(PDF) (DOC) (JPG)September 12, 2022

“Where are the Nazis? Memory and Myth in Russia, Ukraine, and the USA”

With Ben Rifkin, PhD

Monday, October 24 / 4:00 – 5:30 PM
This event is free and open to the public.

In Person: Friends Hall, Ramapo College

Online (WebEx) Option. Registration required.
WebEx is an application like Zoom. (Download WebEx for free.)

Dr. Rifkin will ask the question, “why do large numbers of citizens of the Russian Federation believe that the Ukrainian government, including its Jewish president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and the Ukrainian people, are Nazis?” How do myths create memories and how do memories create or reinforce myths?  He will lead us backwards in time from the present day through centuries of interactions between Russians and Ukrainians,  (and their ancestors), as well as the interactions between people of those two nations and Jews living in the region, to explore the history of these accusations. The discussion of the East European context will then constitute the groundwork for a conversation about fascism in the United States in myth and memory.

Benjamin Rifkin earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Russian and East European Studies at Yale University and his PhD in Slavic languages and literature, with a dissertation on what was then considered “contemporary” Soviet film at the University of Michigan. He is professor of Russian and Dean of the Maxwell Becton College of Arts and Sciences at Fairleigh Dickinson University.  His research focuses on world language education, issues in the design and delivery of liberal arts courses at the university level, and compassion and global citizenship. He teaches courses on Russian literature and film in translation, methods of teaching world languages, History of the Russian Empire, Soviet Union, and Russian Federation, and sociolinguistics as well as Russian language courses. Rifkin has published op-ed essays and has given talks about the full-scale invasion of Ukraine begun by the armed forces of the Russian Federation in February 2022, the eight years of Russian war on Ukraine that preceded the invasion of February 2022, and the hundreds of years of complex relationships between Russians and Ukrainians in the context of the Russian imperial project.

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