Event

Beginning with the focal point of October 7, 2023, this lecture will address the challenges associated with the memory of difficult past events, especially when the aftermath is ongoing. Examining efforts to commemorate and construct a collective memory of that day, the talk will go on to look more broadly at what it takes to be remembered.

Attendees are invited to browse the exhibit on display in the Arthur Ross Gallery. The exhibit, After Modernism: Selections from the Neumann Family Collection, is drawn from the collection of Jewish American Penn alumni with roots in Hungary, Chicago, and New York City, who have been collecting European and American art since 1947.

Please note that registration is required for this program. Non–PennCard-holders will be asked to show ID to register at the door, space permitting.

About the Howard J. Reiter Memorial Lecture

Established by family and friends in memory of beloved Katz Center board member Howard Jay Reiter z''l, this lecture series shares insights and discoveries from Israeli scholarship with the University of Pennsylvania community.

Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi

Born in Tel Aviv, Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi is a sociologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and currently holds the position of faculty fellow at the Center for Cultural Sociology at Yale University. She is an expert on collective memory and commemoration, especially the ways societies cope with their difficult pasts. Her most recent book project, The Collective Memory Reader (Oxford UP, 2011), was co-edited with Jeffrey K. Olick and Daniel Levy; she is also the author of After Pomp and Circumstance: High School Reunion as an Autobiographical Occasion (Chicago UP, 1998) and Yitzhak Rabin's Assassination and the Dilemmas of Commemoration (SUNY Press, 2009), as well as articles in journals such as American Sociological Review and Social Forces.