Indiana University Press blog

Book review: Heroes and Victims

"Bucur takes the reader on what is effectively a guided tour of a major war-related Romanian lieux de mémoire—some familiar, others quite new to researchers. ... [T]he book can be read as both a monograph with new things to say to specialists and as an introduction for students..." —European History Quarterly

Book review: Kiev, Jewish Metropolis

"The best books in Russian-Jewish history of recent years continue to question the myths and to look at the facts anew with the help of archival materials and other rare sources. Natan Meir's book does exactly this. ... As he demonstrates in this book, Natan Meir is a careful and innovative scholar." —Slavonic and East European Review

Book review: Religion, Morality and Community in Post-Soviet Societies

"[T]his volume makes a very timely and well researched contribution to the discussion of religion and politics in the former Soviet Union." —Slavonic and East European Review

Book review: Cinepaternity

"The eleven articles in this anthology provide insightful studies of the Oedipal dynamics dramatized in diverse films beginning in the immediate post-Stalin period." —Slavonic and East European Review

Author event: Selma Leydesdorff to discuss new book on Bosnian genocide at NYU

Selma Leydesdorff's new book Surviving the Bosnian Genocide will be the focus of a discussion at New York University's “Listening to the Women of Bosnia” event on October 17 from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. at the Cantor Film Center. In addition to the book presentation, Leydesdorff is also one of several speakers featured at the event. It is free and open to the public, but a reservation is required. To RSVP, email valerie.dubois@nyu.edu.

The event will also include a screening of "I Came to Testify", the story of how a group of 16 women who had been imprisoned and raped by Serb-led forces in the Bosnian town of Foca stepped forward to take the witness stand in an international court of law. The film, which premieres today, is part of PBS's new five-part series "Women, War & Peace".

Pamela Hogan, the producer of "I Came to Testify," recently recorded a podcast with Selma Leydesdorff. Listen to the interview here.

Last Folio exhibit opens in Bloomington September 2

Last Folio: A Photographic Journey with Yuri Dojc opens Friday, September 2 at the Grunwald Gallery of Art (formerly the SoFA Gallery). This exhibit features stunning photographs of once-vibrant Jewish communities throughout Slovakia. Photographer Yuri Dojc will be in Bloomington for the opening of the exhibit along with Katya Krausova, who worked with Dojc on an accompanying book of photos from the exhibit, published this year by IU Press.

Several events are planned around the opening of the exhibit. A symposium on Last Folio will take place September 1 at the IU Cinema from 3 to 5 p.m. The symposium will begin with a screening of Katya Krausova's short documentary film, "The Last Folio: The Tales of Yuri's Pictures" followed by a panel discussion with Krausova, Dojc, and IU faculty members Ed Linenthal, Mark Roseman, Dov-Ber Kerler, and Jeff Veidlinger.

On September 2 at 5:30 p.m., Dojc and Krausova will participate in a discussion on "Art and Memory" at the Grunwald Gallery of Art. They will also sign copies of their Last Folio book from 7 to 8 p.m. during an opening reception at the gallery.

For more information on the exhibit and the events surrounding it, visit the gallery's website or read IU Media's news release.

Book review: Heroes and Victims

"An engaging read, written in an elegant style accessible to both academics and non academics, this volume will be of interest to historians, scholars of Romanian history and politics, as well as anthropologists and sociologists alike." —The European Legacy

Last Folio exhibit on display at the Grunwald Gallery this September

The Grunwald Gallery of Art will be exhibiting the work of photographer and IU Press author Yuri Dojc in a display entitled Last Folio: A Photographic Journey with Yuri Dojc. This exhibition will be on view Friday, September 2 through Saturday, October 1, 2011.

Accompanying the exhibit will be Dojc's book, Last Folio: Textures of Jewish Life in Slovakia. The book includes portraits of aging Slovak Holocaust survivors and images of the poignant ruins of schools, synagogues, mikvahs, and cemeteries. With texts by Lucia Faltin, Katya Krausova, David G. Marwell, and Azar Nafisi, Last Folio presents a stirring tribute to a vanished culture.

Last Folio is the inaugural exhibition for the Grunwald Gallery and is made possible by a gift in memory of John Grunwald by Rita Grunwald.

Upcoming Holocaust encyclopedia focuses on destroyed Jewish communities of Eastern Europe

On this date in 1941, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and subsequently many ghettos were established across Eastern Europe. These ghettos—totaling more than 1,150 sites—are documented in the second volume of The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos. This encyclopedia offers a comprehensive account of how the Nazis conducted the Holocaust throughout the scattered towns and villages of Poland and the Soviet Union. Documentation of hundreds of smaller sites—previously unknown or overlooked in the historiography of the Holocaust—make this an indispensable reference work on the destroyed Jewish communities of Eastern Europe. For more information, visit our website.

Book review: Food and Everyday Life in the Postsocialist World

"Food and Everyday Life in the Post-Socialist World is an important contribution and should be of great interest to policymakers and regulatory bodies, as well as students and researchers." —Slavic Review