On Friday October 21, the Cotsen Children’s Library will host a one-day program, “Transforming Childhood Memories of War and Dislocation into Art,” co-organized by Andrea Immel, Curator of the Cotsen Children’s Library and Lee Talley of Rowan University.
World War II dramatically altered the lives of a generation of children. Aerial bombing transformed the landscape while the Holocaust decimated families; the combination transmogrified both spatial and familial understandings of home throughout Europe. In order to protect the young from these perils, many families chose to send their children to safety through the Kindertransport or other evacuation plans. Children from many countries thus endured separation from home and family during the war years, and had to adjust to new languages and cultures. What roles did reading and writing play in making sense of these unimaginable experiences, and how did they shape the memory of World War II in the European Theater? How were (and are) these memories housed in personal correspondence, diaries, memoir, art, fiction, and children’s literature and what are the imaginative possibilities and moral obligations for conveying the truths of these experiences in these disparate genres? The Cotsen’s one-day program seeks to stimulate conversation about these questions through presentations that examine the wartime experiences of Austrian, Bolivian, British, Canadian, French, and German children as well as how they transformed these events into a range of literary and artistic expressions.
Confirmed speakers:
Michael Jennings (Princeton University)
Adrienne Kertzer (University of Calgary)
U. C. Knoepflmacher (Professor Emeritus, Princeton University)
Gillian Lathey (Roehampton University)
Lee Talley (Rowan University)
Abstracts, the schedule and room will be posted on the website of the Cotsen Children’s Library by 26 September.
The program is free, but attendees are encouraged to register in advance for planning purposes.
This program is part of the fall semester series in commemoration of the tenth anniversary of 9/11, “Memory and the Work of Art” organized by the Princeton University Art Museum
www.princeton.edu/memory <http://www.princeton.edu/memory>
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