CANCELED: Holy Cross Lecture to Survey Jewish Architecture since World War II

Gavriel D. Rosenfeld

NOTE: This event has been canceled. Gavriel D. Rosenfeld, author of “Building After Auschwitz: Jewish Architecture and the Memory of the Holocaust” (Yale University Press, 2011), will give a lecture at the College of the Holy Cross on Monday, Sept. 15 at 4:30 p.m. in Rehm Library. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Since World War II, Jewish architects have risen to unprecedented prominence. Rosenfeld will review the work of architects such as Frank Gehry, Louis I. Kahn, Moshe Safdie and Robert A.M. Stern, and consider how it reflects their Jewish identities and memories of the Holocaust.

Rosenfeld is a professor of history and director of the undergraduate program in Judaic studies at Fairfield University. He specializes in the history and memory of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. His many books include “Hi Hitler! How the Nazi Past is Being Normalized in Contemporary Culture” (Cambridge University Press, 2014), “The World Hitler Never Made: Alternate History and the Memory of Nazism” (Cambridge University Press, 2005), and “Munich and Memory: Architecture, Monuments and the Legacy of the Third Reich” (University of California Press, 2000).

Rosenfeld’s lecture is part of a series on “Time, Memory and Identity,” co-sponsored by the Rev. Michael C. McFarland, S.J. Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture and Arts Transcending Borders at Holy Cross. It is supported by the Kraft-Hiatt Fund for Jewish-Christian Understanding.

The McFarland Center will present related events, free to the public, including:

  • Monday, Sept. 22 at 7 p.m. at Seelos Theater – Genocide Awareness Lecture by James Waller, Cohen Endowed Chair of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Keene State College
  • Monday, Oct. 6 at 7:30 p.m. in Rehm Library – “Understanding American Jews: demographically complicated, religiously diverse, stronger than ever, and still at risk" by Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president emeritus of the Union for Reform Judaism
  • Monday, November 3 at 7:30 p.m. in Rehm Library – "To Capture the Fire: The Life and Works of Elie Wiesel” by Alan Rosen, a renowned scholar of Holocaust literature

To learn more and to find lectures online, visit www.holycross.edu/mcfarlandcenter.

About the Rev. Michael C. McFarland, S.J. Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture:

Established in 2001 and housed in Smith Hall, the McFarland Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture provides resources for faculty and course development, sponsors conferences and college-wide teaching events, hosts visiting fellows, and coordinates a number of campus lecture series. Rooted in the College's commitment to invite conversation about basic human questions, the Center welcomes persons of all faiths and seeks to foster dialogue that acknowledges and respects differences, providing a forum for intellectual exchange that is interreligious, interdisciplinary, intercultural, and international in scope.  The Center also brings members of the Holy Cross community into conversation with the Greater Worcester community, the academic community, and the wider world to examine the role of faith and inquiry in higher education and in the larger culture.