When groundbreaking gender scholar Joan Ringelheim interviewed female Holocaust survivors throughout the 1980s, little was known about sexual violence during the Holocaust. What she discovered shocked her and made her question why scholars had paid so little attention: “I believe that we avoid listening to stories we do not want to hear. Sometimes we avoid listening because we are afraid; sometimes we avoid listening because we don’t understand the importance of what is being said.”
In this lecture, Bos discusses the latest findings on the topic, how the scholarship has evolved over time, and the taboos that remain.
Bos holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and is an associate professor of German, Netherlandic studies, and comparative literature at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research focuses on Holocaust and genocide studies, with a special emphasis on gender and memory, sexual violence and war, and the aftereffects of trauma and wartime violence. She is the author of “German-Jewish Literature in the Wake of the Holocaust: Ruth Klüger, Grete Weil and the Politics of Address” and has published numerous groundbreaking scholarly articles.
All Holocaust Living History Workshop events are free and open to the public, but registration is required. Registration will open approximately one month before the event date.
About the Holocaust Living History Workshop
This event is a part of the Holocaust Living History Workshop (HLHW) series, an education and outreach program sponsored by the UC San Diego Library and the Jewish Studies program. It aims to preserve the memories of the victims and survivors of the Holocaust by offering public events involving witnesses, descendants and scholars and through the use of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute’s Visual History Archive. Past HLHW workshops are now part of the Library’s digital collections and can be accessed online.
Sponsor: With support from Muir College’s LBGTQIA+ LLC
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