March 25, 2010: This session covers four presentations by faculty who have integrated the Institute’s testimonies into their courses in disciplines ranging from French and Italian, Didactics, Communication Studies, and Religious Studies. This session is moderated by Carolyn Ellis, Professor of Communications and Sociology, University of South Florida.

March 25, 2010: This plenary session follows up on earlier breakout sessions that addressed issues related to how context, teaching methodologies, and teaching objectives differ based on course discipline. This session is moderated by Mark Baker (Associate Professor, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia). One representative from each of the four groups reports on:

March 25, 2010: Since the Institute’s testimonies were given around 50 years after the events described, researchers must confront issues of memory and reliability. In this session moderated by Andrea Pető (Associate Professor, Gender Studies, Central European University), Robert Rozett, (Director of Yad Vashem Libraries) addresses problems that revolve around memory and reliability. He asks whether testimonies and memoirs bring us closer than other kinds of historical documents to understanding what people went through.

March 26, 2010: Audio-visual testimonies of traumatic historical events arouse profound emotions in their viewers. The pedagogical questions raised in this session focuses on the appropriateness and/or usefulness of emotionality in teaching about the Holocaust.

Kia Hays recently joined the research and documentation staff at USC Shoah Foundation as project specialist. She received a bachelor’s in English and international relations at Hawaii Pacific University in 2010 and a master’s in public diplomacy from the USC Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism in May 2013. Hays was the associate editor for the online publication PDiN Monitor at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy, and the editor-in-chief of the academic journal Public Diplomacy Magazine.

International educators discuss testimony-based educationA conversation with Werner Dreier, Alice Herscovitch, and Karen PolakBy Kori Street