DAAD Summer
Seminar at the Einstein Forum, Potsdam July 5 to 30, 2004
Disability Studies and the
Legacies of Eugenics
Director:
Sharon Snyder, University of Illinois, Chicago
Co-director:
David Mitchell, University of Illinois, Chicago
DAAD Faculty:
1. Adrienne Asch, Bio-ethics
and Women’s Studies, Professor, Wellesley College, Massachusetts
2. Brenda Breuggemann, Rhetoric and Composition and Deaf Studies, Associate
Professor, Ohio State U
3. Sally Chivers, Assistant Professor, Canadian Studies and Disability
Studies, Assistant Professor, Trent U, Toronto
4. Sumi Colligan, Cultural Anthropology, Massachusetts College of the
Liberal Arts
5. Nancy Hansen, Disability Studies, Assistant Professor, U of Manitoba
6. Rosemarie Garland Thomson, English and Women’s Studies, Associate
Professor, Emory U, Atlanta
7. Kanta Kochlar-Lindgren, Performance Studies, Assistant Professor, University
of Washington, Bothell
8. Nicole Markotic, Film Studies, Women’s Studies, Creative Writing,
Associate Professor, U of Calgary
9. Debjani Mukherjee, Center for the Study of Disability Ethics, Assistant
Professor, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Northwestern U.
10. Gerald O’Brien, Social Work, Associate Professor, Southern Illinois
University
11. Sandy O’Neill, History, Research Associate, World Institute
on Disability
12. Walton Schalick, M.D., Pediatrics and History, Washington University,
St. Louis
13. Mark Sherry, Disability Studies, Chair and Assistant Professor, U
of Toledo
14. Ingrid Hoffmann, Psychology
& Child Development, University of Minnesota
Graduate Research Associates:
15. Sara Vogt, Disability Studies,
University of Illinois, Chicago
16. Pamela Wheelock, Disability Studies, University of Illinois, Chicago
The DAAD Summer Seminar offered
English-speaking academics of different rank and scholarly experience
the opportunity to explore the 20th century history of disabled people
as a backdrop for the population’s situation today. Opportunities
to apply were advertised in a mailing by the Society for Disability Studies,
in posts to online list-serves, and on the DAAD website. (Appendix 1).
Participants in the 2004 DAAD
Summer Seminar, a program opportunity originated by Sander Gilman, all
pursued independent research proposals while working in consultation with
colleagues’ projects and responses. All are experts in disability
issues, past and present, and many also negotiate barriers and possibilities
related to their own disabilities.
DAAD sponsored 13 faculty participants
who represented disciplinary fields ranging from medical practice to women’s
studies. One individual had written her dissertation on disability genocide
under the Third Reich. Three faculty participants were from Canadian universities.
Two, in addition to the directors, teach in departments of disability
studies. Nearly all participants teach and research in the new field of
disability studies and disability history at their home institutions –
all are engaged in attempting to establish disability studies courses,
concentrations, and programs in their departments and fields of study.
The Bioethics and Disability Institute at the Rehabilitation Institute
of Chicago provided funding for two advanced graduate students, both with
university teaching experience and German language facility, to participate
in the seminar. Their contribution was highly valued, as well as their
willingness to earn support by working as personal assistants, translators,
and access coordinators. A third participant, from the University of Minnesota,
speaks or signs more than 20 languages fluently. From her childhood in
the diplomatic corps she offered a tremendous background in German culture
and specifically on the locations and history of post-war psychiatric
institutions.
Pre-Planning
A bibliography of books and
materials, mostly in English, on the topics of eugenics, National Socialism
and the Third Reich, and contemporary German disability studies views
on this history was sent out upon notification of fellowship acceptance.
One month prior to the advent of the seminar sessions the directors also
mailed each participant a packet of essays and book chapters that comprised
a “course pack” of assigned readings. For the purposes of
blind access, assigned readings were also scanned into a text-readable
format for a computer device that translates them into Braille. (Appendix
2) Due to multiple kinds of access requests, we engaged with a colleague
who was in Germany on a Fulbright, Dr. Martha Rose, to undertake pre-seminar
access scouting. She compiled notes and took photos that we posted on
a website in order to assist participants in making plans.
Some participants did interviews
with local newspapers and campus information services in the U.S. and
Canada regarding their fellowships and anticipated attendance in the summer
institute. In conjunction with the Chicago Cultural Center, the directors
coordinated an event that was designed to raise public awareness about
the disability coordinates of eugenics. Scheduled to coincide with the
day established to commemorate disabled victims of Nazi genocide in psychiatric
institutions, the event was well-attended and lasted more than 3 hours
with intensive audience discussion. (Appendix 3) Additionally, a University
of Illinois Press Release announced the institute and offered interview
materials. This press release appeared on the home page of UIC throughout
the month of July and in local Chicago newspapers. (Appendix 4) Administrative
support at UIC was provided by the PhD Program in Disability Studies.
The Humanities Laboratory at UIC also provided funding (8,000) that the
directors’ home department included as part of their regular summer
salary.
