The National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education (NCCHE) at Seton Hill University will host a public lecture by noted Holocaust literary scholar Avraham (Alan) Rosen on Wednesday, November 5 at 7 p.m. in Reeves Theatre on the University’s hilltop campus in Greensburg, Pa. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Rosen’s lecture "Voices of Miraculous Clouds: Literary Responses to the Holocaust.” During his lecture, Dr. Rosen will discuss literary works featuring the Holocaust, including the novel “The Book Thief,” which served as Seton Hill’s Summer Reading program book earlier this year. The Summer Reading program invites first-year Seton Hill students to join with faculty, staff and upperclassmen in reading and discussing a book at the beginning of each academic year.

In addition to the public lecture, Dr. Rosen will also speak to various classes on campus throughout the day.

“Seton Hill is proud to welcome a noted scholar such as Dr. Rosen to our campus to hold discussions with our students as well as the greater community,” said Mary C. Finger, Ed.D., University president. “We look forward to having him on campus to share his deep knowledge of the Holocaust with all of us.”

“Dr. Rosen’s scholarship in the area of Holocaust literature is well-regarded, and we are thrilled to have a lecturer of his stature at Seton Hill,” said Dr. Tim Crain, director of the National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education at Seton Hill. “His research, and the literary works he will discuss during his lecture, remind us that the atrocities of the Holocaust should never be forgotten.”

Avraham (Alan) Rosen is the author or editor of ten books. He is most recently the author of The Wonder of Their Voices: The 1946 Holocaust Interviews of David Boder and Sounds of Defiance: The Holocaust, Multilingualism and the Problem of English; the collaborator on a German edition of I Did Not Interview the Dead, by David Boder; and the editor of Elie Wiesel: Jewish, Literary, and Moral Perspectives and Literature of the Holocaust.

He was a research fellow of the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah from 2006-2009. He has also held fellowships at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; the International Institute for Holocaust Research, Yad Vashem; the Katz Center for Advanced Jewish Studies, University of Pennsylvania, and the Archives for the History of American Psychology, University of Akron. He recently served as the Wilkenfeld Scholar in Holocaust Education in Sydney, Australia.

He has taught at universities and colleges in Israel and the United States, and lectures regularly on Holocaust Literature at Yad Vashem’s International School for Holocaust Studies and other Holocaust study centers.

Born and raised in Los Angeles and educated in Boston under the direction of Elie Wiesel, he lives in Jerusalem with his wife and four children. His current book projects include a monograph entitled, “Killing Time, Saving Time: Calendars and the Holocaust.”

The National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education (NCCHE) was established on the campus of Seton Hill University in 1987. Seton Hill initiated this national Catholic movement toward Holocaust studies in response to the urging of Pope John Paul II to recognize the significance of the Shoah, the Holocaust, and to “promote the necessary historical and religious studies on this event which concerns the whole of humanity today.” The NCCHE has as its primary purpose the broad dissemination of scholarship on the root causes of anti-Semitism, its relation to the Holocaust and the implications from the Catholic perspective of both for today's world. Toward this end the Center is committed to equipping scholars, especially those at Catholic institutions, to enter into serious discussion on the causes of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust; shaping appropriate curricular responses at Catholic institutions and other educational sites; sustaining Seton Hill's Catholic Institute for Holocaust Studies in Israel through a cooperative program with Yad Vashem, the Isaac Jacob Institute for Religious Law and Hebrew University; encouraging scholarship and research through conferences, publications, workshops for educators, and similar activities; sponsoring local events on the Holocaust and related topics in the University and the community and enhancing Catholic-Jewish relations.