Dear Students: Our book comes from this amazing San Francisco-based project, Voice of Witness. Instead of starting to read the book, the requirement for Thursday’s class is that you spend at least one hour, preferably 90 minutes, exploring the Voice of Witness website. http://voiceofwitness.org/ There are several key pages, including one which explains the book series and our volume in that series. http://voiceofwitness.org/books/ There interesting short videos like this one on the situation in Columbia: http://voiceofwitness.org/education/curricula/displaced-in-colombia/ Watch this and other available videos. Also, please read this interview with Dave Eggers and Mimi Lok in Salon magazine. http://www.salon.com/2015/06/13/dave_eggers_on_working_for_justice_through_oral_history_there_wasn%E2%80%99t_much_that_allowed_those_people_to_seem_fully_human/ Finally, do a blog entry on your opening understanding of this project from which our next textbook comes. (Summary and comment.) These will be your first points on the new quarter. Homework for next week: You will be responsible to have read from page 9-84 for next Tuesday. You will need to get started on this soon. These first two chapters are on the death penalty. Jim

Students: Attendance at the production in the Theater, "The Amateurs,"with blog review, is also an option along with the art/photography exhibit and/or the musical in Taube this weekend.

Nechama Tec article: http://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%20699.pdf

Online source #5 Eva Fogelman article https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/pdf/resources/fogelman_the_rescuer_self.pdf

Students: I do want to give you an alternative to the art gallery: if you can attend one of the performances of "A Little Night Music" this weekend (Brandon is one of the cast members) that could substitute. Jim

http://pinktrianglepark.org/

You are required to view and spend at least 30 minutes in the Wiegand Art Gallery with the Matt Black exhibit: "From Clouds to Dust." Here's a review

http://www.sfchronicle.com/art/article/Farmworker-images-from-California-and-Mexico-come-9222797.php#photo-10898377

 As you see on our syllabus, you are required to attend and write a summary and comment blog entry. The exhibit is open and runs through October 22--that's this Friday! Don't wait until the last minute.

Jim

Students:

This weekend is a good time to start your midterm paper. It is a five page summary and reflection on how you have processed all our reading, all the testimony, including the in-person testimony at our special event on Call to Action Day.

Summarize what you have learned from Frankl's book, the Rescuers book, the online sources and any preparation you did for Tuesday's interview. In this paper, you are trying to take at least a provisional position on the possibility of altruism, fully taking into account the prevalence of its opposite.

If you can get me a draft by Tuesday, I promise to read and give further direction.

The paper due date is also the time to have finished all make-up for absences. Check out the reserve material in the library or visit the Pink Triangle Memorial and/or Holocaust Memorial in San Francisco and write excellent blog entries.

All students be sure you have the required number of blog entries.

Thank you all for your participation on Tuesday. It was a beautiful event.

Jim

Pairings for Interviews, October 11


Meet at 10am in St. Joe's Lounge


Jeannette Ringold--Alexis Prieto and Jennifer Slowey


Hans Angress--Brandon Masterson and Trina Palomar


Fred Graebe--Chantal Zharndt and Chase Kupperberg


Ursula Pederson--Sydney Torrano and Paige Laver


Bihama Vedaste--Nicole Powers and Javier Santana


Alma and Almir--Nancy Chavez and Vanessa Sanchez

New assignment

Students:

In class today, we will first review some important protocols and sensitivities for interviewing survivors of genocide. Then we will head to the computer lab and do research in our teams of two, developing specific questions for our interviewee. A draft of six questions is due by the end of class, to be revised and resubmitted by Monday at noon for my review.

Take notes during your interview and submit to me on Thursday for completion of this assignment. This material will be incorporated into your midterm paper.

Students: Make a first and second choice from the list below and write a paragraph on your reason for those choices, i.e. what interests you particularly, personal connections, etc. Bring this paragraph to class on Thursday or email it to me before class. We will prepare for the interviews in class on Thursday (soccer players will meet on Monday with me; email me a time you are available.)

Jim

 

Perspectives on Altruism from Survivors of Genocide

This event brings together survivors and descendants of survivors of three genocides: the Holocaust, Rwanda and Bosnia. The students in a section of Freshman Year Seminar who are studying the possibility of altruism through the power of testimony will speak with these survivors in interviews over coffee at 10:30am at various locations around campus. All will join together for lunch in St. Joseph’s Lounge at noon . At the end of lunch and over dessert, the survivors and descendants will form a panel for summaries of their beliefs about altruism based on their experiences and after years of reflection. Those assembled will join in questions and comments, concluding the day with a lively discussion about what these historical experiences reveal about human nature and the potential to act in full regard for the other.

Guest Panelists

Ursula Pederson              Kindertransport from Germany to England

Hans Angress                    German refugee hidden in the Netherlands

Fred Graebe                     son of Herman Graebe, German engineer and rescuer of Jews in the Ukraine

Jeannette Ringold           Dutch Jewish child hidden in the Netherlands

Bihama Vedaste               child survivor of the Rwandan Genocide

Alma  Ferizovic and        child survivors of the Bosnian Genocide

Almir Zalihic

Dear Students:

Could you read this library guide.....

http://libguides.ndnu.edu/usingthelibrary/welcome

...and take the following "quiz

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScnKVrod7uRYEF9pbgl9hmyx4XGmmeQEv7XPUPE5pmL8gmuoQ/viewform?c=0&w=1

by October 13th class.

Thanks!

Jim