UCSC alumnus James E. Young--an award-winning author, professor, and consultant for major memorials and museums--will deliver the Helen Diller Family Foundation Distinguished Lecture on Friday, April 24, at 11 a.m. in the Media Theatre at UC Santa Cruz.
Young will speak on the topic: "Stages of Memory in Berlin and New York." Admission is free and the public is welcome.
Young is the author of At Memory's Edge: After-images of the Holocaust in Contemporary Art and Architecture, The Texture of Memory, which won the National Jewish Book Award in 1994; and Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust, which won a Choice Outstanding Book Award for 1988.
Young was the guest curator of an exhibition at the Jewish Museum in New York City, entitled "The Art of Memory: Holocaust Memorials in History" in 1994. Three years later, he was appointed by the Berlin Senate to the five-member Findungskommission for Germany's national "Memorial to Europe's Murdered Jews," dedicated in 2005.
Young has also consulted with Argentina's government on its memorial to the desaparacidos, as well as with numerous city agencies on their memorials and museums.
Most recently, he was appointed by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation to the jury for the World Trade Center Site Memorial competition.
Young is currently professor of English and Judaic Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Chair of the Department of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies. His numerous books and articles have been published in German, French, Hebrew, Japanese, and Swedish.
Young is one of a remarkable number of UC Santa Cruz alumni who have gone on to become distinguished scholars of Jewish studies. On April 26, a conference will bring 10 of these alumni together for the very first time with their former teachers to discuss the impact of Santa Cruz on their intellectual development and research.
They will also explore the question of whether there is a distinctly Santa Cruz approach to Jewish Studies.
Alumni, students, faculty, and other members of the broader Santa Cruz community are invited to attend and discuss Jewish studies past, present, and future on campus. The conference takes place on Sunday, from 1 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. in the Humanities 1 Building, Room 210. Admission is free.
This conference is made possible by a grant from the David B. Gold Foundation.
For more information, go to the UCSC Jewish Studies web site at http://jewishstudies.ucsc.edu/ or call (831) 459-1225.
