Laura Levitt - “The Objects That Remain”

In The Objects That Remain (2020), Laura Levitt (Temple University) draws on her own experience as a victim of rape as she revisits the material remains of acts of violence and their place in Holocaust memory. The “essence of this volume,” she writes, is the “resonance between artifacts and their power to witness to the crimes against humanity, against individuals, and their ability to make holy the profane.” It is a “meditation on the allure of once ordinary artifacts that were brushed by violence: on where they take us and how they become animate, the rites and rituals around them, and the arts of holding that transform them into sacred objects through our tender care.” Prof. Levitt will be joined by respondents Bevin Blaber (Teaching Fellow, Divinity School) and Tahel Goldsmith (PhD student, Dept. of History) and the discussion will be moderated by Leora Auslander, Professor of Modern European Social History, Dept. of History. To register for this virtual event, go to https://uchicago.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIpfuivqTwuHNyZtGJuok6wfShA_CZu77gF. This event is part of the series Greenberg Book Conversations, sponsored by the Greenberg Center for Jewish Studies and the Seminary Co-op Bookstore. For more information, contact the administrator of the Greenberg Center, Nancy Pardee, at npardee@uchicago.edu.