Seminar Activities
Scholars in this seminar were
particularly dedicated to having the month serve as a complete study,
research, and scholarly experience. It would be fair to say that many
participated in non-stop small group study and research sessions during
nearly every hour that they were not sleeping. I think many outsiders
might have considered us overly dedicated. But we felt, to a person, that
the materials, topic, and opportunity provided were highly significant
to our scholarship and to our commemoration commitments on behalf of the
victims who have gone largely unacknowledged in Germany and elsewhere.
As a result we held morning and afternoon sessions everyday. Morning sessions
were a time when one or two participants would present assigned readings
and lead discussion with analytical questions. Afternoon sessions consisted
of presentations from invited guests. Occasionally, if a day’s events
consisted of visits and presentations at a memorial site, we would then
meet in the evening in order to get our bearings and continue probing
discussions of our experiences. I’m aware that some researchers
even stayed up all night at the Hadamar Youth Hostel translating and interpreting
files from the Hadamar “medical” archives of the period. Throughout,
everyone was congenial, supportive, and encouraging of one another’s
research plans and individual projects. Many plans have been laid that
concern a next step each will pursue as a result of this scholarly immersion
experience. The schedule of seminar sessions, archival visits, and research
expeditions is attached as Appendix 5.
During the seminar our group
greatly benefited from research presentations by the following scholars
that were arranged by the director, co-director, and a former Fulbright
fellow from UIC who works in Germany, Rebecca Maskos. Presenters included:
Katrin Grüber, Director, Institut Mensch, Ethik, und Wissenschaft
(IMEW), Berlin; Ute Hoffmann, Director, Bernburg Memorial Site and Educational
Programs; Ute George, Director, Hadamar Memorial Site and Hadamar Archives;
Swantje Koebsell, University of Bremen; Dr. Anne Waldschmidt, Professor
of Social Thought, University of Koln; Dr. Moritz Terfloth, Creative Team
Associate for the documentary film Liebe Perla, Heidelburg; Dr. Petra
Fuchs, Frei University historian researching the T-4 medical files at
the Bundesarchiv, Berlin; Dr. Frank Oliver Sobich, University of Bremen,
German African Colonies, Racism, and Biologism; Dr. Volker van der Loche,
History of German Psychiatric Institutions; Michael Schwartz, Federal
Government Disability Offices, Disability Rights in Germany Today; and
Gaby Müller-Oelrichs, Head, Joseph Wulf Library, House of the Wannsee
Conference. All of the speakers gave compelling and informative lectures
and many engaged with the entire group for several hours. A highlight
of the seminar also involved obtaining access to film footage and documentaries
that are otherwise unavailable to scholars. Bernburg screened videotapes
of Nazi eugenic health propaganda films for the group and we found that
the Wannsee Conference Center library houses nearly 10,000 films, many
on eugenics topics and medical studies of “defective” bodies.
The films and speakers created an atmosphere that proved both intensive
and focused. Our group often felt as if it had been able to actively occupy
a dangerous historical space in European history. We left each of the
events feeling emotional drained and intellectual challenged in the best
ways possible given the subject matter. Everyone experienced a deepening
of our political commitments to the materials as well as an expansive
understanding of the pragmatism informing historical/cultural studies.
Additionally, Anne Waldschmidt
presented her research into bio-ethics and the quality of life of disabled
persons in Germany today in a public lecture at the Einstein Forum. Her
talk was elegantly situated at the foot of a large staircase in the lobby
since lecture rooms and other levels were not accessible to many members
of our group. Gabriele Karl and staff at the Einstein Forum kindly set
up chairs and provided projection equipment for this event. Because the
Einstein Forum was inaccessible we sought to hold sessions in diverse
and productive locations beyond its walls. While in Potsdam we met in
the conference center of the Hotel Steigenburger Maxx. We also convened
seminar sessions at the following locations: The Jewish Museum, Berlin;
The Institut Mensch, Ethik, und Wissenschaft, Berlin; Bernburg Memorial
Site; Hadamar Memorial and Educational Center; and in the library of the
House of the Wannsee Conference.
All in all, we undertook collective,
small group, and individual expeditions to the Jewish Museum, Berlin;
the T-4 Record Rooms of the BundesArchiv; Brandenburg-Gordon Memorial
Site with Educational Stelles; Bernburg and Hadamar Memorial Sites and
Archives; Buchenwald and the onsite educational center; and the Museum
of the Blind Workshop of Otto Weidt. We also held a memorial service for
the disability historian, Hugh Gallagher, at the plaque that marks the
former site of the T-4 headquarters, #4 Tiergarten Strasse, Berlin. The
author’s work By Trust Betrayed, led disability scholars in an initial
foray into the implications of disability eugenics in Germany, his sudden
death during the summer surprised many of us. Thus, we felt the need to
pay honor to our work as part of the scholarly legacy he left behind.
We also convened impromptu
memorial services at the crematorium rooms in Bernburg and Hadamar in
which local staff also participated. Many from our group spoke, read passages
aloud, sang and performed interpretive dance from so many different cultural
traditions that it was profoundly edifying for all. These ceremonies were
an effort to articulate the barrage of thoughts and emotions evoked by
examining the mechanisms of the killing centers. We also squeezed in a
boat tour of the Mosel and a castle tour so staff at DAAD may be assured
that enjoyment was a part of this experience as well. I believe, though,
that everyone’s favorite location was the Washbar in Potsdam where
one could imbibe, hang out with the locals, AND do laundry in a tavern
setting that sought to mimic the desert-feel of New Mexico. The postmodern
displacement became a popular experience for many participants including
those who couldn’t get into the site physically due to a lack of
access.
