Gary Weissman

Gary Weissman teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in literary studies (e.g., Ways of Reading Literature; Theories of Authorship; Theorizing the Short Story), film studies (e.g., Horror Films; History of Animation; Introduction to Film Theory), and critical theory (Introduction to Critical Theory; Narrative Theory). He is an associate professor of English, an associate professor in the School of Communication, Film, and Media Studies, and an affiliate faculty member of Judaic Studies at the University of Cincinnati. He is the author of Fantasies of Witnessing: Postwar Efforts to Experience the Holocaust (Cornell University Press, 2004), which examines contestation between scholars, survivors, and filmmakers over which representations of the Holocaust get it "right"; and The Writer in the Well: On Misreading and Rewriting Literature (The Ohio State University Press, 2016), which examines literary interpretation as a collaborative, writing-based practice by exploring student responses to a single short story; and articles and book chapters on Holocaust scholarship, literature, film, and photography, as well as articles on literary analysis and pedagogy.

Ph.D.: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee 1999 (English, Modern Studies Program)

M.A.: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee 1993 (English, Modern Studies Program)

B.A.: Brown University 1990 (Art-Semiotics)

literary studies; film and media studies; Holocaust studies; critical theory; literary pedagogy; animation studies; photography studies; science fiction studies; American ethnic literatures; nonfiction studies

2007 -To Present Assistant Professor of English, University of Cincinnati,

2006 -2007 Field Service Assistant Professor of English, University of Cincinnati,

2004 -2006 Visiting Assistant Professor of English, University of Cincinnati,

2001 -2004 Visiting Professor of English, East Carolina University,

2022 - Associate Professor, School of Communication, Film, and Media Studies, University of Cincinnati,

Grant: #URC AHSS Faculty Stipend Awards AY2015-16 Investigators:Weissman, Gary 05-01-2016 -04-30-2017 UC's University Research Council Ch. 3 of The Death and Life of the Mind at Auschwitz Role:PI $6,000.00 Active Level:Internal UC

Book

Fantasies of Witnessing: Postwar Efforts to Experience the Holocaust. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004.

The Writer in the Well: On Misreading and Rewriting Literature. The Ohio State University Press, 2016.

Peer Reviewed Publications

“Questioning Key Texts: A Pedagogical Approach to Teaching Elie Wiesel’s Night.” Teaching the Representation of the Holocaust. Ed. Marianne Hirsch and Irene Kacandes. New York: MLA, 2004. 324-36.

Four entries in Holocaust Literature: An Encyclopedia of Writers and their Work. Ed. S. Lillian Kremer. 2 vols. New York: Routledge, 2003. “D. M. Thomas” 2:1262-5; “Francine Prose” 2:961-64; “Helen Schulman” 2:1118-21; “Robert Harris” 1: 517-19.

“Lawrence Langer and The Holocaust Experience.” Confronting the Holocaust: A Mandate for the 21st Century, Part Two. Ed. Stephen C. Feinstein, Karen Schierman, and Marcia Sachs Littell. Lahnam, MD: University Press of America, 1998. 223-46. Also in Reclaiming Memory: American Representations of the Holocaust. Ed. Pirjo Ahokas and Martine Chard-Hutchinson. Finland: University of Turku, 1997. 39-61.

“A Fantasy of Witnessing.” Media, Culture and Society 17.2 (April 1995): 293-307.

“On Photographing Nazi Camps.” Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 37.1 (2019): 9-40.

“The Conniving Stenographer and Other Stories: A Response to "Authors, Resources, Audiences.’” Style 52.1-2 (2018): 56-60.

“Cultural Aging and the Longevity of Pulp Noir: John Updike’s ‘Bech Noir’ Two Decades Later.” The John Updike Review 6.1 (2018): 63-70.

“A Filmmaker in the Holocaust Archives: Photography and Narrative in Peter Thompson’s Universal Hotel.” Post Script: Essays in Film and the Humanities 32.2 (Winter/Spring 2013): 31-49.

“Reading Oneself as an Other: A Writing Assignment.” Reader: Essays on Reader-Oriented Theory, Criticism, and Pedagogy 62 (Summer 2012): 89-97.

