Reading Holocaust Literature: David Grossman & Contemporary Writing
Sponsored by the Jewish Studies Research Cluster

Friday, February 23
Kresge College, Room 159
9:30 AM - 2:00PM

This conference begins with a conversation between David Grossman and Clive Sinclair, focusing on Holocaust literature with special reference to Grossman's novel, See Under: Love (1989), followed by a panel on the experience of reading Holocaust literature in historical context as well as in the postmodern era.

Participants include survivors and scholars, among them Michael Thaler, Professor of Medicine, UCSF; Peter Kenez, Professor of History, UCSC; Chana Kronfeld, Professor of Comparative Literature, UCB; Professor Naomi Seidman, Comparative Literature, Graduate Theological Union; Jeffrey Shandler, Professor of Media Studies, Rutgers; Murray Baumgarten, Professor of Literature, UCSC; and graduate students Lital Levy, Ron Feldman, and Todd Haszak-Lowy. After lunch, the conference will conclude with a readings of contemporary Holocaust literature, including an excerpt from See Under: Love.

The conference coincides with the San Francisco premiere of the dramatization of Grossman's novel, See Under: Love by A Travelling Jewish Theater. Recipient of national and international awards, including the 1998 Performance Award of the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, A Travelling Jewish Theatre received a Kennedy Center award for the script of See Under: Love.

David Grossman is one of Israel's most important contemporary writers. His new novel, The Zigzag Kid, has just been published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Earlier novels include The Smile of the Lamb (1991), and The Book of Intimate Grammar (1994). The Yellow Wind(1988), a work of non-fiction based on Mr. Grossman's three month stay on the West Bank in 1987, was one of the most controversial and popular books in his country's history.

For further information or to register for the conference, please contact Ms Eleanor Hilberman, (831) 459- 1225; ehilberm@cats.ucsc.edu