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Shorter College Slates Seminar on the Holocaust
Published Feb 20, 2007
(Updated Mar 6, 2007)
Three scholars will join together to present a seminar on the Holocaust at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, March 6, in ShorterCollege’s Brookes Chapel. The event is sponsored by Shorter’s Department of History and Political Science and Eta Pi Sigma, the history and political science club. The public is invited to attend at no charge.
The program includes Dr. Russel W. Lemmons, professor of history at Jacksonville State University, who will discuss “Resistance in the Buchenwald Concentration Camp”; Dr. Brian Nedvin, assistant professor of music at Shorter College, whose topic will be “Song Literature of the Holocaust”; and Dr. Jonathan Goldstein, professor of history at the University of West Georgia, who will discuss “The Jews of Manila and Holocaust Rescue.” Each of these scholars teaches courses on the Holocaust.
“Given the contemporary world environment in which the leaders of important states in extremely volatile areas actively deny the historical fact that the Holocaust occurred, this is a particularly important time to address this topic,” said Dr. James M. Scarry, assistant professor of history at Shorter College and coordinator of the event. “The fact is that with every passing day there are fewer survivors of and witnesses to the Holocaust to testify to its reality. Eventually there will be none left to give the testimony: ‘I was there. I saw.’ That is why it becomes even more important for scholars to remind both students and the public of the persecution and systematic destruction of more than 6 million human beings.”
The March 6 seminar will include 20-minute presentations by each scholar and will conclude with a question-and-answer period.
Dr. Lemmons has been recognized with the Jacksonville State University College of Letters and Sciences’ Distinguished Research and Teaching Awards. His career has focused on the history of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. In 1988, he received a Fulbright-Hays grant to study with Professor Wolfgang Wippermann, a leading specialist on 20th century German history, at the Freie Universität in Berlin. His work with Professor Wippermann contributed to Dr. Lemmons’ first book, Goebbels and Der Angriff. He has received numerous other awards for study and research into aspects of the Holocaust and has served on JacksonvilleState’s Holocaust Commemoration Committee since 1995. He is a contributor to the book Holocaust Chronicle andwrote four entries in Richard S. Levy’s Anti-Semitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution.
Dr. Nedvin serves as assistant chair of the Music Department at Shorter and is a member of the college’s voice faculty. He is also an avid student of the Holocaust and is working to develop a study abroad opportunity for Shorter students to take an educational tour of Holocaust sites. An operatic tenor, Dr. Nedvin has performed and lectured on Holocaust music in “A Lecture Recital on Holocaust Song Literature” at the University of North Texas, College of Music; his 2006 faculty lecture/recital at Shorter also featured music of the Holocaust.
Dr. Goldstein teaches courses on the Holocaust and the history of Modern Israel. His research specialties are East Asian international relations and the Jewish communities of East, Southeast and South Asia. In 1992, he organized and chaired the National Endowment for the Humanities research conference “Jewish Diasporas in China,” which was held at HarvardUniversity. The author of The Jews of China and another volume on China and Israel, Dr. Goldstein is researching Chinese Consul General Feng Shan Ho as a Holocaust rescuer.