“‘I Feel Like I am Everybody’: Teaching Strategies for Reading Self and Other in Joe Brainard’s I Remember.” Reader: Essays on Reader-Oriented Theory, Criticism, and Pedagogy 60 (Fall 2010): 70-101.

Book Chapter

“Yehuda Lerner’s Living Words: Translation and Transcription in Sobibor, October 14, 1943, 4 p.m.” The Construction of Testimony: Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah and its Outtakes, eds. Erin McGlothlin, Brad Prager, and Markus Zisselsberger (Detroit: Wayne State UP, 2020). 175-205.

Rethinking Literary and Ethical Response to the Holocaust: Reading ‘With Hitler in New York.’” The New Jewish American Literary Studies. Ed. Victoria Aarons. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019. 197-215.

“Against Generational Thinking in Holocaust Studies.” Third-Generation Holocaust Narratives: Memory in Memoir and Fiction. Ed. Victoria Aarons. Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2016. 159-84.

“Incapable of Revealing the Event: Elie Wiesel and the Reading of Memoir-Writing.” Lesson and Legacies X: Back to the Sources: Reexamining Perpetrators, Victims, and Bystanders. Ed Sara R. Horowitz. Evanston, IL: Northwestern UP, 2012. 105-19.

Paper Presentations

(10-2008. ) My Elie Wiesel Problem—and Ours .Northwestern University.

(12-2007. ) Post-Holocaust Literature as Provocation, Not Postmemory .Toronto.

(09-2007. ) The Virtues of Misreading: Interpreting ‘The Man in the Well" .University of Missouri at Kansas City.

(04-2007. ) Is there a Post-Holocaust Generation? .

(03-2007. ) Anonymity and Violence .New York.

(03-2006. ) Is there a Post-Holocaust Generation? .Bowling Green State University.

(04-2005. ) Holocaust Generations and Beyond .Louisville, KY.

(11-2004. ) Theory and the Holocaust: Pedagogical Issues .Brown University.

(03-2003. ) Unwriting the Holocaust: The Suppression of the Literary .New York.

(11-2002. ) Trauma Literature in Crisis .Baltimore, MD.

(11-2000. ) Holocaust Voyeurism .San Diego, CA.

(11-1998. ) Interpreting Auschwitz in the Testimony of Elie Wiesel .Chicago, IL.

(03-1998. ) Gender and the Autobiographical Reading of Holocaust Memoirs .Seattle, WA.

(12-1997. ) Seeking Trauma: The Holocaust, Surrogate Victims, and Traumatic Pedagogy .Toronto.

(03-1997. ) Who Will Be ‘My’ Holocaust?: Alfred Kazin on Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi .Tampa, FL.

(03-1996. ) Lawrence Langer and the Holocaust Experience .Warsaw, Poland.

(04-1995. ) Teaching Popular Representations of the Holocaust .University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

(03-1995. ) A Fantasy of Witnessing: Coverage and Criticism of Schindler’s List .New York City.

(03-1993. ) From Thought Police to White Male Paranoia: Newsweek’s Coverage of Politically Correctness .University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

University Research Council Summer Fellowship, University of Cincinnati, 2008

Faculty Development Council Individual Award, University of Cincinnati, 2008

Fulbright Graduate Student Grant, US/UK Fulbright Commission, 1995-96

Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, United States Department of Education, 1992-96

Dean’s Humanities Prize, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 1995

Service
Taft Student Awards Committee, The Charles Phelps Taft Research Center, 2008-09

Steering Committee, Department of English, University of Cincinnati, 2007-09

Undergraduate Curriculum Committee, Department of English, University of Cincinnati, 2007-09

Robin Sheets Graduate Student Essay Prize Committee, Department of English, University of Cincinnati, Spring 2008

Cultural Studies Sub-Committee, Department of English, University of Cincinnati, Spring 2008

Learning Community Seminar Task Force and Integrative Learning Pilot Seminar Committee, College of Arts & Sciences, University of Cincinnati, Spring-Summer 2006