Events at Reed

There is intriguing common ground between Holocaust testimony and slave narratives such as Solomon Northrup’s Twelve Years a Slave. Albeit found in radically different political and historical contexts, the commonalities of identity issues and trauma in relation to dehumanization are striking and allow us access to these crucial themes within Holocaust studies from a different perspective, one that can provide a broader humanistic and empathetic understanding of the consequences of bigotry. The talk will focus on looking at the testimony and film of the Northrup story within the context of Holocaust testimony. Nancy Harrowitz is professor of Italian and Jewish Studies at Boston University.