NYU will host “Second Thoughts on the Memory Industry,” an all-day symposium with sessions ranging from memorials and commemorations to truth commissions and reparations, on Saturday, May 7, 10:45 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. at the Cantor Film Center.

“Second Thoughts on the Memory Industry”—May 7
NYU will host “Second Thoughts on the Memory Industry,” an all-day symposium with sessions ranging from memorials and commemorations to truth commissions and reparations, on Saturday, May 7 at the Cantor Film Center.

New York University will host “Second Thoughts on the Memory Industry,” an all-day symposium with sessions ranging from memorials and commemorations to truth commissions and reparations, on Saturday, May 7, 10:45 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. at NYU’s Cantor Film Center (36 East 8th Street/between University Place and Greene Street). 

The event, co-sponsored by the Humanities Initiative at NYU and the New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU, is free and open to the public. Call 212.998.2101 for more information. Admission is on a first-come, first-served basis. Subways: A, C, E, D, F (West 4th Street); 6 (Astor Place); N, R (8th Street).

Speakers include: Yale historian and keynote speaker Timothy Snyder, author of Blooodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin; Pulitzer-Prize-winning comic artist Art Spiegelman; novelist Francine Prose; performance artist and writer Eric Bogosian, and former Paris Review editor Philip Gourevitch, who will address “Memory and its Discontents, or the Uses of Forgetting—Fifteen Years after Rwanda and Beyond”.

The evening will culminate with the Manhattan premiere of “MEMORIAL CITY,” the new, 15-minute opera by Ben Katchor and Mark Mulcahy about a town that goes mad building memorials to everything, and the architects and experts who lavish solace on the town’s angst-ridden population. James E. Young, founding director of the Institute for Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and veteran juror on both the Berlin Holocaust and the 9/11 World Trade Center memorials, will offer commentary.

For all press inquiries, please contact the NYIH’s Stephanie Steiker at nyih.info@nyu.edu or 212.998.2101. For further information, a complete list of speakers, and schedule updates, go to: http://nyihumanities.org. 

EDITOR’S NOTE:
The New York Institute for the Humanities at New York University was established in 1976 for promoting the exchange of ideas between academics, professionals, politicians, diplomats, writers, journalists, musicians, painters, and other artists in New York City--and between all of them and the city.  It currently comprises over 220 fellows. Throughout the year, the NYIH organizes numerous public events, including conferences, symposia, readings, and performances.  For further information, please visit http://NYiHumanities.org or contact nyih.info@nyu.edu or 212.998.2101.

The Humanities Initiative at NYU sponsors research, collaborative teaching, conferences, working groups, and outreach by way of fostering a university-wide community in the humanities. Launched in 2007, its mission replaces and significantly expands that of the former Humanities Council. For further information on the Humanities Initiative, please visit www.humanitiesinitiative.org or call 212.998.2190.

Press Contact

James Devitt
James Devitt
(212) 998-6808