All of the sessions were transcribed
using a captioning method that was undertaken by different members of
our group. Several participants had hearing impairments and this practice
of captioning all voiced discussions and lectures on laptops enabled everyone
to participate more fully in discussions. Most fortuitously, as a result
we have a written record of all of our meetings for the entire month.
Additionally, we have over 1,000 digital photographs of records and events
as well as 20 hours of video-recorded lectures and discussions. One further
group effort involves the construction of a website that offers educational
materials from the group undertaking. The materials will also be used
by the individual scholars in their publishing, research, and writing.
Outcomes
As was to be expected from
such an outstanding group of scholars, the intellectual atmosphere in
the seminar and the level of discourse were stellar, and the discussions
and presentations of the highest quality. Without exception the participants
proved to be self-motivated, resourceful, and collegial. Their active
involvement in every aspect of the seminar, their sense of responsibility
and level of cooperation engendered a particularly rich study experience
and produced impressive preliminary research while we still in Germany.
Everyone took the opportunity to present in sessions upon individual research
projects and gain feedback and advisement from other participants.
For example, Adrienne Asch
wrote and presented a talk at an extra session in preparation for her
lecture at an international bio-ethics event the following week. Similarly,
the Chicago bioethicist, Debjani Mukherjee, has plans to examine how this
history affects disability advocates' view of bioethicists as adversaries.
Another literal bridge between
our group and the T4 memorial visits came about when Nancy Hansen contracted
with Ute George, the director of the memorial site at Hadamar, to publish
an English translation of an exhibition and book that document the history
of the Hadamar psychiatric institution. The directors are involved in
charting out the American, and particularly Chicago, roots of eugenics
ideas undertaken in Germany. They are working with the Chicago Historical
Society on an exhibit of the history of disabled persons in Illinois and
eugenic history during the first half of the 20th century. The organizers
were recently invited to lecture on the topic at the faculty club at Columbia
University. This talk, entitled “Do You Know What Happened Here
in the Summer of 1940?”, referred to a citation of the graffiti
that was scrawled across a wall where the Brandenburg-Gordon gas chamber
once stood in 1943. The event that was initially held to inform townspeople
about the atrocities that took place at this site is commemorated on a
stele today.
Rosemarie Garland Thomson,
Brenda Brueggemann, Walton Schalick, and Gerald O’Brien all have
book projects underway that draw from materials gathered during the institute.
Garland Thomson’s book is entitled “The Cultural Logic of
Euthanasia”; Brueggemann’s book seeks to trace out some roots
of the history of deaf people in theories of heredity that would seek
to end deafness and the ways such efforts continuestoday. Schalick came
to the institute with what he believed to be a nearly completed book on
the history of disabled children in Europe from the Middle Ages to the
19th century. However, as a result of his findings in Germany he has decided
that the materials must be extended to include the children’s killing
programs during World War II. O’Brien’s book analyses some
key connections between U.S. and German eugenics as they influenced the
treatment of people with cognitive disabilities in both countries. All
of the above individuals attended the institute with the express idea
of developing chapters in their current book manuscripts from materials
gleaned during the institute.
Mark Sherry, in his new post
as director of the disability studies program at the University of Toledo,
developed a series of curriculum lessons that he has already offered to
undergraduates. Likewise Sumi Colligan has written to us about including
materials on disability and the Holocaust in her required cultural anthropology
courses. She has quickly developed into a resident expert on the topic
as a result of her participation in this program. Ingrid Hoffmann is in
the process of applying for fellowship support to continue her research
into the history of a clinic with which she was involved in her youth
while growing up near Munich. Her plan is to integrate these materials
into courses on child psychology and special education while completing
her dissertation at Minnesota. The organizers have also deepened their
own graduate seminars on eugenics at the University of Illinois at Chicago
with the inclusion of previously unavailable primary and secondary source
materials. We are particularly proud of these curriculum initiatives in
that they often fail to receive the recognition they deserve in research
settings such as the university.
While only a few of us were
fluent in German we were most impressed by Sally Chivers who seemed to
have acquired a previously unacknowledged competency in German language
skills within all of 4 weeks. She is now involved in researching Canadian
initiatives in eugenics. Nicole Markotic, has already organized a disability
film festival that will include panel discussions addressing some aspects
of our institute efforts at the end of January, 2005. The festival will
include films that were introduced in the Germany summer institute including
our own “A World Without Bodies” and “Liebe Perla.”
Both Chivers and Markotic are also in the midst of writing personal and
scholarly essays on the topic of the T4 killings and the impact upon modern
German citizens with disabilities today. Markotic is well known for her
previous novelization of the relationship between eugenicist Alexander
Graham Bell and Helen Keller. As a top notch imaginative and scholarly
writer, we particularly look forward to any writing that comes out of
her experiences with the institute. Further, Kanta Kochlar-Lindgren plans
to infuse some of her work on disability performance art with her seminar-based
research on public rituals created in Germany during the National Socialist
regime.
