Holocaust Scholar Delivers Education for Justice Lecture
The University of Scranton’s Education for Justice Office will host the presentation “Holocaust Memory and the Tests of Time: Sustainable Remembering of a Relentless Past” by author and cognitive psychology professor Robert N. Kraft, Ph.D. The lecture, which begins at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 23, is part of the University’s 2013-2014 Education for Justice theme of “sustainable memory.” The presentation in the Pearn Auditorium of Brennan Hall is free and open to the public.
“My plan is to present patterns of recall in the oral testimony of Holocaust survivors that can be generalized to other historical events involving widespread atrocity: the Rwandan genocide, mass murder in Guatemala, the killings in Darfur,” said Dr. Kraft. “It is the psychology of the surviving victims and their memories that will be generalized, not the historical events themselves.”
He added, “Memory is meant to be communicated: to educate others and to document the lives of those who were murdered. Ultimately, archives of oral testimony serve two functions: as a resource for scholarship and as a form of commemoration.”
Dr. Kraft’s 2002 book, “Memory Perceived: Recalling the Holocaust,” documents patterns of deeply traumatic memory in Holocaust survivors. His most recent book, “Violent Accounts,” analyzes the testimony of violent perpetrators and the confrontations between victims and perpetrators during South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Dr. Kraft serves as a professor of cognitive psychology at Otterbein University Westerville, Ohio.
The Education for Justice Office promotes justice throughout the University community through various programs, lectures and activities. The office intends to educate students on the importance of justice, so they may act ethically when faced with justice themes in the future.
For additional information, call the University’s Education for Justice Office at 941-4051 or visit www.scranton.edu/academics/provost/education-justice/.
