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Omer Bartov

John P. Birkelund Distinguished Professor of European History and Professor of History and Professor of German Studies:
History
Phone: +1 401 863 1375
Phone 2: +1 401 863 2131
Omer_Bartov@Brown.EDU

Professor Bartov is considered one of the world's leading authorities on the subject of genocide. He is the author of seven books and the editor of three volumes; his work has been translated into several languages. His most recent book, Erased: Vanishing Traces of Jewish Galicia in Present-Day Ukraine (Princeton, 2007), examines the politics of memory in Western Ukraine and erasure of both the memory and the few material remains of Jewish culture there.

Biography

Born in Israel and educated at Tel Aviv University and St. Antony's College, Oxford, Omer Bartov began his scholarly work with research on the Nazi indoctrination of the German Wehrmacht under the Third Reich and the crimes it committed during the war in the Soviet Union. This was the main concern of his first two books, The Eastern Front, 1941-1945, and Hitler's Army. He then went on study the links between World War I and the genocidal policies of World War II, as well as the complex relationship between violence, representation, and identity in the twentieth century. His books Murder in Our Midst, Mirrors of Destruction, and Germany's War and the Holocaust, have all been preoccupied with various aspects of these questions. Bartov's interest in representation also culminated in his monograph, The "Jew" in Cinema, which examines the recycling of antisemitic stereotypes in European, American, and Israeli films. His most recent book, Erased: Vanishing Traces of Jewish Galicia in Present-Day Ukraine, indicates the new direction of his research on interethnic relations in the borderlands of Eastern Europe. The framework for this research was created in the multi-year collaborative project led by Bartov at the Watson Institute for International Studies, titled "Borderlands: Ethnicity, Identity, and Violence in the Shatter-Zone of Empires since 1848." Selected papers from the project will be published in a forthcoming volume. Bartov is currently on leave with an NEH Fellowship writing his new book, Blood Brothers: Buczacz, Biography of a Town.

Interests

I am currently researching a project provisionally entitled: "Buczacz: The Life and Death of a Multiethnic Town." My goal is to trace the origins of local mass murder in the complexities of relations between different ethnic and religious groups over a long time span in the Eastern Galician town of Buczacz. I will investigate the dynamic that creates, or prevents, the transformation of a community based on interaction and cooperation into a community of genocide. Composed of a mixed Jewish-Polish-Ukrainian population for centuries, Buczacz saw the eradication of its Jewish inhabitants by Nazi murder squads assisted by local collaborators in World War II, and the ethnic cleansing of its Polish population by Ukrainian nationalists. The main outlines of the Holocaust in East Galicia have recently been reconstructed. But we know very little about how genocide actually unfolded on the ground, and about the nature of the social fabric upon which these policies were enacted and to which it reacted. This can be better understood only by delving deeper into the past and providing the perspective of all groups involved in the event.

Degrees

BA, D.Phil.

Awards

National Endowment of the Humanities research grant for 2008-2009
Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, California (2008-2009, postponed)
Ina Levine Invitational Scholar Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2008-2009 (2008-2009, postponed)
Berlin Prize Fellowship, American Academy in Berlin, Spring semester 2007
Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2005–
Guest of the Director Fellowship, International Research Center for Cultural Studies (IFK), Vienna, Austria (June 2004)
John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (2003-2004)
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Fellow, Harvard University (2002-2003).
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for University Teachers (1996-97)
Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History from the Institute for Contemporary History and Wiener Library, London, for the book Murder in Our Midst (1995)
Raoul Wallenberg Professor in Human Rights and Senior Fellow, Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis, Rutgers University (1992-94)
Directeur d'etudes, Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, Paris, France (1990)
Junior Fellow, Society of Fellows, Harvard University (1989-92)
French Government Scholarship at the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, France (1988)
Alexander von Humboldt Fellow, Germany and France (1985-86, 1987, 1990, 1994).
French Government Scholarship at the FIAP Language School in Paris, France (1985)
Visiting Fellow, Davis Center for Historical Studies, Princeton University (1984)
Rothschild Foundation Scholarship in support of studies at Oxford University (1981-82)
Research Fellowship, German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), for work in German archives (1981)
Research Fellowship, German Historical Institute, London, for work in German archives (1980)
President's Fellowship, Tel-Aviv University, Israel, in support of tuition at Oxford University (1980-83)
Fulbright Fellowship for studies as a Ph.D. candidate at Stanford University (1979)
DAAD Scholarship at the Goethe Institute in Murnau, Bavaria, Germany (1979)
Certificate of Exceptional Merit from the Rector of Tel-Aviv University, Israel (1978)
Certificate of Exceptional Merit from the Rector of Tel-Aviv University, Israel (1977)

Affiliations

German Studies Association
American Historical Association
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The Holocaust Educational Foundation

Teaching

Undergraduate lecture course: "Germany 1806-1914"
Undergraduate lecture course: "Germany from 1914 to the Present"
Undergraduate lecture course: "Modern Genocide and Other Crimes against Humanity"
Freshmen Seminar: "The Holocaust in Historical Perspective"
Undergraduate seminar: "Image, Fiction, Stereotype: Germans and Jews in Film and Literature" (co-teach with German)
Undergraduate seminar: "War, Culture, and Society: The Emergence and Decline of Total War"
Graduate reading semimar: "Interpretations of History: Modern Germany"
Graduate research seminar: "Varieties of Violence in Modern Europe"

Funded Research

N/A

Web Links

Curriculum Vitae

Download Omer Bartov's Curriculum Vitae in PDF Format