Ackerman Center Podcast

Tune in next Sunday, January 31 at 10am for the first episode of our new podcast season. 

In the first season finale, Dr. Sarah Valente and Dr. Nils Roemer invite Jane Saginaw, an outstanding PhD student in the Humanities program at UT Dallas, to read a few poems from her collection, "A Shift in Wind: Ten Poems of Women and the Holocaust," which she wrote as a creative research paper for Dr. Valente's graduate history course on Women and the Holocaust. Listen as Jane shares her deeply-moving poems and speaks about the women who inspired them, as well as the powerful mechanisms of resistance women developed as they fought to survive starvation, fatigue, and the brutalities of the Holocaust. 

In this episode, Dr. Roemer and Dr. Valente discuss how the current pandemic changes the ways in which we engage with the past, history and Holocaust memory. #kristallnacht #remembrance #future

Dr. Sarah Valente and Dr. Nils Roemer reflect on the Ackerman Center's annual Einspruch Lecture Series, which took place on October 25 and featured Ben Ferencz. As the last living prosecutor for the US Army at the Einsatzgruppen Trial, one of the twelve military trials held by US authorities at Nuremberg, Germany, at 100 years old, Ben Ferencz shares words of wisdom with all of us. Listen to this special episode and share with those who are interested in truth, justice, and memory. 

In Episode 21: L’dor V’dor From Generation to Generation, Dr. Nils Roemer and Dr. Sarah Valente talk about the virtual celebration that took place last month to honor Dr. Zsuzsanna Ozsváth on the eve of her retirement from UT Dallas. 

They also remember the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and discuss a 2004 speech she gave at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum about antisemitism and how the Holocaust fueled her quest for justice.

Considering the alarming results of the Claims Conference survey on Holocaust knowledge and awareness in millennials and Generation Z, the professors discuss how it is imperative, now more than ever, to continue the center’s mission of “Teaching the Past, Changing the Future.”

In this episode, Dr. Valente and Dr. Roemer discuss the beginning of new fall semester and navigating academic life under these unscripted times of the current pandemic. They also discuss the film When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, which was featured at the 2020 Jewish Film Festival of Dallas, a first time virtual film fest. 

We are excited to present the third and last episode of "Portraits of World War II." This special three-part series features beloved professors, brilliant scholars, and longtime UTD legends, whose childhoods and lives were marked by World War II. Today's special guest is Dr. Zsuzsanna Ozsváth, Professor of Literature and History, the Leah and Paul Lewis Chair of Holocaust Studies, and the founder and director of the Holocaust Studies Program at UTD, which is one of the distinguishing hallmarks of the University.

#Hungary #worldwarii #holocaustsurvivor #history #literature #poetry #translation 

We are excited to present the first episode of a special three-part series, "Portraits of World War II," which features longtime legends of the University of Texas at Dallas, beloved professors in the School of Arts & Humanities, and brilliant scholars, whose childhoods and lives were marked by World War II.

Today's special guest is Dr. Rainer Schulte, endowed professor of arts & humanities, founder and director of the UTD Center for Translation Studies, editor of Translation Review, and co-founder of the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA). 

#translation #literature #languages #history #holocaust #worldwarii 

The Ackerman Center Podcast presents a special new series "Portraits of World War II".  This new three-part series features beloved professors, brilliant scholars, and longtime UTD legends Dr. Rainer Schulte, Dr. Fred Turner, and Dr. Zsuzsi Ozsváth as they address WWII's impact in their childhoods and lives.  Tune in this Sunday, August 2 at 10am for the first episode of this special three-part series. 

Listen to our insightful conversation with Dr. Björn Krondorfer, director of the Martin-Springer Institute and Endowed Professor of Comparative Religious Studies at Northern Arizona University. We touch on topics of reconciliation, mutual understanding, and necessary new approaches to Holocaust, Human Rights, and Genocide Studies education. Dr. Krondorfer provides what Dr. Roemer calls, "a measured message of hope in the age of pessimism."

Please join Dr. Nils Roemer and Dr. Sarah Valente for a live conversation about the newly-released documentary Anne Frank Parallel Stories. Oscar-winning actress Helen Mirren retraces the life of Anne Frank through the pages of her diary and introduces us to the stories of five other Holocaust survivors. We invite you to watch this documentary, which is available on Netflix, prior to our conversation. 

On this Fourth of July weekend, listen to Dr. Nils Roemer and Dr. Sarah Valente discuss the contributions of Jewish-Americans Emma Lazarus and Irving Berlin to American culture. #GodBlessAmerica #GiveMeYourTiredYourPoor

Join Dr. Sarah Valente and Dr. Nils Roemer to learn about Operation Barbarossa, the creation of the word "genocide" by Raphael Lemkin, and be inspired by new music by Max Richter that appeals to our common humanity. 

In this new episode, Dr. Valente and Dr. Roemer discuss an exciting upcoming lecture on Operation Barbarossa, the Teacher Institute workshop, which will be hosted virtually by the Ackerman Center this week, and the beautiful concert "We Are Here" (you get to enjoy a few musical fragments from the concert). The professors also reflect on this past week's monumental landmark decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court on LGBT rights, and on protection for young immigrants. They consider how historically these vulnerable groups were persecuted during the Nazi regime. 

In this episode Dr. Valente and Dr. Roemer discuss Deeyah Khan's 2017 Emmy-winning documentary White Right: Meeting the Enemy, and the historical parallels in the rise of anti-Semitism in moments of crisis in Germany in the 1930s and during the current COVID-19 pandemic. 

“The most important thing that I learned in my life is that bigotry and hatred are not the most urgent problem. The most urgent, the most disgraceful, the most shameful and the most tragic problem is silence." Rabbi Joachim Prinz

Prinz was a rabbi of the Jewish community in Berlin under the Hitler regime and victim of the Holocaust who spoke minutes before Martin Luther King, Jr. took the stage to deliver his famous “I Have a Dream” speech in the 1963 March on Washington. His words are a timely reminder for us all. 

Join Dr. Valente in conversation with Dr. Roemer as they discuss Prinz's speech in this new episode of the Ackerman Center Podcast. 

In this episode, Dr. Roemer and Dr. Valente discuss the ending of the PBS series World on Fire. They consider the lacking historical considerations by the show when it came to showcasing the abrupt disruption to Jewish life during the occupation of Poland and France by the advancing Nazis. 

In this episode, Dr. Nils Roemer and Dr. Sarah Valente discuss the various storylines that develop while the war itself seems to be put on hold, as the Nazis march through and occupy Paris. 

In this episode, we celebrate the successful conclusion of teaching the Spring 2020 semester, where we all came together to make it to the finish line. And, we also discuss the significance of the Battle of Dunkirk and its memory as it appears in the fifth episode of World on Fire.

Join Dr. Roemer and Dr. Valente's conversation reflecting on the end of the spring semester, and the rapid changes in the storyline of the PBS series World on Fire. 

Listen to Dr. Nils Roemer and Dr. Sarah Valente discuss on-going Ackerman Center events and the historical background to the second episode of World on Fire.