Finally, the one participant
who wrote her dissertation on disability and the Holocaust, Sandy O’Neill,
has already taken up several contracted writing assignments that seek
to disseminate many of the findings of the institute. She has been commissioned
by a variety of publications such as the global organization Disability
World and other similar disability news organizations for journalistic
and scholarly writing on this historical period. These articles will primarily
address the experiences of a group of disabled scholars exploring this
little known territory – in other words she seeks to narrate not
only the historical and cultural insights developed in the group but also
the difference that disability identified scholars can make in such explorations.
At least one of these undertakings will include a photographic essay of
the institute as participants engaged with a wide range of materials and
locations. Participant Sara Vogt has applied for a Fulbright in order
to continue archival research that the seminar continued. Her research
would occur under the direction of Anne Waldschmidt at the University
of Cologne. Pamela Wheelock has just completed a series of articles on
the psychiatric survivor movement for an encyclopedia project that is
under contract with Sage Press. She will work with the directors in the
design of an educational and accessible website on the institute.
Appendix 1: Announcement
Invitation for Faculty Applicants:
Interdisciplinary Summer Seminar on Disability Studies and the Legacies
of Eugenics
Einstein Forum, Potsdam
July 5th – July 30th, 2004
The purpose of the summer seminar
is to promote the interdisciplinary study of historical, political, social,
and cultural aspects of modern and contemporary German affairs and to
advance their understanding among scholars in the United States and Canada.
The program is open to faculty members and recent PhDs from the social
sciences, disability studies, and cultural studies fields.
The topic of the 2004 seminar,
" Disability Studies and the Legacies of Eugenics,” seeks to
understand the contemporary situation of disabled people in Germany today
through an assessment of the historical facts surrounding the killing
of more than 240,000 disabled people during World War II. To assess this
legacy, the seminar will contemplate the development of German Disability
Studies and its critique of practices in modern day disability arenas
such as education, medicine, rehabilitation, genetics, and bio-ethics.
The program includes visits to contemporary memorial sites, archives,
and former T-4 locations. In addition to seminar sessions, public lectures
by contemporary scholars in German disability studies will be offered
as featured events, and open to the public, as a part of the Einstein
Forum lecture series.
The seminar organizers are
Professor Sharon Snyder and Professor David Mitchell
http://www.ahs.uic.edu/ahs/php/content.php?type=7&id=57 http://www.ahs.uic.edu/ahs/php/content.php?type=7&id=132
For further information about
seminar content and organization, please contact the PhD program in Disability
Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago: <ds_uic@uic.edu>.
Deadline: January 15, 2003
Eligibility Requirements
1. Faculty members and recent
PhDs at universities and colleges in the United States and Canada from
various fields in the humanities and social sciences may apply. Graduate
students and Ph.D. candidates are not eligible.
2. Applicants must be citizens
or permanent residents of the United States or Canada.
3. Participants are expected
to have an active interest in German intellectual and cultural history.
Tuition and Associated Costs:
There is a $50 course fee and a $175 surcharge for roundtrip accessible
bus transport to Bernberg and Hadamar from Potsdam.
Housing: Nearby accessible
housing will be available at the University of Potsdam.
Scholarships: A limited number
of scholarships are available. The scholarship amounts to $3,200 and is
intended to defray in whole or in part the cost of travel to and from
Potsdam, room and board, books, and other research expenses incurred in
connection with the seminar.
Seminar Requirements: Participants
are required to attend all sessions and to participate actively in the
work of the seminar. A written report is expected within four weeks of
the end of the seminar.
Application Guidelines: All parts of the application must be typed and
submitted in duplicate (original and one copy). Please do not staple materials.
A complete application consists
of the following parts:
1. DAAD application form entitled
"Interdisciplinary Summer Seminar in German Studies.” Please
answer all questions on the form, even if you refer to additional material.
Forms are available from the directors.
2. Curriculum vitae and complete
list of publications.
3. A detailed statement explaining
why the applicant wants to attend the seminar.
4. One letter of recommendation,
to be sent directly to the University of Illinois at Chicago, PhD Program
in Disability Studies.
Applications postmarked 15
January or earlier will be accepted. Those with later postmarks cannot
be processed. Applicants will be notified about the results of the competition
by February 15, 2003.
Ph.D. Program in Disability
Studies Tel: (312) 996-1508
University of Illinois at Chicago Fax: (312) 996-0885
1640 W. Roosevelt Rd. (M/C 526) Email: ds_uic@uic.edu
Chicago, IL 60608
Sponsored by:
*DAAD (the German Academic Exchange Service) http://www.daad.org/
*UIC’s Humanities Laboratory http://www.uic.edu/las/humlab/
*Einstein Forum in Potsdam, Germany http://www.uni-potsdam.de/u/einsteinforum/
*UIC’s PhD Program in Disability Studies http://www.ahs.uic.edu/ahs/php/index.php?sitename=dis
*UIC’s Dept of Disability and Human Development http://www.ahs.uic.edu/ahs/php/?sitename=dhd
In partnership with: The Society for Disability Studies and the German
Disability Studies Network.
Disability Studies at the Einstein Forum
The Einstein Forum promotes the exchange of ideas across disciplinary
as well as national borders. The Forum is located at the University of
Potsdam, in the State of Brandenburg, and situated about 25 km southwest
of the city center of Berlin.
