Oren Stier, Director, Judaic Studies Program

Dr. Stier's main area of interest is Jewish Cultural Studies, with a special emphasis on the contemporary period and all aspects of present-day Jewish life and thought. His ongoing current research concerns Holocaust memory and representation. He has published one book on this topic, Committed to Memory: Cultural Mediations of the Holocaust (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2003), which addresses the roles the contemporary media and modes of cultural mediation play in shaping consciousness of the legacy of the Holocaust, especially in the form of its institutionalized memory. Stier is currently working on a second book in this area of research, Holocaust Symbols: The Icons of Memory, which deals with the historical and memorial contexts of several fundamental images associated with the Holocaust. Also, he has published articles in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Prooftexts, Jewish Social Studies, and Holocaust and Genocide Studies.