Summer Fellowship Online Exhibits

As part of our mission to provide research opportunities to students and to promote the study of post-Holocaust American Jewish history, the Program in Jewish Studies,听in conjunction with the Department of History,听the Center for Humanities and the Arts and the University Libraries, provides fellowship opportunities in the Innovations in Jewish Life Collection. Beginning in 2017, these fellowships required a digital component to be created in addition to conducting original research and working with archival collections.

Learn more about the PHAJ fellowship opportunities

This section contains the resulting digital exhibits created by our student fellows.听Please select which exhibit you would like to view and you will be taken to the digital resource.听

Screenshot of Kelly Walsh's website; "An Analysis of Contemporary Midrash" overlays an image of art displayed in a museum

Kelley's summer research explores materials in the听Institute for Contemporary Midrash Records, focusing primarily on the concept of midrash as represented in the Institute's eight volumes of听In Living Text.听In her presentation, Kelley will discuss how midrash has informed her work both as a dance artist-scholar and on a personal level unpacking听her own identity as an Appalachian currently living outside of Appalachia.听She will also discuss how her research in the PHAJ Collections has impacted her joint collaborations with Affrilachian artist-scholar Yunina Barbour Payne creating a dance theater work that explores Appalachian and Affrilachian identity.

Digital exhibit created using Microsoft Sway.


Screenshot of Jacob Flaws' website; text column with a Treblinka magazine from the archives and a map of the Treblinka area with pins of important locations

Using materials in the听Harry W. Mazal Collection, Jacob's summer research project digitally maps the different spaces of the Treblinka death camp and the surrounding area. In his presentation, he will discuss how the Nazis intended Treblinka as an expression of their horrific phantasmagoric worldview wherein Jews could conceivably be industriously slaughtered within a completely isolated and concealed space. Yet, because of the sheer magnitude of mass murder carried out at the death camp the sights, sounds, and smells of Treblinka were ejected across the local landscape. Therefore, local Polish and Jewish inhabitants听witnessed听Treblinka, both directly and indirectly, even from outside of the camp's camouflaged fences.

Digitial exhibit created using ArcGIS.


Screenshot of Emily Frazier-Rath's website; text on the right column with a map of Europe on the left

Emily's project focuses on the听Richard E. Campbell Collection. From 1953-2009, Richard E. Campbell collected hundreds of items relating to what Emily refers to as the multifaceted world of anti-racist activism. In her project, Emily pieces together听anti-racist work done by various groups, museums, filmmakers, artists, synagogues, and churches听to understand the workings of race, racism, and racialization as they functioned in the past (especially during the Nazi era) and as they both reflect and inform Germany鈥檚 postwar present. She will present postwar anti-racist activism in (West) Berlin, Germany as it is represented in the Campbell Collection in multiple ways: temporally (on a timeline), spatially (on a map), and through narrative.

Digitial exhibit created using VisualEyes.

Women and Contemporary Midrash

In a letter of endorsement for the Institute for Contemporary Midrash (written after participating in a midrash training), Rosalind Glazer claims, simply, 鈥渇or women鈥攎idrash matters鈥 (Box 12, ICMR). In the Institute for Contemporary Midrash Records archive exhibit I created, I sought to examine and uncover why midrash is so important to and for women. Overall, documents from the collection indicate that contemporary midrash, as both a process and a product, creates a community for women, a community that facilitates a deeper relationship with the Torah, with Judaism, and with other women.

Digital exhibit created using Scalar.


The Program as Advertisement

The majority of the听documents from the Richard Campbell Collection are from cultural events that took place between 1933 and 1945 in Germany.听Adi Nester's project offers a curated collection of these programs, brochures, and catalogues from before, during, and shortly after the period of Nazi regime in Germany. It presents these items in an interactive online exhibit that progresses chronologically from 1913 to 1961. The aim of the project is to explore the medium of the program, brochure, or catalogue as an instrument that reflects the social and ideological tendencies of its time.

Digital exhibit created using Scalar.听听


Practicing Imperfection

Alan Lew had always felt little connection to his Jewish faith. He began practicing Zen Buddhism before reconnecting with his roots and studying as a rabbi to incorporate meditation into Jewish spiritual practice. His life was characterized by his desire to embrace what he described as a "realm beyond language." Jason Hogstad's听online exhibit, "Practicing Imperfection" asks audiences to think about how we can make sense of the life of Alan Lew, and in doing so, to wrestle with the limits of historical inquiry he identified.

Digital exhibit听created using Scalar.