The institute will focus upon
the research and scholarship of disability studies scholars in Germany.
There has been a major response to the recent exhibition at the Gropius
Bau and the Dresden Hygiene Museum on “The Imperfect Person,”
and to the accompanying programs, and multi-authored essay collections
that accompanied it. As a result, this seminar will build upon a continuing
public and scholarly interest in the history and culture of people with
disabilities, and the relation of that culture to scholarship and political
practice.
The basic structure of the
seminar will work as follows: participants will meet 4 days a week for
2-3 hours of seminar discussions. Dr. Snyder and Dr. Mitchell will organize,
oversee, and coordinate sessions on the relevant reading and research
materials for the seminar. There will be at least 1 public lecture per
week by a noted disability studies experts from nearby universities. These
lectures will be selected to address key controversies in German disability
studies including: the historical legacy of Western eugenics in the U.S.
and Europe; the role of special education and integration/segregation;
the implications for disabled people with respect to modern day genetics
practices; contemporary policies and laws regarding disability accommodation
and citizenship status; and the development of the German disability right
movement. In all, the seminar will sponsor 4 public lectures in English
over the course of the seminar by Dr. Sander Gilman, Dr. David Mitchell
& Dr. Sharon Snyder, Dr. Anne Waldschmidt, and Dr. Theresia Degener.
All participants will have the opportunity to attend two excursions to
the psychiatric institution memorial sites during the first two weeks
of the institute. By the end of the seminar, participants will produce
new teaching materials, draft classroom plans, and prepare notes for annotated
bibliographies based upon the information presented in the seminar.
Further information on the
region is available at http://www.potsdam.de/
APPENDIX 2: Reading List
“Disability Studies and
the Legacy of T4”
Potsdam, Germany: July 5-30, 2004
.
Summer Institute Reading List:
Aly, Gotz. “Medicine
Against the Useless” in C. Pross (ed.). Cleansing the Fatherland:
Nazi Medicine and Racial Hygiene. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1994: 22-98.
Bauman, Zygmunt. Modernity
and the Holocaust. Cornell: Cornell UP, 2000 [1981]. Chapter 1: “Sociology
After the Holocaust.”
Biesold, Horst. Crying Hands:
Eugenics and Deaf People in Nazi Germany. Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet
UP. Chapter 9: “Euthanasia and Deaf Germans.”
Burleigh, Michael. The Third
Reich: A New History. New York: Hill & Wang, 2000. Chapter 5: “Extinguishing
the Ideas of Yesterday: Eugenics and Euthanasia.”
Friedlander, Henry. The Origins
of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution. Chapel Hill:
North Carolina UP, 1995. Chapter 5: “The Killing Centers”
and Chapter 8: “The Handicapped Victims.”
Lifton, Robert Jay. The Nazi
Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide. New York; Basic
Books, 2000 [1986]. Chapter 2: “Euthanasia: Direct Medical Killing”
and Chapter 4: “Wild Euthanasia: The Doctors Take Over”
McFarland-Icke, Bronwyn Rebekah.
Nurses in Nazi Germany: Moral Choice in History. Princeton: Princeton
UP, 1999. Chapter 8: “War, Mass Murder, and Moral Flight: Psychiatric
Nursing, 1939-1945.”
Mueller-Hill, Benno. Murderous
Science: Elimination by Scientific Selection of Jews, Gypsies, and Others,
Germany 1933-1945, Oxford: Oxford UP, 1988. Chapter 3: “From the
Killing of Mental Patients to the Killing of Jews and Gypsies.”
Noakes, J. and G. Pridham (eds.).
Nazism: A History of Documents and Eyewitness Accounts, 1919-1945, Vol.
2. New York: Schocken Books, 1988. Chapter 36: “The ‘Euthanasia’
Programme 1939-1945.”
Proctor, Robert. Racial Hygiene:
Medicine Under the Nazis. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1988. Chapter 4: “The
Sterilization Law.”
Weindling, Paul. Health, Race
and German Politics Between National Unification and Nazism, 1870-1945.
Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1989 [1991]. Chapter 7: “The Sick Bed of
Democracy, 1929-1932.”
Appendix 3: Launch Event
Tuesday May 11 at THE CHICAGO
CULTURAL CENTER
6:00 to 7:30 in the Studio Theater
A WORLD WITHOUT BODIES: Commemorating
the Victims of Eugenics and Medical Murder
PROGRAM:
I. Screening of the award-winning documentary, A WORLD WITHOUT BODIES
(34 min. – with introductory discussion with directors Sharon Snyder
and David Mitchell).
II. A series of brief talks
from leaders in Chicago's internationally recognized disability community
Co-Chairs: Jim Charlton and
Sarah Triano, Access Living
Carol Gill: "Crying hands
and solemn voices: The first public mourning of the deaf/disability holocaust."
Diane Coleman and Stephen Drake: "Recent history of the grassroots
disability rights struggle against legalized medical killing"
Nura Ally: "Older Chicago's place in eugenic history: segregation,
sterilization, and "mercy" murders"
Sharon Lamp: "On Chicago's watch: the publicized medical killing
of Allen Bollinger"
Mark Sherry: Contemporary implications of eugenics
III. Audience discussion with
panelists and program director, Sharon Snyder.
