Encountering Vanished Worlds through Salvage

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Abstract

This roundtable discusses the dilemmas of methodology when Jewish Studies researchers rescue texts, art, and/or artifacts from being lost to collective memory. Cultural and visual artifacts in combination with literary or text-based sources can help to reveal meanings that recapture historical realities which would otherwise have been forgotten. The framework of “salvage poetics” as coined by Sheila Jelen refers to the combination of literary, cultural, and extra-textual elements that once positioned in relationship to one another help reveal deeper understanding and encourage more meaningful engagement with a reader or viewer. This roundtable gives several case studies of scholar’s whose work fuses cultural observation, literary analysis, and artistic invention.

The participants of this roundtable seek to build upon this discussion of salvage by focusing on the role of language and genre as a means to reveal or conceal meaning. Allyson Gonzalez’ current project examines how media coverage of sociopolitical events differs as depicted in different languages. Carsten Shapcow’s interest lies with the diaries and travelogues by Ernst Toller, a potentially Sephardic Jew who returns to Spain to explore his heritage. Judith Lin traces the unknown story of Berta, sole survivor in her family of a deportation to Treblinka, through various personal writings and testimonies in Ladino, Bulgarian, and Serbo-Croatian. Alina Schittenhelm looks at the role of slang and code-switching in female Mizrahi communities through autobiographical novels by Sami Berdugo, Ronit Matalon and Sara Shilo. Finally, Sheila Jelen tells the hidden stories behind photographs donated to Holocaust Museums.

Through the lens of each person’s research interest, we will discuss questions like:
How do artifacts in combination with texts aid in the recuperation or prevention of loss of memory, history, or testimony? What is the legitimacy or role of “scholarly intuition” in the work of salvage? How does an interdisciplinary methodology influence the role of language in our analysis? How does salvage methodology take into account the transmission of knowledge to the next generation? What are its implications for Jewish Studies scholars in interdisciplinary fields?

Sub Unit

• Interdisciplinary Approaches

Moderator

• Sheila Jelen, University of Chicago Divinity School

Discussants

• Judith Roumani, Judith Roumani

• Judith Lin, Independent

• Alina Lior Schittenhelm, University of Potsdam

• Carsten Schapkow, University of Oklahoma

• Allyson Gonzalez, Selma Stern Center for Jewish Studies Berlin-Brandenburg

Zoom Host

• Zoom Host 10