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St. Cloud State University

St. Cloud State University

Showcase

Director's Letter

After my first year as the new director of CHGE at SCSU, the center is proud to present this webpage with a new design and a slightly new focus. You will find an archive with short clips as well as audio files of this past year’s events, along with the accompanying flyers. You will also find information about future events, links to sites connected with ongoing events around the world and photo galleries. This newsletter and guest articles are monthly features.

The centre is located in the Miller Center Library and as in the past we maintain collections of books, films about the Holocaust, genocide, personal narratives, historiography and more, for the use of students and faculty. In addition we now have created space with the office for students to watch films from our collection and to discuss them afterwards.

One of the main projects during the past term was our poster exhibition at SCSU Atwood Gallery. The posters were a representative selection of a large collection owned by the University of MN, Minneapolis of early 1930 election posters from different parties. They represent the power of design and demagogy, the impact that propaganda and politics in a society can have especially when they are embedded and infused in mainstream culture, as in this example from the midst’s of the Western world only 75 years ago, changing the world and bringing to an end, as one could argue, the view of the Western civilization as committed to Ancient ideals of democracy. Yet here we might find the foundation of many problems in the world today, since Greek democracy included slavery, women with no rights, and voting right as an exclusively privilege for the social upper class.

In the coming academic year CHGE will focus on the background of the crisis in Darfur, please see our changing showcases and information boards.

 

 

Bernard Reuter

CHGE is open to suggestions on where to focus future work, suggestions for improvement or networking on campus. I especially want to invite all working at SCSU to submit guest articles (1-2 pp) or to engage in interviews for this webpage concerning topics that you believe to be related.

In addition there will be a forum for the work by students (in abbreviated forms, if necessary), which we are beginning this month with a student’s essay on religious multicultural appearances.

The education on Genocide and the Holocaust is an endeavor which starts in your community at home, spans the university with the many courses taught that touch upon the topic, and that unfortunately spares no corner of the world today. The center is open to dialogue and discussion across the many topics but will not engage in any form of political activism.

Last but not least I want to thank the many people on this campus participating in a truly inter-disciplinary project, and especially Ms. Deqa Ali who helped to reshape the center's space and material. Also thanks to Vicky Knickerbocker from CHGS at the University of MN for her help.

Hope to hear from you soon! Have a good summer!

Sincerely, Bernard Reuter