Commentary on A WORLD
WITHOUT BODIES:
"U.S. film producers Sharon
Snyder and David Mitchell take on the Herculean assignment of explaining
in a little over half an hour how the machinery of the Holocaust came
to be tested on an estimated 300,000 children and adults with disabilities
in Nazi Germany. Armed only with a handheld camera and their professorial
expertise of crunching facts and figures into narrative, they visit one
of the remaining "killing institutions" with a German disability
advocate to chronicle the least remembered Holocaust victims." --Merit
Award Announcement from the CDT's Superfest International Film and Video
Festival
"This evocative video
with its almost visceral imagery, can be a powerful tool in educating
people not only about the events themselves but the history leading to
them and perhaps most important, about the continuing impact of these
events which decimated disabled communities across the European regions
occupied by the Third Reich." -- World Institute on Disability, Oakland,
CA
Presenter Bios:
Nura Ally, a sophomore at Evanston Township High School, is a member of
the National Disabled Students' Union and the Young Activists' Task Force
for the American Association of People with Disabilities.
Jim Charlton is the author of Nothing About Us Without Us (U of California
Press) and the Executive Vice President of Access Living.
Diane Coleman directs both Not Dead Yet and the Progress Center for Independent
Living.
Stephen Drake works as a Research Analyst at Not Dead Yet.
Carol Gill is a researcher in disability studies and disability ethics
at the University of Illinois, Chicago.
Sharon Lamp is a graduate student in UIC's PhD Program in Disability Studies.
David Mitchell directs the PhD in Disability Studies Program at the University
of Illinois, Chicago.
Mark Sherry is chair of the disability studies program at the University
of Toledo. His current research is in disability hate crimes.
Sharon Snyder is assistant professor in disability studies at UIC. She
produced A World Without Bodies and directs Brace Yourselves Productions.
Sarah Triano is director of the National Disability Pride Parade that
is scheduled for July 18, 2004, in Chicago.
Eugenics is an international and little-understood area of historical
thought, research, and government practices that bears serious implications
for policies on and about disabled persons today. The Commemoration Event
at the Chicago Cultural Center on May 11 will continue an ongoing series
of efforts by the disability community to raise awareness about this critical
-- yet mostly disregarded -- history. We will be discussing Chicago as
a location, not only for some of the blueprints for Nazi eugenics and
sterilization policies, but also as the launching-pad for an educational
seminar that will further delve into the legacies of eugenics.
Subsequently, beginning July
5, 2004, a commission of 20 university faculty in disability studies from
across the U.S. and Canada, from a home-base at the Einstein Forum in
Potsdam, Germany, will undertake research visits to the hospitals, clinics,
and institutions -- many still open as functioning state hospitals --
where the technology of the gas chamber was first developed and then used
to its full capacity on Germany's wide-ranging disability populations.
Disability Studies and the
Legacies of Eugenics thanks our sponsors: the Einstein Forum in Potsdam,
the University of Potsdam, DAAD (German Academic Exchange), the PhD Program
in Disability Studies at UIC, the Center for Ethics at the Rehabilitation
Institute of Chicago, and the Humanities Institute at the University of
Illinois at Chicago. In affiliation with the Society for Disability Studies,
the Disability Studies Program at National-Louis University and Disability
Studies at the University of Toledo.
LOCATION: The Chicago Cultural
Center is located at the corner of North Michigan Avenue and East Washington
Street (across from Millenium Park). Parking is located around the corner
on East Randolph Street. The accessible entrance is also on Randolph.
Call 312-744-6630 for further location information.
CONTACT: The documentary is
captioned. For further access requests please contact the PhD Program
in Disability Studies at the University of Illinois, Chicago (312-996-1508).
For further program information and background information leave a message
for Sharon Snyder at the PhD Program Office (312-996-1508) or contact
her at ssnyder@uic.edu.
Appendix 4: UIC Press Release
Release: Summer Seminar to
Explore Germany’s Eugenics Legacy
Byline: Paul Francuch. Release date: June 29, 2004
A month-long seminar taking
place in Germany and organized by two University of Illinois at Chicago
disability studies experts will consider the topic, “Disability
Studies and the Legacies of Eugenics.”
An interdisciplinary panel
of experts from the United States, Canada and Germany will discuss the
contemporary situation of disabled people in Germany by assessing facts
behind the Nazi killings of more than 270,000+ disabled people during
World War Two.
The seminar takes place July
5-30 at Germany’s Einstein Forum at the University of Potsdam.
UIC’s Sharon Snyder,
assistant professor of Disability and Human Development, organized and
will direct the seminar. David Mitchell, associate professor of Disability
and Human Development, will serve as co-director. Sander Gilman, distinguished
professor of the liberal arts and sciences and medicine, is a seminar
adviser.
Seminar participants will assess
Germany’s legacy of the now underground eugenics movement by reviewing
the development and growth of disability studies in the country and the
effects it has had on fields such as education, medicine, rehabilitation,
genetics and bio-ethics. Each of the seminar’s 19 participants has
either developed a disabilities studies program or taught a course on
the subject at their respective university.
