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Contemporary Jewish Museum

Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett on Museums and the Politics of History

Friday, Apr 13, 2018 | 1:30–3pm

ADMISSION: Free with Museum Admission; free for USF students, faculty, and affiliates

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2018-04-13 13:30:00 UTC2018-04-13 15:00:00 UTC America/Los_AngelesThe CJM - 736 Mission St, San Francisco, CABarbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett on Museums and the Politics of Historyco-presented with the Museum Studies Program of USF As institutions of public history, museums must navigate a minefield of divergent narratives, stakeholders, and goals. Steering a steady course, independent of political pressure, is an unrelenting challenge, especially in post-Communist Europe. Even when museums are relatively free to chart their own course, the histories they present are not without their politics. This lecture will explore how the politics of history are playing out today, in light of recent efforts to legislate what can and cannot be said about the most painful events in a country's history.

As institutions of public history, museums must navigate a minefield of divergent narratives, stakeholders, and goals. Steering a steady course, independent of political pressure, is an unrelenting challenge, especially in post-Communist Europe. Even when museums are relatively free to chart their own course, the histories they present are not without their politics. This lecture will explore how the politics of history are playing out today, in light of recent efforts to legislate what can and cannot be said about the most painful events in a country's history.

This lecture is co-presented with the Museum Studies Program of University of San Francisco.

For USF reservations, please RSVP to info@thecjm.org

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about the speaker

Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett is Chief Curator of the Core Exhibition at POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, Poland and Advisor to the Museum’s Director. She is University Professor Emerita and Professor Emerita of Performance Studies at New York University.

Kirshenblatt-Gimblett was honored for lifetime achievement by the Foundation for Jewish Culture and received the Yosl Mlotek Prize for Yiddish and Yiddish Culture, honorary doctorates from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and University of Haifa, and the 2015 Marshall Sklare Award for her contribution to the social scientific study of Jewry. She was decorated with the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland for her contribution to POLIN Museum. Most recently, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

She serves on Advisory Boards for the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, Council of American Jewish Museums, Jewish Museum Vienna, Jewish Museum Berlin, and the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow, and is an advisor for museum and exhibition projects in Lithuania and Israel. Her publications include Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage and They Called Me Mayer July: A Jewish Childhood in Poland Before the Holocaust.