Join us as Dr. Walkowitz discusses his journey to uncover his grandmother's history, the importance of collective memory, and the dangers of collective forgetting.
On Monday, October 29, 2018 at 7:30 p.m., Daniel J. Walkowitz, PhD, emeritus professor of history and social and cultural analysis at New York University, will deliver the Joan and Henry Katz Lecture in Judaic Studies. His lecture is entitled “Looking for Bubbe: The Remembered and Forgotten Jewish World in Heritage Tourism.” Free and open to the public, the event will take place at ¶¶Òô»ÆƬapp’s Dolan School of Business Dining Room.
A student activist in the late 1950s and 1960s, Dr. Walkowitz imagined himself walking in the footsteps of his grandparents, who fought to improve the living and working conditions in the textile mills of Lódz, Poland and Paterson, New Jersey. Though there was much information about his grandfather’s activism -- especially his involvement with the Passiac textile strike -- his grandmother’s activism was shrouded in secrecy. Walkowitz's lecture will recount his own personal search for his genealogical history, and his uncovering of the story of his grandmother, Chaya Lubertofsky Walkowitz.
“This fascinating talk should have particular appeal to those interested in family genealogy and in the creation of memories of one’s cultural past by visiting sites where one’s ancestors might have been,” stated Ellen M. Umansky, PhD, director of the Bennett Center and professor of religious studies.
Dr. Walkowitz's lecture is a fascinating mix of travelogue, social history, and family chronicle, where he will discuss his visits to key Jewish museums and memorial sites -- from Berlin to Belgrade, from Krakow to Kiev, and from Warsaw to New York. During his research, he realized that he could intertwine his own history in order to tell the stories of many that were lost or forgotten and provide them with the opportunity to be heard and remembered. His experience sheds a light on the heritage tourism industry and its role in shaping personal perceptions of Jewish history and identity. According to Dr. Walkowitz, the lecture will illustrate the “disappointments and surprises that frame the robust and changing terrain of Jewish heritage today.”
Dr. Walkowitz is a social and cultural historian who specializes in labor and urban history. His most recent works include Contested History in Public Spaces: Memory, Race, and Nation (ed. 2009), Rethinking U.S. Labor History: Essay on the Working Class Experience, 1756-2009 (2010), City Folk: English Country Dance and the Politics of the Folk in Modern America (2013), and the just-released, The Remembered and Forgotten Jewish World (2018). He received both his undergraduate degree and his PhD from the University of Rochester.
Reservations are requested for this lecture. Please contact the Bennett Center for Judaic Studies at bennettcenter@fairfield.edu or call 203-254-4000, ext. 2066. For more information about other Bennett Center events, visit fairfield.edu/bennett.
