COMPARATIVE GENOCIDE
Gratz College in Philadelphia offers an online course called Comparative Genocide.
The teacher, Sean Martin, lives in Cleveland.
I said to Sean, “I think Don DeLillo wrote about Hitler Studies in a novel, but that was a novel. Comparative Genocide, is it real?”
“Gratz named the course,” Sean said. “I didn’t. It’s a real course.”
Sean also teaches classes on ethnicity and the Holocaust in Cleveland. He speaks Yiddish and Polish, and has a PhD.
Sean, from Weirton, West Virginia, is of Italian and Appalachian descent. (There is also a Yiddish scholar from Japan.)
I said to Sean, “You’re interested in everything you’re not, is that it?”
“Exactly,” he said.
“In the Comparative Genocide class, does everybody try to top the Jews’ story? ” I said. “The Jews are the gold standard?”
“There’s some of that going on,” Sean said. “But that’s not the intent. Let me repeat, I didn’t pick the name of the course. Gratz has got to change that.”
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Here’s an original Klezmer Guy movie, “Nine Days to Die.” It’s funny. My “bro” — Stuart — has followed me my whole life. Or I’ve followed him.
4 comments
Bert,
Thanks for another great blog!
Special movie about Stuart. Took me a minute to see the rather moving message about friendship. Wish I could handle similar situations with such creativity.
Comparative Genocide. You have to love “for-profit” colleges. Why pay tuition somewhere else for one genocide when you can get them all at Gratz? Next, maybe The Seven Secrets of Tensor Calculus.
Hope not to overdo it, but don’t feel you’re writing “for the drawer.” Greatly appreciate your ability to “make everything interesting” — like you told Ted about real estate.
Not doing GOBA [Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure] this year. Regret missing chance to support “Klezmer/Dylan” over barbershop [quartet] and opera. Good Luck!
Don Edwards
To Don Edwards:
For the record, Gratz College is a legit school. Not a for-profit college.
Glad you’re reading the bloggie.
Actually kind of sad.
– I mean the video.
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