THE STAHL CENTER DISTINGUISHED LECTURE

The Role of Museums in Perilous Times:
What's Happening in Poland?

Recent efforts in Poland to dictate how the history of the Holocaust should be told have placed Holocaust museums in the crosshairs of historical policy and the politics of history. As institutions of public history and sites of informal learning, museums can play a vital role in presenting difficult histories that are authoritative, without being authoritarian. To fulfill that role, they must create a zone of trust, and model civil discourse, open debate, and critical approaches to history. What stories are museums in Poland Telling and how free are they to tell them? This talk will focus on how POLIN museum of the history of Polish Jews is meeting these challenges.

Barbara Kirshenblatt- Gimblett
Professor Emerita of Performance Studies
New York University

Chief Curator of the Core Exhibition at
POLIN Museum of The History of Polish Jews
in Warsaw, Poland

Location: UW-Milwaukee Golda Meir Library,
311 East Hartford Ave, Milwaukee, WI 53211

MAP... https://goo.gl/maps/DkTodqx73Np