While pursuing an Artistic Masters Thesis in bioethics and medical anthropology at New York University’s (NYU) Gallatin School of Individualized Studies, I was awarded a Global Research Initiative (GRI) Fellowship at Tel Aviv University, where I investigated contemporary attitudes towards genetics in Israel against the backdrop of the history of the Holocaust.
My purpose was to continue mapping the history and dynamics of the development of eugenic theory internationally between the United States, Germany and Israel to better understand: how the genocide of European Jews was committed in the name of medical innovation; how much this history plays a role in contemporary attitudes towards genetics and human experimentation; and how genetic theories are mobilized in social and cultural politics on issues of Jewish identity, trauma and memory (in particular, the field of epigenetics, the claim that trauma can be inherited).
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GRI Advisor: Nurit Kirsh (Head of Biological Thought at Open University of Israel, specializing in the history, philosophy and politics of human population genetics in Israel within a German context).
NYU Advisors: Rayna Rapp (Associate Chair of Anthropology, specializing in medical anthropology, gender and health, politics of reproduction; and disability in the US and Europe), Mitchell Joachim (Associate Professor of Practice, Co-Founder of Terreform ONE)
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Images (not my own - photography was not allowed): Yad Vashem, the ‘World Holocaust Remembrance Centre’ (Jerusalem, Israel). I visited the museum and library many times during the 5 week research trip.