Prof. Cerf Opens 2010-2011 Common Hour Sept. 10

Story posted August 10, 2010

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Prof. Steve Cerf.

Steven R. Cerf, George Lincoln Skolfield Jr. Professor of German, will speak at the first Common Hour of the 2010-2011 academic year at 12:30 p.m., Friday, September 10, 2010, in Kresge Auditorium, Visual Arts Center.

Professor Cerf will give a talk titled "Hearing My Grandparents' Voices: Their Letters before Deportation."

This Common Hour talk is the Karofsky Faculty Encore Lecture. Each semester the Faculty Encore Lecture features a Bowdoin faculty member chosen by members of the senior class honoring him or her as a teacher and role model.

Steven Cerf is celebrating his 40th year on the Bowdoin College faculty. He earned his bachelor of arts degree at Queens College, CUNY, and his doctorate at Yale University.

As a "survivor child," Cerf finds the Holocaust a challenging field of study both professionally and personally. In 1978-1979, he joined a self-help group of "survivor children" at Indiana University. Since 1984, he has regularly taught Holocaust and Imaginative Writing. He has conducted workshops throughout Maine on Crematoria Poetry, Anne Frank, Night and Fog, and Jackson's Closing Arguments at Nuremberg. Cerf has advised many honors projects on Holocaust-related topics in the Department of German.

His publications on the Holocaust include a co-edited annotated edition of Richard von Weizsäcker's Eighth of May Speech, extended encyclopedic essays on Holocaust-related imaginative writers, a pedagogical article on the teaching of the Holocaust, and sundry book reviews.

He is dedicating his common-hour talk to the memory of his parents, Hans and Kate Cerf.

Common Hour is open to all Bowdoin students, faculty and staff. Events are held every other Friday of the term at 12:30 p.m. Class and meeting schedules are altered so that students, faculty, and staff may attend.

The Karofsky Family Fund was established by Paul I. '66, his son David M. '93, and his brother Peter '62 in memory of their father and David's grandfather, Sydney B. Karofsky.

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