in French national consciousness.

The seminar will be led by Professors Henry Rousso and Vicki Caron. Dr. Henry Rousso is the Director of l’ITHP (the Institute of the History of the Present) at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and Professor at the Nanterre branch of the University of Paris. He is a leading expert on France’s World War II Vichy regime and on contemporary issues related to Holocaust memory, racism, and violence. His publications include The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France since 1944; Vichy: An Ever-Present Past; and The Haunting Past: History, Memory and Justice in Contemporary France. Dr. Caron is the Diann G. and Thomas A. Mann Professor of Modern Jewish Studies at Cornell University and the 2005 J. B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Senior Scholar at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. She is an expert on the history of the Jewish community of France and French-Jewish relations. Her publications include Uneasy Asylum: France and the Jewish Refugee Crisis, 1933-1942; Between France and Germany: The Jews of Alsace-Lorraine, 1871 – 1918; and Jewish Emancipation Reconsidered: The French and German Models, co-edited with Michael Brenner and Uri R. Kaufmann.

The seminar is scheduled for January 5 – 11, 2005. Candidates must be faculty members at accredited, degree-awarding institutions (baccalaureate, the equivalent, or higher) in North America. Applications must include a curriculum vitae, a short statement of the candidate’s specific interest, and a supporting letter from a departmental chair or dean that addresses the candidate’s qualifications and the institution’s commitment to Holocaust-related teaching and research. If the candidate has already taught a Holocaust-related course, a course syllabus should be included. All syllabi will be distributed at the seminar to facilitate a discussion of Holocaust pedagogy.

A maximum of twenty applicants will be accepted. The Center will defray the cost of (1) direct travel to and from the participant’s home institution and Washington, DC, and (2) lodging for non-local participants for the duration of the seminar. Incidental and meal expenses must be defrayed by the candidates or their respective institutions. All participants are required to attend all of the seminar sessions. An introduction will be provided to the Museum’s library and extensive archival holdings (an Archival Guide is available at www.ushmm.org), as well as to the Museum’s other research collections and teaching resources.

Applications must be postmarked no later than November 5, 2004 and sent to: University Programs, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW, Washington, D.C. 20024–2150 (Fax: 202-479-9726, E-mail: university_programs@ushmm.org). Candidates will be notified of the results of the application process by November 22, 2004.

This seminar has been endowed by Edward and David Hess in memory of their parents, Jack and Anita Hess, who believed passionately in the power of education to overcome racial and religious prejudice.