In the Seminar we want to enable the interpretation of our collective experience as Jews, former Soviet citizens, refugees, immigrants, Americans. Here, you can exchange opinions, argue, think, theorize, teach, doubt, learn, and question. You can participate in a forum discussion or submit essays, memoirs, and scholarly articles.
Moderated by Alla Efimova and Anna Muza The seminar is a place for the discussion of immigration experience past and present. We feel that the story of Soviet Jewish immmigration, the so-called Third Wave, is obscured by abundance of self-perpetuating commonplaces. For instance: "In Russia we were Jews and here we became Russians" or "Emigration destroyed the intensity of friendship we used to treasure." Behind these commonplaces are genuine but not-yet-articulated insights into the history of Jews in the former Soviet Union, into the experience of migration, into the traumas of adjustment to a new culture. Challenging the common, we want to bring out the uncommon, individual, and specific. We wish to explore not only the conscious but the unconscious-our dreams, fears, nightmares, and fantasies. Every week we are inviting you to respond to a suggested topic which will be posted on Tuesday nights. You can remain anonymous or sign your entries. This collective text will comprise a part of The Virtual Archive. Any emigration is marked by losing, repressing, forgetting; this is one way of finding, retrieving, remembering. |