The Alan D. Leve Center is thrilled to announced that Michael Rothberg has been awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship for his upcoming book project, Comparison Controversies: Conflicts in Cultural Memory, which will examine the impassioned public debates that emerge from both provocative historical comparisons and from the use of historical analogies to describe contemporary crises.
Left to right: Professor Janine Zacharia, UCLA undergrad Michaela Esposito, Visiting Graduate Researcher Ann Pei, UCLA undergrad Gillian Smith and Maia Gelerter, UCLA Professor Sarah Abrevaya Stein
How many UCLA undergraduate students finish their degrees having played a significant role in the book publishing process? Michaela Esposito, Maia Gelerter, and Gillian Smith, three Alan D. Leve Center Undergraduate Fellows with additional help from Visiting Graduate Researcher Ann Pei, will be able to say they have. Esposito, a second-year history major; Gelerter, a fourth-year history major and art history minor; and Smith, a fourth-year history and anthropology double major, are currently working with Sarah Abrevaya Stein, Sady and Ludwig Kahn Director of the UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies, on editing the memoir of Holocaust survivor Israel Cappell. The three women have worked together on various aspects of the publishing process; from transcribing handwritten pages, to identifying the people and locations mentioned, to copy editing the finalized manuscript, Esposito, Gelerter, and Smith are playing an integral role in the preparation of Cappell’s work for publication. Their research is supported by the Ted & Kathleen Buchalter Centennial Scholars Fund in Jewish Understanding.
Sarah Abrevaya Stein, Sady and Ludwig Kahn Director of the Alan D. Leve Center, was recently featured on NPR’s The Academic Minute! Presenting a two and a half minute module on Vichy labor camps in the Sahara desert, Stein is bringing her cutting edge research to a broader audience through this public facing format. Interest piqued? Take a listen or a give her piece a quick read!
Sarah Stein & Aomar Boum, “80 years ago, Nazi Germany occupied Tunisia – but North Africans’ experiences of World War II often go unheard,” The Conversation, 15 November 2022.
Sarah Stein & Aomar Boum, “Famine as a Weapon of War, From Wartime North Africa to Ukraine Today,” Los Angeles Review of Books, 28 July 2022.
Sarah Stein & Aomar Boum, “Praise poems depict North African Jewish Responses to World War II,” Jewish Journal 12 July 2022.
Sarah Stein & Aomar Boum, “How North African Jews Have Been Erased From Holocaust History,” Ha’aretz magazine, 28 June 2022.
Sarah Stein & Aomar Boum, “North African Jews During World War II,” Jewish Review of Books (Spring, 2022).
Sarah Stein, “Vital Hasson, the Jew who worked Nazis, hunted down refugees, and tore apart families in WWII Greece,” The Conversation (2020)
Aliza Luft, “vichy’s family separation policy, and our own,” scatterplot (2020)
Sarah Stein & Aomar Boum (event) “What we lose when we ignore Holocaust history in North Africa,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Medium magazine (2019)
Sarah Stein & Aomar Boum (event) “Beyond Hollywood’s Casablanca: North Africa and the Holocaust,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (2019)
2021 – “African scholars say it’s time to discuss the Holocaust, again” Forward.com, March 10, 2021.
Michael Rothberg–public writings:
“Wissenschaftler müssen vergleichen.” [“Scholars must compare.”] Berliner Zeitung. February 8, 2022, p. 14. Reprinted as “‘Multidirektionale Erinnnerung’: Missverständnisse und gezielte Verschleierungen.” [“ ‘Multidirectional Memory’: Misunderstandings and Deliberate Obfuscationsn.”] Frankfurter Rundschau. February 14, 2022.
“On the Possibilities and Pitfalls of German Holocaust Memory Today.” AICGS Blog. January 27, 2022.
“We Need to Re-Center the New Historikerstreit.” ZEIT Online. [And in German as: “Der neuer Historikerstreit bedarf einer anderen Richtung,” tr. Michael Adrian.] July 24, 2021.
“Literature Doesn’t Stop at the Unspeakable.” Review of Ghislaine Dunant, Charlotte Delbo: A Life Reclaimed. Massachusetts Review Online. July 22, 2021.
“‘People with a Nazi Background’: Race, Memory, and Responsibility.” Los Angeles Review of Books, May 20, 2021.
“Menschen mit Nazihintergrund” [People with a Nazi Background], tr. Hanno Hauenstein. Berliner Zeitung, April 11, 2021, p. 15.
“Enttabuisiert den Vergleich!” [De-stigmatize Comparison!]. With Jürgen Zimmerer. Die Zeit, March 31, 2021, p. 59.
“Holocaust Memory after the Multidirectional Turn,” [And in German as: “Dialog statt Opferkonkurenz,” tr. Max Henninger]. Berliner Zeitung, February 22, 2021.
“Comparing Comparisons: From the Historikerstreit to the Mbembe Affair.” [Published simultaneously in German translation as “Vergleiche vergleichen. Vom Historikerstreit zur Causa Mbembe.”] Geschichte der Gegenwart. September 23, 2020.
“The Specters of Comparison.” [Published simultaneously in German translation by Kathrin Hadeler: “Das Gespenst des Vergleichs.”] Latitude, Goethe Institute Blog. May 15, 2020.
Michael Rothberg–interviews and multimedia:
“On Memory and Comparison.” The Connecting Memories Podcast. July 28, 2022.
“Colonization, Occupation, and Reconciliation: Interview with Michael Rothberg” [And in German as “Kolonisierung, Besatzung und Versöhnung”].Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Blog. July 5, 2022.
“A New German Historians’ Debate? A Conversation with Sultan Doughan, A. Dirk Moses, and Michael Rothberg: Parts I and II,” moderated by Jonathon Catlin, JHI Blog, February 2 & 4, 2022.
“‘Erinnerung ist kein Nullsummenspiel’: Michael Rothberg im Gespräch mit René Aguigah” [“Memory is not a zero-sum game.” Michael Rothberg in conversation with René Aguigah]. Deutschlandfunk Kultur. August 8, 2021.
“Multidirektionales Erinnerung gegen Rassismus und Antisemitismus” [Multidirectional Memory against Racism and Antisemitism]. ManyPod. Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung. April 30, 2021.
“Menschen mit Nazihintergrund” [People with a Nazi Background]. This is Germany. April 29, 2021.
“Guilt and/or Responsibility.” Interview by Hedvig Turai. Memory of Rape in Wartimes project. April 22, 2021. Text in Hungarian also available in Artportal.