MJH | “Global Approaches to the Holocaust” Book Launch

The field of contemporary Holocaust studies is increasingly international in perspective. These approaches do not detach themselves from European history; rather, they incorporate perspectives and voices not always considered in more traditional Holocaust studies.

The new book Global Approaches to the Holocaust asks: What happens when scholars shift their focus from an exclusively European perspective of the Holocaust? What new insights are gained from exploring the impact of the Holocaust from outside the European milieu? How do countries that were not directly affected by Nazi policies of occupation and extermination remember the Holocaust? What does an expansive approach to the Holocaust entail? With essays about North and South Africa, Mauritius, Japan, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, the Philippines, the United States, Australia, Canada, India, Pakistan, Palestine, Colombia, New Zealand, and more, Global Approaches to the Holocaust seeks to create a critical voice in Holocaust studies that encompasses not only Europe but also Asia, Africa, South and North America, Australia, and the Middle East.

Mark Celinscak and Mehnaz Afridi, co-editors of Global Approaches to the Holocaust, will be in conversation about the book with Dr. Laura B. Cohen, Executive Director of the Harriet and Kenneth Kupfberg Holocaust Center at Queensborough Community College at the City University of New York.

Mark Celinscak is the Louis and Frances Blumkin Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the executive director of the Sam and Frances Fried Holocaust and Genocide Academy at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He is the author of Kingdom of Night: Witnesses to the Holocaust and Distance from the Belsen Heap: Allied Forces and the Liberation of a Nazi Concentration Camp.

Mehnaz Afridi is a professor of religion & Philosophy and director of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Interfaith Education Center at Manhattan University. She is the author of Shoah through Muslim Eyes.

Dr. Laura B. Cohen is the Executive Director of the Harriet and Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Center at Queensborough Community College at the City University of New York where she oversees public programming, exhibitions, educational initiatives, and community outreach. Her research focuses on contested narratives and education at atrocity site memorials that builds upon her extensive fieldwork in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Germany, Poland, Cambodia, and Rwanda. Dr. Cohen serves on the Board of Directors of the Association of Holocaust Organizations and on the Executive Committee of the Consortium of Higher Education Centers for Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights Studies. She holds a Ph.D. in Global Affairs from Rutgers University and previously spent 14 years in the corporate sector, including at MTV: Music Television and Ogilvy and Mather. 

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