Center for Holocaust and Gender Studies to Hold Two Virtual Events in November


The William Paterson University Center for Holocaust and Gender Studies will hold two virtual events in November 2023 in commemoration of Kristallnacht. 

A short film, A Holocaust Journey: Lessons We Learned, followed by a discussion, will be presented on Thursday, November 2 from 4:00 to 5:15 p.m. The film presents the experiences of a group of students at Saint Elizabeth University who traveled to Germany and Poland with survivors, children of survivors, and community members in 2016 to try to comprehend the reality of the Holocaust.

Joining the discussion will be Harriet Sepinwall, who arranged the trip, and the film’s director, Lisa Reznik. Sepinwall, a major leader of Holocaust education in New Jersey since the 1990s, is a professor emerita at Saint Elizabeth University, where she co-founded the Holocaust and Genocide Education Resource Center. Teachers will receive a "teacher's toolkit" guide created by the speakers that expands upon the content in the film. To attend, please register at this link.  

Author and historian Dr. Brandy Schillace will give a talk and lead a discussion based on her article in Scientific American, “The Forgotten History of the World’s First Trans Clinic,” on Thursday, November 16, from 4:00 to 5:15 p.m.

Schillace is the editor of BMJ’s Medical Humanities Journal. Her recent book, Mr. Humble and Dr. Butcher, explores Cold War medicine, bioethics, and transplant science. Her next nonfiction book, The Intermediaries, will tell the forgotten history of the interwar Institute of Sexology in Berlin: trans activists, the first gender-affirming surgeries, and the fight for LGBTQ rights in the shadow of the Nazi Third Reich. She hosts a regular YouTube show, Peculiar Book Club, and has appeared on Travel Channel’s Mysteries at the Museum, NPR’s Here and Now, and the History Channel. She has written for WIREDGlobe and Mail, WSJ Books, and Medium.

This presentation is presented as part of the Office for Student Diversity and Inclusion's Transgender and Non-Binary Awareness Week, with funding provided by a generous gift to the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies from the Marjorie and Selwyn Jacobs Family Fund. It is co-sponsored by the Office of the President, College of Education, Center for Teaching Excellence, and Department of Community and Social Justice Studies. To attend, please register at this link.

11/02/23