Visiting Scholar Research Topics
The following researchers received the USC Shoah Foundation Institute’s Corrie ten Boom Research Award.
See videos of presentations from and interviews with research award recipients.
(Political Science)
Research Topic: Total Domination: Between Conception and Experience - Rethinking the Arendtian Account through Holocaust Testimony
Michal Aharony is a Corrie ten Boom Research Award recipient who conducted research at the USC Shoah Foundation Institute from May to July 2008. She is an Israeli doctoral candidate in Political Science at the New School for Social Research in New York. Aharony drew on the Institute’s archive in order to re-examine Hannah Arendt’s theory of total domination through the testimonies of Holocaust survivors from Auschwitz and Buchenwald.
(History)
Research Topic: Rape, Race and Gender in Nazi-Occupied Territories
Monika Flaschka is a Corrie ten Boom Research Award recipient who visited the USC Shoah Foundation Institute from May to June 2008. She conducted research in the Institute’s archive for her doctoral dissertation in History at Kent State University, “Race, Rape and Gender in Nazi-Occupied Territories.” Flaschka presented a paper based on this research at the Lessons and Legacies conference in Evanston, Illinois in November 2008: “Only Pretty Women were Raped: The Role of Rape and the Fear of Rape in Reinforcing Women’s Gender Identities in Concentration Camps.”
(Religious Studies)
Research Topic: “Issues of Faith”: Spiritual Resistance and Jewish Survival
Dr. Gubkin is a Corrie ten Boom Research Award Recipient who visited the USC Shoah Foundation Institute from July to August 2007. While at the Institute, Dr. Gubkin used the Institute’s archive to study how survivors experienced their faith, particularly as it related to resistance and survival. In the semesters since her research visit, Dr. Gubkin has taught the course “Religious Studies and the Quest for Meaning” using the Institute’s testimonies. Dr. Gubkin is associate professor of Religious Studies at California State University, Bakersfield.
(Holocaust History)
Research Topic: Jewish Youth and Their Response to Oppression and Genocide, 1933-1948
Jeff Koerber is a Corrie ten Boom Research Award Recipient who visited the USC Shoah Foundation Institute from July to August 2007. While at the Institute he conducted research for his doctoral dissertation in Holocaust History at Clark University on Jewish communities in Vitebsk and Grodno.
(Theatre and Drama)
Research Topic: Theatrical Performances in Concentration Camps
Emmy Kreilkamp is a Corrie ten Boom Research Award recipient who visited the USC Shoah Foundation Institute from Indiana University in July 2008. She conducted research in the Institute’s archive for her doctoral dissertation in theatre and drama on theatrical performance in German concentration camps.
(Literature)
Research Topic: Rescuers and the Rescued in Poland
Dr. Jacek Leociak is a Corrie ten Boom Research Award recipient who conducted research at the Institute from August to September 2008. Dr. Leociak is the head of the research team for Holocaust Literature Studies at the Polish Academy of Sciences. His research at the Institute focused on rescuers and the rescued in Poland.
- Click here to watch Dr. Jacek Leociak’s presentation at the USC Shoah Foundation Institute: “The Uniqueness of Testimonies Deposited at the USC Shoah Foundation Institute: Some Remarks from a Methodological and Interpretive Perspective”
- Click here to hear Dr. Jacek Leociak talk about his research visit at the USC Shoah Foundation Institute.
(History)
Research Topic: Hidden Experiences: Jews in Hiding in Nazi Germany
Richard Lutjens, Jr., is a Corrie ten Boom Research Award recipient visiting from April to June 2009. For his doctoral dissertation in History at Northwestern University, Lutjens will conduct research in the Institute’s archive on German, Polish and French Jews who escaped Nazi deportation to the camps and who spent the war years in hiding.
(Comparative Literature)
Research Topic: The Discursive Space of the Shoah Witness in Literary and Videotaped Testimony
Andree Michaelis is a Corrie ten Boom Research Award recipient who conducted research at the USC Shoah Foundation Institute from July to August 2008. His doctoral dissertation at the Freie Universitaet of Berlin examines the discursive space of Holocaust survivors as established in written and videotaped testimonies.
(History)
Research Topic: The Transformation of Jewish Childhood in the Otwock Orphanage in Poland, 1945-1949
Dr. Joanna Michlic is a Corrie ten Boom Research Award recipient from Lehigh University, where she is associate professor of History and the Helene and Allen Apter Chair in Holocaust and Ethical Values. Dr. Michlic conducted research in the Institute’s archive from March to May 2008. Her research focused on testimonies regarding the Otwock children’s home and will contribute to her two forthcoming books: Life Begun Anew: The Transformation of Jewish Childhood in the Otwock Orphanage in Poland, 1945-1949 and Jewish Childhood in Poland: Survival and Transformation in the Wartime and Early Postwar Realities, 1939 -1950. An article based in part on her research at the USC Shoah Foundation Institute, “Jewish Children in Nazi-Occupied Poland: Survival and Polish-Jewish Relations During the Holocaust as Reflected in Early Postwar Recollections,” was published by Yad Vashem in 2008.
(History and Religious Studies)
Research Topic: Dealing with Fear: Refashioning Communities, Politics and Ethics in Central Germany (1914-1934)
Russell Spinney is a Corrie ten Boom Research Award recipient who visited the Institute from August to October 2008. His research in the Institute’s archive contributed toward his dissertation at Pennsylvania State University on the topic of fear in the Weimar Republic. Spinney’s dissertation title is “A Nation in Peril: Rethinking Fear, Politics and Ethics in the Weimar Republic.” In Spring 2009 Spinney is teaching the course “Germany Since 1914” (download syllabus: pdf | doc) at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, using testimonies from the Institute’s archive.
(History)
Research Topic: Survival Strategies of the Krimchaks During the War
Mikhail Tyaglyy is a Corrie ten Boom Research Award recipient visiting the USC Shoah Foundation Institute from January to February 2009. His doctoral dissertation at the Institute of the History of Ukraine in Kyiv focuses the fate of Jewish communities in the Crimea – Ahkenazim, Krimchaks and Karaites – during the Nazi occupation of the region during 1941-44. Tyaglyy was a Shoah Foundation interviewer in the Crimea from 1996 to 1998. He is an author of the teachers' guide for the Institute’s documentary film, Spell Your Name, and is a lecturer at trainings for the teachers' guide associated with the film.
(International Relations)
Research Topic: The Vienna Police and the Deportation of Jews, 1938 to 1944
Dr. Gregory Weeks is a Corrie ten Boom Research Award recipient who conducted research at the Institute from October to December 2008. Dr. Weeks is the department chair of International Relations at Webster University in Vienna, Austria. His research at the Institute focused on the Vienna police and the deportation of Jews during the years 1938 to 1944.
(History)
Research Topic: Latin American Passports in the Rescue Efforts of Jews During the Holocaust – The Exchange of Hostages
Dr. Efraim Zadoff is a Corrie ten Boom Research Award recipient who visited the Institute from January to March 2008. He is an independent scholar from Israel whose research in the Institute’s archive focused on passports and protection papers granted by Latin American consuls in Switzerland and Sweden to Jews during the Holocaust.