“Participants include
many bio-ethicists as well as historians,” said Snyder. “The
group will pursue new knowledge about the politics and practices of disability
in scientific fields today and in the past.”
An exhibition entitled “The
Imperfect Person” this past year shown at both Berlin’s Gropius
Bau and the Dresden Hygiene Museum has attracted considerable German public
and scholarly interest in the history and culture of people with disabilities
and the relationship of that culture to scholarship and political practices.
In conjunction with the seminars,
four public lectures will be delivered on related subjects. Two of the
talks will be by German disability studies scholars Anne Waldschmidt,
Universität zu Köln, and Katrin Gruber, IMEW Institut Mensch,
Ethik, und Wissenschaft, Berlin; UIC’s Snyder and Mitchell will
present their own film and lecture at the Einstein Forum during the institute.
The summer seminar is held
annually by the Einstein Forum and is sponsored by the Forum, the German
Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst), and
this year by UIC’s Humanities Laboratory, Department of Disability
and Human Development, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, and the Ph.D.
program in Disability Studies.
For more information about
the summer institute please contact Dr. Sharon Snyder (ssnyder@uic.edu)
or UIC, visit <a href=”http://www.uic.edu”> www.uic.edu</
Appendix 5: Seminar Schedule
Disability Studies and the Legacies of Eugenics
Director: Sharon Snyder
Co-director: David Mitchell
Sponsors: DAAD, Humanities
Laboratory at UIC, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, PhD Program in
Disability Studies at UIC
July 5 to 30 2004
Monday 5
10:30: Meet and go over itinerary and plans. Discuss access issues.
1:00: Visit Einstein Forum including research library.
Evening Reading Group:
Burleigh, Michael. The Third Reich: A New History. New York: Hill &
Wang, 2000. Chapter 5: “Extinguishing the Ideas of Yesterday: Eugenics
and Euthanasia.”
Discussion leader: Sandy O’Neill
Tuesday 6
Aly, Gotz. “Medicine Against the Useless” in C. Pross (ed.).
Cleansing the Fatherland: Nazi Medicine and Racial Hygiene. Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins UP, 1994: 22-98.
Bauman, Zygmunt. Modernity
and the Holocaust. Cornell: Cornell UP, 2000 [1981]. Chapter 1: “Sociology
After the Holocaust.”
Discussion leaders: David Mitchell and Sharon Snyder
Wednesday 7
11:00: Tour of the Institute on Bioethics, Berlin
1:00: Katrin Grubar, Genetic Counseling and its Anti-Eugenic Impulses
Today
IMEW Institut Mensch, Ethik und Wissenschaft gGmbH
Thursday 8
11:00: Jewish Museum, Berlin
Museum Blindenwerkstatt Otto Weidt
5:00: Seminar Discussion
Friday 9
Open plans.
Saturday 10
Off. Obtain vans.
Sunday 11
11:00 Vans leave for Brandenberg Memorial
Drive to Halle (2 hours); Kempinski Hotel
7:00:
Biesold, Horst. Crying Hands: Eugenics and Deaf People in Nazi Germany.
Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet UP. Chapter 9: “Euthanasia and Deaf
Germans.”
Session Leader: Brenda Breuggemann
Monday 12
9:00
Lifton, Robert Jay. The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology
of Genocide. New York; Basic Books, 2000 [1986]. Chapter 2: “Euthanasia:
Direct Medical Killing” and Chapter 4: “Wild Euthanasia: The
Doctors Take Over”
12:00 to 6:00 Bernberg
Overnight: Halle, Kempinski
Hotel
Tuesday 13
Drive to Koblenz
View Barrier Free Koblenz Architecture
Wednesday 14
Boat Tour on Mosel (optional)
Castle Tour and Dinner
Thursday 15
Morning: Drive to Hadamar
11:00 Seminar meeting with Uta George, Director, Hadamar
Hadamar Gas Chamber and Memorial
Friday 16
Hadamar Archives
Gravesite Discussion: Uta George
Saturday 17
Drive to Weimar (morning)
Open.
Sunday 18
Buchenwald
Evening: Drive to Potsdam
Monday 19
Official Laundry Day
Tuesday 20
10:00 – 11:00 pm: Mid-seminar organizational planning meeting
Presentations of research by seminar faculty.
11:00 –1:00 pm: Swantje
Koebsell, University of Bremen
Presentation: “History of the German Disability Rights Movement”
6:00 – 8:00 pm: Anne
Waldschmidt, University of Koln
Einstein Forum, Public Lecture: “Disability and Contemporary Genetics
in Germany”
Wednesday 21
10:00: Seminar Session
Friedlander, Henry. The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the
Final Solution. Chapel Hill: North Carolina UP, 1995. Chapter 5: “The
Killing Centers” and Chapter 8: “The Handicapped Victims.”
Mueller-Hill, Benno. Murderous
Science: Elimination by Scientific Selection of Jews, Gypsies, and Others,
Germany 1933-1945, Oxford: Oxford UP, 1988. Chapter 3: “From the
Killing of Mental Patients to the Killing of Jews and Gypsies.”
