Setting the tone and theme for the 2008-09 academic year
Loras College announces the fall 2008 common reading will be Elie Wiesel’s Night. This book will set the tone and theme for the 2008-09 academic year as the Loras community gathers to reflect on the impact of the Holocaust.
Faculty, staff and students will kick off the academic year with a series of small group discussions of Night hosted by the Loras Literary Society. A themed art history course on the role of art in Hitler’s regime and the ethics of its use to propagandize will be added to the curriculum. Also, the Loras film series and music performances will focus on the Holocaust theme.
On Sept. 24, 2008, Holocaust survivor Inge Auerbacher will make a presentation to the Loras community, sponsored by the Loras Arts and Culture Series and the City of Dubuque. In addition, a collection of Mauricio Lasansky’s “The Nazi Drawings” will be on display at the Dubuque Museum of Art from November 2008 to March 2009, on loan from the University of Iowa Museum of Art.
During a day-long presentation in the fall Loras students will re-enact parts of “To Do Justice,” a drama of the Dachau military trials developed by Joshua Greene and Douglas Bates III, son of Dachau defense attorney Douglas Bates II. Several other multicultural presentations are also being planned to take place throughout the year.
Each year, first-year Loras students are required to read a common title designed to engage their thinking in terms of the college’s four dispositions: active learning, reflective thinking, ethical decision-making and responsible contributing. It offers a basis for discussion in all of these areas and a way for faculty, staff and students to connect in meaningful dialogue with the newest members of the Loras community.
Elie Wiesel’s Night is acclaimed as the most pivotal writing of the post-World War II period. It exposed the horror of the Nazi regime’s attempt to exterminate an entire race of people and continues to provide opportunities for intergenerational readers to share profound experiences on the role of faith and disbelief in daily life.