Facilitator: David Mitchell
11:00 – 2:00 pm: Discussion
with Anne Waldschmidt, University of Koln;
Swantje Koebsell, University of Bremen, and Rebecca Maskos, University
of Bremen
5:00 – 7:00 pm: Discussion
about Surgery as Assimilation and Child Surgery Options
Facilitator: Adrienne Asch
Thursday 22
12:00 -- 1:00 am: Reading Group
Proctor, Robert. Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis. Cambridge:
Harvard UP, 1988. Chapter 4: “The Sterilization Law.”
Facilitator: Gerald O’Brien
1:00 – 6:00 pm: Hannelore
Witkofski, Documentary filmmaker, Hamburg
Includes Film showing of Liebe Perla (54 mins.)
Friday 23
10:00 – 11:00: Reading Group
Lifton, Robert Jay. The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology
of Genocide. New York; Basic Books, 2000 [1986]. Chapter 2: “Euthanasia:
Direct Medical Killing” and Chapter 4: “Wild Euthanasia: The
Doctors Take Over”
Facilitator: Adrienne Asch
11:00 – 1:00 pm: Petra
Fuchs, Bundesarchiv, Berlin
Saturday 24
open
Sunday 25
open
Monday 26
10:00 – 11:00: Reading Group
McFarland-Icke, Bronwyn Rebekah. Nurses in Nazi Germany: Moral Choice
in History. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1999. Chapter 8: “War, Mass
Murder, and Moral Flight: Psychiatric Nursing, 1939-1945.”
Facilitator: Nicole Markotic
11:30 –-
T4 Memorial at #4 Tiergartenstrasse
Commemoration for Hugh Gallagher, Author, By Trust Betrayed
Celebration of 14th Anniversary of Signing of ADA
Blind Workshop visit (many steps and lacks accessibility focus -- as of
yet)
Tuesday 27
10:00 – 11:00: Reading Group
Weindling, Paul. Health, Race and German Politics Between National Unification
and Nazism, 1870-1945. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1989 [1991]. Chapter 7:
“The Sick Bed of Democracy, 1929-1932.”
Facilitator: Walton Schalick
& Kanta Kochler-Lindgren
11:00 –1:00 pm: Research
Projects Group Discussion
Wednesday 28
10:00 – 11:00 Reading Group
Noakes, J. and G. Pridham (eds.). Nazism: A History of Documents and Eyewitness
Accounts, 1919-1945, Vol. 2. New York: Schocken Books, 1988. Chapter 36:
“The ‘Euthanasia’ Programme 1939-1945.”
Facilitator: Sara Vogt
11:00 – 1:00 pm: Frank
Oliver Sobich
German Colonies, Racism, and Biologism
Thursday 29
Wannsee Conference Memorial Center
10:00: Gaby Müller-Oelrichs, Head, Joseph Wulf Library, House of
the Wannsee Conference
11:00 Volker van der Loche, “History of German Psychiatric Institutions
4:00-5:00 Michael Schwartze, The Status of Disabled Persons in Contemporary
Germany
Friday 30
Wrap Up and Departures
1. IMEW Institut Mensch, Ethik und Wissenschaft gGmbH
Warschauer Str. 58A
D-10243 Berlin
fon: +49 (030) 293817-89
+49 (030) 293817-70 (Sekretariat)
fax: +49 (0) 293817-80
email: grueber@imew.de
http://www.imew.de
2. Jewish Museum of Berlin
http://www.jmberlin.de/home_english.htm
Jewish Museum Berlin
Lindenstraße 9-14, 10969 Berlin
Info: +49 30 25993 300
Fax: +49 30 25993 409
General: info@jmberlin.de
Tours: fuehrungen@jmberlin.de
3. Museum Blindenwerkstatt
Otto Weidt
Rosenthaler Strasse 39 10178 Berlin
http://www.blindes-vertrauen.de/introduction.html
4. Gedenkstätte Pirna-Sonnenstein
Schlosspark 11
01796 Pirna
Tel. +49-(0)35 01-71 09 60
Fax +49-(0)35 01-71 09 69
E-mail: gedenkstaette.pirna@stsg.smwk.sachsen.de
Hotels:
1. Steigenberger Hotel Sanssouci
Allee nach Sanssouci 1
10789 Potsdam, Germany
Tel: +49 (33) 190910, Fax: +49 (33) 19091909
2. Kempinski Hotel and Congress
Center
Rotes Ross Halle
Leipziger Strasse 76
Halle Saala, Germany
Double rooms
112 Euros
3. Hotel ImStuffje
Koblenz
0261-915-220
Double rooms: 82 euros
Singles: 60 euros
4. Hadamar Youth Hostel/ 6
per room.
37 euros/person
5. Weimar Hilton
Belvedere Derer Allee 25 Weimar
3643-7220
81 euro/single
95 euro/double
http://www.hilton.com/en/hi/hotels/index.jhtml?ctyhocn=WEIHITW
Sharon L. Snyder, Ph. D.,
Director, "Legacies of Eugenics" Summer Institute, Einstein
Forum
Assistant Professor, Interdisciplinary Ph. D. Program in Disability Studies
Department of Disability and Human Development
University of Illinois at Chicago (MC 626)
1640 W. Roosevelt Rd. #207
Chicago IL 60608-6904 U.S.A.
E-mail: ssnyder@uic.edu Phone: (312) 413-1975 (Voice) Fax: (312) 996-0885
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